A World in Crisis: Why our Attitudes Must Change

By Roland Bjorn Reebs

There are moments in all our lives when something unexpected happens, something that we may later understand to have a profound impact. For me, it was a chance encounter in 2010 with a desperately unhappy young woman that caused me to reflect on life and the world around us. Who are we, what motivates us, and why are we so often at cross purpose

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alpha-Beta Communications Group Inc.
• Release date: Jul 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9780995980730

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Introduction

I grew up with five siblings, four brothers and one sister in my home town of Munich, Germany. I was still young when I came to the realization that all my siblings were quite different from me. That was partly because of age differences but, that aside, there were differences that had nothing to do with age. My physical build was slender whereas most of my siblings were on the heavy side. One of my brothers was very musical whereas I, even though I like music, could never hold a tune. Three of my siblings had good eyesight, and yet the rest wore glasses. After my youngest brother was born in 1964, the age gap between my oldest and youngest brother was 23 years. As I grew up and became a parent myself, I also noticed that my two daughters had some similarities but were also very different. Even a friend of mine who had an identical twin brother was not identical. True, there were similarities between the brothers, but mainly in their physical appearance.

I had often heard the expression that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Yet, looking at my siblings and my own parents, this adage did not hold true. As my siblings and I grew older and later married, our own home lives were very different from the home life we experienced as kids. This in turn made me observe more closely friends, their children, colleagues and others. Of course I knew that everyone looks different, is an individual, and that some of us express our individuality more forcefully than others. Still, it is intriguing that children who grow up in the same household, the same environment with the same general rules, can be so different.

As my kids grew older, I became more involved in their school life. I met more parents from the community, and we did what parents do: we talked about parenting. I was somewhat astonished to realize that many parents had a very strong sense of the right way to parent. There cannot be only one right way when all children are different, when their home environments are different, and when no set of parents is exactly like any other couple. I knew that people had very strong opinions with respect to religion or when discussing politics, music, the arts and many other subjects. More often than not, people would become defensive, and very intolerant at times when others did not share their views on these and other subjects.

I was born in the early fifties, grew up as a teenager in the sixties and became an adult in the seventies. I have witnessed a lot of change arising from the hippie movement, the sexual revolution, the push towards gender equity and LGBTQ rights, and more recently the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. As the world around me changes, so do I. Sometimes it is difficult for me to recognize whether or not a movement changes or influences some of my values, or if my values change because my individual perspective changes.

Discussions with others are one way of finding out why people have adopted certain beliefs and opinions. The problem is that some people are better than others at communicating their ideas. If the purpose of a discussion is to convey to others why one has come to a certain conclusion, then this is more easily done when logical and deductive thinking is used. Explaining and defending a position by quoting someone else is not very helpful. Ending an argument by simply stating that your position is correct is also not helpful.

Recognizing that we all are different caused me to ponder. Some people are inherently kind and generous while others are arrogant and narcissistic. We all have met people in our lives who are aggressive, rude or mean spirited while others are helpful, reliable and kind hearted. Perhaps it is not really possible for us to be what we want to be. Do we decide at a given point in our lives what kind of person we want to become? We all have some potential, and yet it may not be that easy to realize that potential.

Abortion, medical assistance in dying, the death penalty, the legalization of drugs, a guaranteed annual income, climate change and intensified consumerism are just some of the current issues about which people feel very strongly. We can feel passionate about societal issues while, at the same time, we may be angry and intolerant of those who do not share our views. Often it seems that only some people are aware of how our individual behaviour affects all our lives and are willing to make adjustments for our collective benefit, whereas others appear to be completely indifferent or in denial.

It is sometimes hard to accept the limitation of one’s own species, and of oneself. We know that the climate is changing and has already had devastating consequences, but we still don’t make a real effort to deal with this crisis. Now would be the right time for using our intelligence that we proudly proclaim to have. We carry on with the status quo even though many know that the status quo is not sustainable. It is not business as usual. We are now in the midst of a pandemic and, not surprisingly, many don’t even respect the reality imposed by Covid-19.

Our planet is hurting and the world is in crisis. More forest fires burn every year and those fires have become larger. Droughts have become longer, extreme downpours leading to mud slides and soil erosion more frequent, and the extinction of many species is now irreversible. The Amazon rain forest covering approximately 2% of the world’s surface and delivering roughly 20% of the world’s oxygen has never seen faster deforestation. Who are we that we just stand by and watch this happening? This earth is our home. We were born here, this is where we live, and this is where we will die, but we just carry on.

