Prisoners of the Internet

The beginnings of the Internet held such promise - the potential for being a vast repository of information, global in scope, freely accessible to everyone. It was seen as a wondrous tool for learning; for expanding the life of the mind; for fueling the imagination, and inspiring creativity. The possibilities were seemingly endless.

These conceptions offered the possibility of an unimagined potential to at last unite humans under the vast and all-encompassing umbrella of the human family through the wondrous unifying web of knowledge and truth - ever growing and ever prospering.

Not unlike the 1960s, this vision of a new world at peace where all of humanity would be connected with a singular resolve to make the human world a better place - this incipient hope quickly devolved into something entirely different.

Not long after its inception, the Internet began to be seen as having great potential in regard to its utilization in the arena of commerce – offering a nearly limitless capacity to generate great wealth. This new reality became an impetus for the fevered expansion of capitalism throughout the world.

This evolution, for me, was strangely comparable to the events that surrounded the evolution of television once it became implanted into so many millions of households throughout the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. In its infancy, television was the medium for innovative programming and creative experimentation within a brand-new media; until it became quite evident that it could be used as a lucrative marketing tool. Once this transition happened, programming became an adjunct to the selling of material products that soon became its primary focus.

The Internet is far more insidious on account of the spider-like threads that it weaves throughout individual lives and families. As a people, we are becoming progressively entangled in this virtual digital web with fewer and fewer escape routes. Online is the mantra; online is the goal. Bank accounts and finances and friendships and families and services and health and even the pursuit of happiness have become entangled within the fabric of this web.

We now swim in a collective sea of passwords and alliances and communications not born of human connection but rooted in the strangest kinds of associations within a virtual reality that exaggerates feelings of loneliness and abandonment.

In addition, many individuals, especially the elderly, have now become victimized by those who have the tools to undermine an individual’s hold on valuable personal information and actively steal huge amounts of money remotely and usurp personal identities with apparent impunity robbing individuals of their most intimate sense of personal safety. This widespread behavior negatively impacts the sense of trust that is an essential ingredient within any viable and sustainable society.

Sadly, this story does not end here. Currently there is growing financial investment in so-called “artificial intelligence” (AI) that if left unmanaged could ultimately replace creative imagination that drives true innovation with a sterile sameness that devalues essential professions and may result in creating an army of the unemployed within a social structure devoid of a safety net.

This would be a recipe for disaster. This mad rush to a totally unmapped future is driven by the powerful who have no apparent interest in the consequences that will necessarily materialize if this kind of “progress” is left unregulated for it is only through thoughtful and reasoned mitigation that the worst scenarios can be avoided.

Perception and Reality in the Modern Era

In the course of human evolution, when the human brain (mind) reached that level of neuronal complexity in which self-consciousness became a reality, that change irrevocably altered humanity’s future.  From that moment on, the reality of the external environment delivered to the brain from the senses was overlayed by how that environment was perceived, for human evolution had given birth to the individual.

Currently, on planet earth, human evolution has been so successful that there are now over eight billion individuals – each one carrying a unique view of their surroundings and their place within it.  Each one of us moves through our existence with our own complex array of conclusions regarding ourselves, our ideas, our beliefs, our thought patterns, our habits.  We are shaped by our upbringing, by our cultural influences, by our language, by our life experiences, by our inheritance.

An individual’s perception of reality may or may not necessarily coincide with reality.  In the modern era, the raid growth of science fueled by technological advances and sustained by the scientific method, has been the gateway to reality.  The scientific method has proven to be a highly effective process in uncovering how things work - human curiosity being the driving force for understanding the nature of existence.

The creation of the Internet (1950’s) represents one of those historic inflection points that has led to revolutionary changes on many levels similar to the discovery of DNA (1954) as the molecular entity responsible the transferal of hereditary information, the deciphering of the universal genetic code uncovered between 1961 and 1966, and the complete sequencing of the human genome (2003).

The accessibility of the Internet has led to nearly instantaneous access to a prodigious amount of information freely available worldwide.  It has also brought into fruition with what is referred to as, “social media,” and, more recently the development of artificial intelligence (AI).  The positive aspects of these capabilities are enormous in both scope and application.

