Glory: Mortal Reward Worthy of Pursuit

Mortal rewards for the mortal actions of a mortal man makes sense; however, the idea that a mortal man may do mortal actions and yet receive eternal rewards is a fundamental belief of Anno Domini (AD) religions, e.g. Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, etc. However, glory has often been looked down upon as being inherently full of pride and corruption. Yet glory, as an eternal concern on this temporal world worthy to be striven for, can be used to influence others in a positive way, rendering all the more people eligible to receive eternal rewards for mortal actions.

Treating those things that are mortal with only mortal concern would be to live aesthetically, forgetting faith, and to live without bothering to concern one’s self with eternal things. This however is impossible; forgetting faith would render life unlivable. Faith is taken into account in every aspect of life: evolution takes faith, atheism takes faith, religion takes faith. Fundamentally, we trust that chairs will hold us and that mirrors reflect us accurately, yes; but this is on a day-to-day level, often seen as of lower significance in comparison to grander, broader ideas. Science is the study of fact—empirical, calculable, and quantifiable data—and is therefore devoid of faith in study. Yet the moment it is incorporated to practice, faith becomes the underlying (and yet, overseeing) principle that guides the entire study. Faith is not religion based; religion is faith based. Faith is on a higher categorization than religion, evolution, creationism, science, or atheism. To not concern one’s self with eternal concerns is to take faith out of the equation, and since faith cannot realistically be taken out, one must always concern one’s self with eternal concerns, for every mortal thing has eternal concerns attached to it through faith, at least, if not through other attachments as well. Glory is an example of such an eternal concern—a concern that supersedes this world, this time, and this life in that it will be remembered at least by God, if not by history.


Glory, according to a believing Christian, on this Earth is meaningless; it will not be carried on into the afterlife. But I, and as asserts the philosopher and historian, Petrarch, believe that it does have its place. To advise one to “live without glory” is not based on doctrine, nor is it based on tradition even. This type of belief comes from fear—misplaced fear that makes the heart and soul feel that grace is not sufficient. Searching for glory may have problems, but glory itself is of no harm directly. I will admit, as does Petrarch, that glory can be a poison to the soul of a Christian, but it is not inherently evil as many would have it be. The good in glory is that once glorified, influence is gained. If the glory was won through ethical and moral merit, then that influence can be used to an extreme level—to being able to carry more to God with less pride. To be stripped of glory is to be humbled, but to be given glory is not necessarily to be prideful. Was not King David glorified; was not Paul glorified; was not Peter glorified?

The difference between glory for personal acquirement, and glory for reflected vision from one’s self to a greater good (e.g. God, morals, freedom, etc.) is that the glory is used as a stepping-stone or as a soapbox, respectively. Whereas Augustinus implores Fransicus to “forget your own advantage in trying to bring advantage to others, and this in the vain hope of glory you waste unwitting this brief span of life,” I would rather say that remembering our advantages in trying to bring advantage to others, through a valid hope of glory, will unwittingly bring meaning and hope to, not only our own brief span of life, but to that of many, many others, too. Influencism requires influence to be able to bring about change in a larger group. This change may be good or it may be bad, but one should never forget the advantage of striving to gain it in order to give it back to the people once more—to be able to “give yourself back to yourself” truly, and not just keep one’s self private in the glory sense. In other words, if you have been given the gift (advantage) of attaining glory (and subsequently, influence), to keep one’s self only in one’s self would be burying the talent in the ground when the master leaves; on the other hand, using this gift to give back to yourself so that you can give back to the people (lead the people correctly through influence) is multiplying that talent and returning to the master’s hand more than what was first given.
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Humanity 2.0: A Call To Action

To define Humanity 2.0, we must first define humanity. Humanity is the combined group of people with the qualities that accompany the act of being humane. To be humane is characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed.

The first aspect of Humanity 2.0 has its base in Web 2.0 ideals. To understand this concept one must know that Web 1.0 is the one-way flow of information through websites which contain "read-only" material. The idea was to go to the Web to get information. Web 2.0, on the other hand, is the decentralization of the production of the content on the Web; it became "user-generated". Different social medias such as myspace, twitter, and blogs are products of Web 2.0 and are tools that are primarily used via the internet and mobile devices, and can now be used for inter-user discussions and presentations of important issues or be simply the backdrop for interpersonal recreation or networking. Now the idea is still to go to the Web to get information but has changed to include going to the Web to give information as well. It is the union of sharing and learning.