We have intelligence, emotions and feelings. What are we and what defines us as humans? What else do we need because in spite of our intelligence, we are not able to deal with the problems right in front of us. This is puzzling. Were people who lived long before us 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 years ago as complacent and indifferent about their world as we are? Is that what evolution means – not to care? I grew up being told that we are intelligent, but intelligent people don’t knowingly destroy their habitat. Either we are not intelligent, or something else is at work.

Perhaps growing up in central Europe was responsible for my early interest in Greek mythology, an interest reflected in many parts of this book. I learned in school about Homer and his writing of the Iliad. I learned about the life of Odysseus and, how after the Trojan War, his journey back to his beloved island of Ithaca took ten years. I discovered Socrates, his student Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and others who later influenced my thinking and personal philosophy. As I took courses in German literature, I read books by some of the German philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel, and all of them influenced my thinking. What is our human reality, individuality, responsibility, and what is our purpose? Many years later after I had immigrated to Canada, I read Aldous Huxley’s book The Human Situation. This book is about a series of lectures he gave in 1959 at the University of California in Santa Barbara. Aldous Huxley already stressed back in the 1950s that there is no unlimited supply of anything. Now, almost 70 years later, we still seem to ignore this fact even though we are confronted with the consequences every day.

As I was doing my research for this book, I was reminded of Mr. Higgins, a Scottish professor of one of my electronic classes. Before writing our exams, he would remind us again and again to answer the questions. According to him, we created problems when we elaborated too much and then lost sight of what was important. Many years later, I worked for a high tech wireless communication company. My boss, a short unassuming man with a lot of smarts, would often proclaim that most problems can be fixed easily, but that we were usually looking first for complicated answers which prevented us from seeing the obvious.

I was thinking about what my professor and my former boss had told me so many years ago when I wrote the chapters about the purpose of life, the value of life, reality and other matters. Theologians and philosophers had already written huge volumes about these topics, what could I add that was new? It may not really be that important to add something new, something that has not been said before. I believe that there is value in writing about known metaphysical subjects but from a different perspective, taking a different approach and referencing my conclusions against current times. Not everything philosophical or metaphysical has to be complicated. I concluded that I should write about how the meanings of certain concepts brought us to this point in time when our world is in crisis. As my former professor and boss both proclaimed: Don’t look for complicated answers when there is no need to do so.

The writing of this book is the result of my decision to explore the human condition further. I looked back in time and at history. Societal norms and values have constantly changed, especially during times of conquest, during wars or major conflicts, famines or new religious discoveries. It was not always easy to differentiate between right and wrong, true and false. It would be nice to claim that we have evolved to being better humans today. But we would first have to define a scale by which this could be measured, and, even if we could so, this would not mean that others would care. Not everyone would agree that being a better person just for the sake of being better is enough of a worthwhile objective towards which to work.

This book is organized into six parts. The first part describes an incident that took place one cold winter morning. The rest of the narrative evolves from there. It explores our value system, and what it is based on, and how much we actually care about other humans.

Part II looks at history, at our past, at ancient times, and provides a snapshot of our human evolution.

This is followed by Part III that discusses the human condition, talks about who we are, the purpose of life, free will and related subjects. It tries to explain why in spite of our intelligence, we seem unable to modify our behaviour so that our planet can continue to support us.

Part IV discusses controversial subjects pertaining to life, living and dying, and making choices. It recognizes that most people look at life either from a spiritual and religious point of view, or from a science-based perspective. It questions whether people can be tolerant and accept opposing views even when those have no direct impact on their life.

Part V addresses what we have done to planet Earth by giving specific examples. It highlights our apparent inability to deal with existential threats that have led to a world in crisis.

Part VI hypothesizes that humans have limited abilities to adapt to rapid change, especially when the pace of change is exponential. Living in fast-paced modern times, the digital revolution, social media, and an increasing gap between the superrich and the rest of the population have placed unique challenges on all of us.

A world in crisis has brought us here. Our inability to accept science and to adjust our behaviour accordingly is responsible for this crisis. Approximately 80 years ago, there were only 2.4 billion of us but now we are 8 billion; all of us want to live well, go on exotic holidays and expect planet Earth to always provide. Our population more than tripled in these 80 years, and our climate has changed dramatically. Of course we have problems. Our expectations are not realistic.

This writing concludes that, even though our knowledge base has increased exponentially, our science and technology are second to none, how we react to our emotions, how we interact and how we measure the individual short-term interests against the collective interests have changed very little. The key in making our world a better place for all with a future requires a change in attitude. How do we do this? In a world that is overpopulated and where more people live in densely populated cities, giving others enough physical and emotional space is getting harder.