However, the caveat that is of immediate concern is the purposeful global transmission of misinformation, falsehoods, and fraudulent data.  This burgeoning development has led to an alarming increase in social and political divisiveness and unrest.  Intentionally misleading susceptible readers by creating false perceptions that do not coincide with truth has become a well-used strategy that has dangerous implications.

In my thinking this new reality can be effectively countered by instituting sound educational policies that encourage and reinforce reasoned and rational skepticism as a way to discern the truth and expose what is patently false.   

 

The Pathology of Power - 2026

A madman as president, captain of this enormous ship of state, at the helm with the keys to Armageddon-to nuclear conflagration-forever at his side and in his back pocket.

A human being that future historians will explore - eager to uncover every aspect of his persona, all the minutia of his growing up, all the sadness, the cascade of disappointments, his father’s mean-spirited nature sharp as a knife cutting through his son’s sensitivity and demolishing any sense of wholeness. This president’s deeply felt paranoia and agonizing fear will be noted in depth and analyzed with precision. The rage forever boiling to the surface will be subject to extensive study and interpretation.

Volumes of noteworthy and scholarly dissertations will be published as well as appropriate references to other powerful men whose irrational fulminations have shaped humanity’s darker history. The number of times such men have been elevated to positions of extreme power over the course of human history is too voluminous to even contemplate.

In the United States, it is quite surprising that within a representative Democratic Republic, where the government’s primary role is to serve all the people, a majority of voters would choose a presidential candidate who is a self-proclaimed advocate of white supremacy, mistrustful and openly hostile to science, a climate change denier, who knowingly spread falsehoods and vicious accusations about the nation’s immigrant population with the goal of dehumanizing them, and actually was involved in an attempt to overthrow a duly elected government on Jan 6, 2021.

Given the divisiveness, uncertainty and instability created as a result of this administration’s policies and pronouncements, our international allies have lost trust in the United States as a reliable and dependable proponent of democracy. This is a serious issue with wide implications for the future.

It may very well be up to the coming generations to speak out regarding these issues and become actively engaged in implementing a paradigm shift in nationally held values and beliefs – the status quo is not sustainable.

The Question Why

 The Question Why

In this the 21st century, humanity is floundering in spite of the great strides made in the understanding not only of human nature but also in comprehending so many aspects of the natural environment as well as the wider universe. In spite of this knowledge, humans have crafted a way of living that is not only unsustainable but also may threaten the very future of this species-Homo sapiens.

Hence the question why

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies still do not comprehend that all humans are members of the same species-the same human family where everyone should be treated as having equivalent value?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies fail to recognize that life on planet earth is fragile and depends on a thin atmosphere for its supply of life giving oxygen, and unable to grasp the overwhelming reality that the complex interrelationships of diverse life forms and natural habitats need to be sustained to ensure the continued viability of life on earth?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies claim that climate change is a questionable reality in spite of the overwhelming evidence for its existence?

· Why do so many humans and human societies remain ignorant of the inescapable reality that the present collective behavior of humanity threatens the viability of their own species?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies engage in warfare with the aim of annihilating members of their own species who are perceived as a threat in spite of the fact that there are alternative paths to peaceful coexistence?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies have forged social orders that give primacy to individual wealth and power while understanding that establishing such a hierarchy invariably creates a great deal of unnecessary human suffering and will more than likely lead to an unsustainable future?

· Why is it that so many humans and human societies remain insensitive to the suffering of others and fail to value the power of kindness, compassion and love and recognize that healthy and vibrant communities are richly endowed?


These questions do not represent a complete list. Many of these questions are not new - they have been asked repeatedly throughout the ages, yet they demand answers like never before. Collectively, we cannot continue to ravage the planet with such reckless abandon without ultimately experiencing the necessary consequences of our behavior.

This is why I have chosen to catalog these queries to give them their appropriate weight. In my thinking, we must repeatedly ask questions like these of ourselves if we are to truly see a meaningful change for the better.

The United States – Capitalism at its Worst

As an economic system, capitalism has been responsible for a multiplicity of benefits including encouraging technological and industrial advancement, inspiring innovation, increasing the standard of living for the citizens of the United States and contributing to overall national prosperity. 