Concordantly, Humanity 2.0 is still the idea that one must be humane but is now changed to include the idea that one must act using the social media options made available by the Web 2.0 interconnectivity. Humanity 2.0 is collaborating that which is already useful in the already developed world with that which will become and is already becoming useful in the developing world.

The second aspect of Humanity 2.0 is crowdsourcing: the act of taking a task traditionally performed by a working person, and outsourcing it to an unidentified, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. Crowdsourcing is a synonym for "participatory collaboration". Ideas without action are of little value. Changing ones thought patterns without changing how one behaves is not social reform. We need to use crowdsourcing to generate ideas and tasks via these social media options made available by Web 2.0.

“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary belief for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe.”
– John F. Kennedy

Kennedy may not have foreseen Web 2.0, but he did foresee the idea of Humanity 2.0—communal cooperation for the change of society and for the destruction of world poverty, of child malnutrition, of the lack of proper education, and of many other social negatives.

It is not social reform if you only change the way you think; actions need to be present for reform to even exist. Many ideas have risen throughout the years that for some reason have simply not been enacted into society. Why is it that great ideas die out over time? The reason is because there were no actions. As a history major, it is my job to study socio-philosophies and ideas that have risen and fallen, risen and fallen. There is only one of three outcomes for the teleology of any idea:
• Category 1, it will change the ideas of the society;
• Category 2, it will change the actions of the society, but only insufficiently enough to be a tainted and corrupted percentage of the original idea, having been manipulated by greed and lust for power;
• Category 3, it will change the actions of the society in its pure form based on the intelligence, integrity, and influence of those the idea impacts.

Unfortunately the vast majority fall into Category 1 and we are forced to watch sadly as the idea falls out of the scope of the society to join the ranks of the illustrious—the innumerable ideas that over time have been known and understood but simply not been enacted. Some examples of this common phenomena are
• power that does not corrupt,
• honest leadership,
• and even world peace.
Ideas that we have all agreed to be beneficial for our society, but have never had the unity to put them into action in our society.

A much smaller percentage fall into Category 2 and make it into actions that unfortunately are made by corruptible, power-hungry, and greedy CEOs, politicians, and many other positions of social pull and power. Some examples of this are:
• communism,
• Christianity
• capitalism,
• and even freedom.
Ideas that, in theory, would be completely beneficial for all the members of the society, but are, upon the attempt of incorporation into society, sadly twisted through greed and the selfishness of people in positions of power.

A very miniscule amount of a very small percentage of ideas fall into Category 3 and arrive intact and whole on the side of action in a society. Some examples are:
• The Protestant Reformation,
• the Enlightenment,
• modernization
• and the Industrial Revolution,
Now although many of these ideas had faults in practice that were not directly inline with the perfect idea, the end result of the actions were close to the original intent. They make it into society and are incorporated for a time. The sad truth is that they so seldom stay for any meaningful length of time in comparison with how often those ideas of the corrupted Category 2 seem to guide our governments and civilizations. John F. Kennedy observes that "united there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder."

Although neither I nor JFK, I am sure, want to sound pessimistic, I cannot help but see the possibility that this failure to gain action symptom might happen to our idea. But there is only one solution to stopping the onslaught of unhealthily corrupted ideas, and that is to be a socio-unified family and coalesce together to maintain the proper leadership, proper distribution and delegation of power, and proper participation of the populace.

However our world is not in this mindset. We are fighting internally and tearing ourselves apart from the inside. The last time our country was fighting internally it was when slavery and continued misconduct of both the Northern and the Southern States drove our country from secession, and war shortly thereafter. After four years of unparalleled bloodshed up to that point, the reelection of a haggard and worried Abraham Lincoln signed the near-coming end of the war. What remained was a broken, scarred, and ununified Union. The solution was the Reconstruction. Whether radical or reserved, everyone in the country agreed that a reconstruction process was needed. Through their actions the end result of all the states entering back in the Union and their governments being rebuilt was achieved.

This time in our own personal histories right now may not be the same. We are not at war with ourselves… or are we? We are not slowly destroying our economy through greed, miscommunication, and hubris… or are we? We may not be walking up and down the streets with guns and killing the members of the opposing forces… or are we? We need to wake up and realize that although we may not be in a Second Civil War—an event that would be horrendous and frightening, but not surprising in the sense that it would be proclaimed—we are most certainly in a hidden war with ourselves, a hidden war against certain geographic locations, a hidden war against misplaced stereotypes. And what is more dangerous and self-damaging than the war that you do not even know that you are in?