Throughout human evolution, there are three stages in life that preoccupy a person’s life: birth, living life and death. We are born one day but we don’t remember the time, the day or the moment, but we still develop views and opinions about birth in general. Life is usually the long stretch between birth and death that can challenge our complex emotional spectrum and make us aware of feelings we did not know we have. Death, the ritual, the tradition and what may or may not come after, is something that can preoccupy us even though death can be quick or even instantaneous. Society’s views and values on death and our right to choose the time of our death are discussed in the book. Also, our right to assume and defend ownership of our body, how we decide who is to live and who is to die, are ongoing themes throughout the book.

Religion and science have been hugely influential in our development and brought us to where we are today. We have learned much, accomplished great things, but still have a long way to go.

This book explores a range of issues important to our survival on this planet, but also considers the complexity of the human condition. It draws on historical events, mythology, philosophy, but also on some experiences in my own life.

Part I

A Winter Morning

Like No Other

Sometime each day seems like the previous one; the days, weeks, months and years just pass by. Then something happens that wakes you up. You are confronted with a new situation that you may feel completely unqualified to deal with, but you have little choice. You try your best, and then suddenly you find yourself on a new journey.

How It All Started

I remember that day so well. It was a cold winter morning just before Christmas, some 10 years ago. The wind was blowing, and the snowflakes were coming down, collecting heavily on my windshield. The car heater was on the high setting to prevent the windshield from icing up while I searched for a mall and a parking lot. Christmas was a few days away, and I still needed to buy a few gifts.

It was a mall just like a thousand of others. There were big piles of snow on two sides of the parking lot. Evidently, large front end loaders or large snow plows had been pushing the snow from the parking areas to the sides during the past weeks, accumulating snow piles 10ft tall or higher. I found a spot to one side of the parking lot, parked my car and got out. It was cold and windy; visibility was poor and the snow was blowing.

Just as I was locking my car, I saw some movement near the top of one of the large snow piles. I looked more closely and could not believe what I saw. Lying in the snow, dressed in a short sleeved T-shirt and wearing jeans was a young person making snow angels. Such a strange sight. I moved forward to take a better look. Yes, it was a young person, a woman, lying on top of the snow pile moving her arms back and forth, while the snow was falling and the cold wind was blowing. I was cold in my sheepskin leather jacket, and yet here was a young woman, barely dressed and obviously freezing, making snow angels. Something was wrong, very wrong.

I called out to her and started to climb up the pile of snow to see if she was okay. I saw that she was a young woman in her late teens or early twenties, and she had tears streaming down her face. She ignored me completely and kept moving her arms, sobbing. After a few moments, she told me to go away and leave her alone.

How could I? It was a cold Ottawa winter morning with snow falling and of course, I could not leave her there alone. I pleaded with her, begged her to at least come to my car to warm up. I stayed up on the snow pile and kept talking to her until she finally stopped making snow angels. She looked at me, and all she said was "I want to die. I don’t want to live anymore." She kept repeating these words over and over. In the end, I was finally able to convince her that perhaps today was not the right day to die and persuaded her to at least warm up in my car. She finally acquiesced.

Here we were inside the car. The wet snow had frozen to the windshield but was now slowly starting to melt. I was in my mid-fifties and, sitting next to me, was this young person desperately unhappy, shivering and sobbing uncontrollably. I felt absolutely unqualified to deal with this situation. We spent the next twenty minutes in my car with the heater running on high until she had warmed up somewhat. Still shivering and saying very little, she finally confessed that she had been very unhappy for a long time. She felt that life held no promise for her, and she wanted to die.

For her, there was no longer a good reason to live, and she resented me for telling her that things would get better. Who was I to interfere in her life? What did I know about the world that she lived in and her reality? What made me an expert to claim that things would get better? So we just sat there for a while with the engine running, and the heater on full blast, slowly warming up. She didn’t want to talk, I didn’t ask for her name. We were two strangers who had met by chance: one of us feeling totally unqualified to deal with this strange situation, and the other completely stricken with grief, uncontrollably unhappy and wanting to leave this world.

Maybe this young woman did not really want to die? Maybe she was just hurting so badly and in so much emotional pain that she could not see any other way out? How do you help someone who is so lost in their own world and in their own reality that death seems like the only remaining refuge? How do you console someone suffering and how do you talk the person out of wanting to die? What is it in us that makes some people want to live forever while others can’t wait to die? How do you know if someone actually wants to die or if the person is just trying to find an escape? What should we do when we learn that a person has a premeditated plan and is ready to commit suicide? Should we try to stop them and, if yes, why?

In the end, I did what she wanted me to do. I drove her a few blocks away to an area where she claimed to live. I dropped her off on a street corner in a residential neighbourhood, said goodbye and pleaded with her not to give up on life. This was one morning I will never forget.