However, in the current era these advances have been overshadowed by the current American version of capitalism that seems to be apparently devoid of any sense of responsibility to humanity or the human condition. A system that is exemplified in the words of Elon Musk who stated, "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." Although he later went on to attempt to mollify this position, his actions in relation to his role in scuttling US AID in cohort with President Trump and other actions in which he showed a characteristically careless disregard for the human cost for his behavior certainly validates his original statement. He is not alone in this attitude, and, as a matter of fact, it is shared by many of the nation’s richest individuals who possess an alarming share of the nation’s wealth. A system whose primary goal is the making of extraordinary profit and rewards corporate leadership with vast fortunes. A system geared to satisfying the apparently unbounded greed of stockholders to the extent that the manufacture of cigarettes – a known killer of many consumers – is seen as a worthwhile investment as well as the highly technological production of weapons of mass destruction. All done in the name of profit. 

In this variant of capitalism as practiced in the United States, the current statistics in regard to the national quality of life in regard to personal longevity, the status of access to adequate healthcare, childcare, infant mortality, homelessness, poverty and higher education is abysmal – the actual standing of the United States in these areas in regard to other so-called prosperous nations is at the very bottom. 

 As this is happening, it has been reported in 2007 that the top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 80% owned 14%. This data is a real and frightening aspect of modern-day America as defined by capitalism as it is currently being practiced. 

The saddest aspect of all of this is that this system has created an extraordinary degree of unnecessary suffering as experienced by so many individuals and families and will ultimately fail for it is in fact unsustainable in its current form. We can do better than this.

The Beat Generation

 

The Beat Generation – what is that? The Beat Generation was not a generation at all. Nor was it a movement in the general sense of the term. It was more like a flock of like-minded individuals who felt essentially bonded to each other. They shared a uniquely different and wildly unconventional view of life, more or less, and were usually in agreement about most things, more or less.

The Beat Generation had its origins in 1940’s America and evolved in two major population centers – New York City, New York and San Francisco, California, on the East and West coasts, respectively. Why these two particular locations? In my thinking this was due to the fact that both urban centers had a wildly heterogeneous mix of individuals that came from many countries with dramatically different cultural and ethnic roots. As a result, they were places where the society at large was open to difference, diversity, and behavioral variations.

Greenwich Village in New York City and the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco became the havens for the unconventional, the writers, the artists, those who were made pariahs on account of their differing attitudes, their natural proclivities, their true selves. They were disillusioned by the cultural norms that they felt were stifling and constricting. They were the lovers of true freedom, or what they considered to be true freedom. They felt oppressed by the ridged sexual codes and attitudes of the time. They sought more from life. They were hungry for life. They questioned conventional values. They made those around them feel uncomfortable; that was not their intention; that was not their goal. Life called to them; they wanted to enroll in it and give it their all. They were intrigued by the state and nature of human consciousness – that particular quality that makes us all human. Many of their cohorts were intrigued by Buddhism and captivated by its underlying principle of being.

I was born in 1944 near the end of that most horrific epoch in human history, World War II, that spanned the years of 1939 to 1945. The global impact of this war was so horrific that the carnage that resulted from it defies description. It is estimated that 75 million human beings were annihilated before it came to its conclusion. This war also had a profound psychological impact upon humanity and the human condition.

The United States mainland was not attacked during this war, and, as a result, its infrastructure was untouched – this gave the country a substantial economic advantage in that its industrial base remained intact. This was a time of accelerated material advantage that gave rise to many new products spawned by both ingenuity and invention. This surge in economic activity catapulted the nation into an age of growth and prosperity for many.

Thanks to the forward-looking policies of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal, the artistic communities throughout the country were sustained and supported. However, the war had a dampening impact upon artistic expression. Once the war had ended, the newfound prosperity had an invigorating influence on artistic expression in the late 1940s and 1950s and 1960s especially within the urban centers.


I grew up in the Bronx, New York in a classic tenement – the kind that populated much of the city. In my experience, New York has always possessed a boundless energy fueled by the wondrous diversity of its citizens. My neighborhood was a reflection of this unrelenting presence of life.

I was enthralled by the power of words and became enamored of writing as a means to tell my stories and I was attracted to poetry as a vehicle of expression for emotional states of being. It was during this period of time that I was introduced to the Beat community. In that era, poetry groups and poetry readings were advertised extensively in the Village Voice and there were many of them. I had the good fortune to find the New York Poets Cooperative that was under the auspices of a renowned local poet – Barbara Holland. She was interested in my work and appreciated how I arranged the words on paper. I became her protégé. She encouraged me to present my work as a featured reader at the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery (East Village). Holland also encouraged me to lead a New York Poets Cooperative group in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, it did not attract enough poets to succeed.