There needs to be two things happening: the ending of this Hidden Civil war, and the beginning of the Second Reconstruction. Through changing our actions and unifying our minds and aspirations for Social Reform we can land the idea of a Second Reconstruction into Category 3—into actual incorporation in the physical world that we live. JFK once gave a similar call to action as he called for "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."

These ideas of Humanity 2.0 and the Second Reconstruction are only just words if we fail to act upon them—if they become carelessly lain aside to gather dust in the inevitable tick of time. But if they are acted upon then they become more than just words—they become change, they become restoration, they become freedom, they become revolution, they become the end of segregation, they become the rights of single mothers, they become woman's suffrage, they become peace, they become equality, they become a Second Reconstruction. Through actions and unity, anything is possible. It is up to us to see that our words become the end of poverty, that they become the end of ethnic cleansing and holocausts worldwide, that they become the beginning of a return to intellectual, responsible, and integrity-filled leadership. May we unite to bring about the changes that our family of strangers requires of us: the generation of power.

“This epic before us is going to be written by the hungry Indian masses, the peasants without land, the exploited workers. It is going to be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant intellectuals, who so greatly abound in our suffering (Latin American) lands.” – Che Guevara

Adam T. Wamack--A Young Influence
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A Family of Strangers

Losing family causes us to find family. It may not be flesh and blood but the ties are no less strong. It is in sadness that we find and need comfort. It is in comfort that true family is made manifest. It is through this true family that we cope with the loss of the original family. Family needs not be part of a genealogical tree, but rather part of our hearts and systems of reliance and comfort and coalescence. We need to understand that it is family that makes us who we are—it is our environments that create us, that mold us.

Why does losing family hurt so much? It is because we see it as a special part of the unity we had leave our lives. This special part is not dependant upon others; it is the others that make up the special part, yes, but that special part exists whether or not those who fill it leave or not. It is unity that makes a family, not the members therein. The hardest part of understanding this special part is to understand that it is not the people that make it. The same as it is not the clouds that make the sky, although they fill its breadth often to completion, the sky exists without them—it is the atmosphere that makes the sky; if the clouds dissipated, the sky could always be filled over again. The same as it is not the fish that make up the ocean, although they fill its depth often in a glorious rainbow of diversity that seems to fill the ocean to capacity—it is the water that makes the ocean; if the fish dissipated, the ocean could always be repopulated. This is how it is with family; it is not the specific people that make up the family, although they fill the heart with inter-reliance, joviality, and trust—it is unity that makes the family; if a one of the family were to die, or were to turn against the others, or were to move away forever, the unity between the remaining family members (and those who are added) endures.

Therefore, family without unity is not a family at all, because the family is the unity, not the members. This is a hard concept to grasp because it seems so impersonal, uncaring, and cold. However, were family to be based on the members only, than one could use the word family to mean any number of lesser relationships. But it is in unity that family is based and therefore is dependent upon there first being unity in order for there to ever exist family.

In the love that is found in between family members we see the unity. Mafiosos had families as the main construct of their regimes because it is in the unity that is formed by the members of the whole that creates the security and construct needed to run such an organization. Organized crime thrived because they used the unity of family to support negative ideas. What would happen if we expanded our concepts of family to concentrate on the unity: a unity that is perfectly capable of including those not of flesh and blood and to then use it to support positive ideas? What if we used this unity to coalesce and, as did the mafiosos, trust and rely upon one another fully and without restraint or mercy, demanding the reciprocation of that unity? We could change society as certainly as the clock strikes midnight.

The family that matters most is our blood family—we have spent the majority of our lives with them. However, even though this family is extremely important, we cannot simply allow family to stop at this level. Imagine the level of potency any organization, be it an entire society or even an organized crime group, could attain if they saw one another as family—if they united together and stayed true to that unity. Imagine what would happen if we had unity across the globe: if our world was a family. It sounds impossible, idealistic, and idiotic, but through the eyes of the child is the world seen as it should be; through the eyes of the child does society actually make sense. Children do not use motive, selfishness, and personal gain—at least they used to not. Family, to the child, does not stop at blood. We should see unity in those around us, in those we trust, and learn to trust others and to be trustworthy.

Our society is a family… were we to have unity. If we unite and have the common purpose of reformation and social betterment, leaving the immorality of the mafiosos behind, then we will be a family. From the perspective of a nation, the function of family is to maintain were maintaining is required and to change where change is required. I challenge you to find unity not only in blood, but also in the family that does not show up in your family tree, because every step towards trust is a step away from negligence, every step towards unity is a step away from dilapidation, and every step towards family is a step away from social decay.  Change of the whole starts with the change of the parts. Read more...