In the weeks and months following, I often thought about this strange encounter. I wondered who was this young woman, what was her story and what had caused her to lose all hope? Could I have done something differently to change her feeling of hopelessness? It was a very unsettling experience to share space and time with someone who was in so much pain that an end of life seemed the only option. I started to think about what right I had to give her advice, to convince her that she shouldn’t end her life, that it was surely worth living. After all, I knew nothing of her struggles, her demons and her reality. In trying to relieve some of her sadness, I adopted the default position most of us would have in such a situation. I said all the cliché things like you are loved, and it will get better. I started to question what I said. While I sincerely hoped her life would get better, I had no way of knowing that it would. What if her life didn’t get better? I was no longer sure at what point one gives up on life.

As the winter faded, I kept thinking about the young woman on the snow pile. Why is it that most of us would automatically try to prevent someone from ending their life? Why do we all of a sudden become the best storytellers trying to talk people out of committing suicide? Is this some form of social conditioning, an inherent human reaction, an intuitive ancient memory or instinct? Perhaps in some strange way, we somehow feel partially responsible for saving a person so desperately unhappy. We are all individuals, we all have our own story and our own reality, and some of us are better equipped to deal with life’s challenges.

Another year passed, it was now fall with days getting shorter. I remember listening to CBC radio one Sunday afternoon on the subject of suicide and end-of-life directives. I had tuned into the program midstream and therefore had missed the beginning. However, I do remember one part very clearly. One of the guests was an ethicist from McGill University in Montreal. She cited a study that had found that 100% of people involved in a catastrophic accident wanted to die in the first five years following their accident. But that after 5 years, 80% of the accident victims were glad to be still alive. The ethicist suggested this was proof that people should not be allowed to commit suicide since, inevitably, they would regret that decision. I was troubled by the ethicist’s conclusion, but could not clearly identify why her thinking bothered me so. I had to stop and think about my reaction.

Perhaps because of our upbringing, education or experience, the ethicist and I were both judgemental in our own way, strong in our views concerning suicide and death, and intolerant of other views. There are many reasons why a person might decide to end their life; just because I might think that my life is worthwhile living, this does not mean that everyone feels the same about their own life. Pain and joy are subjective experiences, so how can one person be an authority about whose life is worth living?

The ethicist posited that the study in question conclusively indicated that if you wait long enough, the majority of suicidal people regain their desire to live. She therefore concluded that allowing suicide is wrong. From my point of view, a life that has not been lived cannot be missed. If I die today, I cannot miss what life might have held in store for me in the future. I am only alive now, moment by moment, and the only valid assessment I can make about the quality of my life is now, in this very instant. I can look into the past and reflect on the quality of my life as I might have experienced it days, weeks or years ago. But I can never look into the future with certainty and proclaim my life as worth living. Yes, of course I hope that it will be, but I only know for sure when I get there.

The debate on death by suicide, euthanasia and medically assisted dying continues to rage on. People are very emotionally invested and convinced in their knowledge of what life is, what it means and who has the right to end it. Often that conviction is just as strong as a parent’s conviction that they alone know best how to parent. Can we ever find a common denominator, and do we all need to agree on issues concerning life? In the end, there are few absolute truths, explanations, universal belief systems, spiritual or even scientific explanations that will ever satisfy everyone.

As part of my daily routine, I enjoy going for a brisk five kilometer walk on quiet pathways lined with trees, bushes and wild flowers along Ottawa’s Pinecrest Creek and the Ottawa River. This for me is a time of quiet reflection. I often follow the same route, and I enjoy undisturbed time with my thoughts. This is my time and space for thinking about difficult issues, some of which are explored in this book.

It was on one of my many walks when I realized I was thinking about the same two stories over and over: meeting a young woman some years ago doing snow angels and wanting to die, and listening to the CBC radio program regarding suicidal thoughts of those involved in catastrophic accidents. I finally realized what had bothered me, but what I had been previously unable to articulate. My initial, automatic reaction of trying to talk the young woman out of committing suicide and the ethicist’s steadfast opinion both suggested that, if you wait long enough, life becomes worth living again.

I am not a person with suicidal tendencies. I am lucky. It must be awful to live in a world where you don’t want to live, regardless of the reason. But I am also a person who believes in a person’s right to self-determination. I value, respect and advocate for an individual’s right to decide their own fate and, within limits, set their own boundaries. We no longer live at a time when human life has to be preserved at all costs to ensure the survival of our species. The extinction of the human race would probably be experienced by the last surviving humans as a very dramatic occurrence. But the earth would still turn on its axis, and our planet would still circle the sun. Even though many think that humans are the center of the