St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in NYC is a major hub of Beat Generation legacy, home to The Poetry Project (founded 1966) where Allen Ginsberg and other contemporaries read. The church represents the epicenter of the literary tradition that Ginsberg helped establish He later helped create the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado.

Coincidentally, I was living in Boulder at the time the Naropa Institute was founded (it is now Naropa University), and I had the opportunity to visit it as a guest. The Naropa Institute was founded in 1974 by the Tibetan llama Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Buddhist teacher and scholar renowned for his book entitled, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. It was designed to be a place where Buddhist teaching around the study of the mind was integrated with traditional Western liberal arts and artistic disciplines. It was here that Ginsberg proposed and led a class, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics as mentioned above, that studied Western poetry centered around the beat poetry of his generation that was largely involved in exploring human consciousness.



The following are brief biographies of the predominant leaders of the Beat Generation.

Allen Ginsberg played a fundamental and foundational role within the Beat community of artists as a poet and political activist in support of sexual preference at a time when the homosexual community was demonized by the larger society. His remarkable piece entitled, Howl is a testimonial to his work.

Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926 and died in 1997. Although he was unconventional and provocative for his time, his writings were well received and influential.

Other well-known and important members of the Beat Generation include, of course, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.


Jack Kerouac was Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922. He became a renowned writer well known for his major work, On the Road (1957). Other examples of his work include The Dharma Buns (1958) and Big Sur (1962). In 1974, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics was created at Naropa University (formerly the Naropa Institute) in Boulder, Colorado as mentioned earlier. It was created by Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and others in Kerouac’s honor (he died in 1969). This school is still very much alive and thriving.

Kerouac traveled extensively and also resided in San Francisco. City Lights Booksellers founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti became the meeting place for Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and others. Although Ferlinghetti was also a poet, he did not consider himself a member of the group, yet he generously supported their efforts. It was at City Lights where Kerouac devoted his energy to writing. City Lights Booksellers situated in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco is still extant; I had the opportunity to visit it quite recently (2026).


William Seward Burroughs II was a writer and visual artist. Burroughs was born in 1914 in St. Louis Missouri and died in 1997 at the age of 83.

Like Ginsberg and Kerouac, Burroghs is considered to be a primary contributor to the identity and purpose of the Beat Generation. His work was considered to be experimental in nature. He is most remembered for his major work entitled, Naked Lunch.


Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs were contemporaries who were young men that lived through the great economic depression of 1929 and World War II – both destabilizing events that exposed the underlying weakness and frailty of the American culture. Their viewpoint was shaped by their shared experiences during those troubling times.

In many ways the spirit embodied in the Beat Generation was soon to be carried into the Hippie movement of the 1960s, centered in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco, that also challenged conventional culture and thinking. This new era was inspired and energized by the experience of the seemingly endless Vietnam War (1955-1975).


In conclusion, although these writers have died, they have left a significant legacy as reflected in their words, their thoughts, their ideas. Their insights and the conclusions they have drawn have persisted and endured the battering of time. Collectively, these representatives of the Beat Generation have lived through some of the worst manifestations of humanity’s capacity to do harm to itself. They have not only drawn a riveting attention to this bleak reality but also have shown a way out of the darkness and into the brilliance that love, compassion, reason, and understanding can provide. They have demonstrated the sheer power of words and have helped lead the way to a more sustainable way of thinking and being.

Thousands of Years of Civilization

 

Thousands of years of civilization

and yet,

echoes of all the

unnecessary pain and

suffering and

bloodletting

still reverberate

within the walls of this

supposed and theoretical

age of reason.



Thousands of years of civilization

where innumerable tomes

of history fill the libraries

throughout this world of humans

and yet,

blinding hatred

still propels humanity

on its reckless course of

self-immolation.



Thousands of years of civilization

and yet,

stultifying stupidity

continues its reign

leaving unmistakable tracts

of horror,

its blinding chaos,

its agonizing carnage,

leaving mothers with

dead and dying children

burning cities,

rotting corpses and

nights filled with terrifying screams

and utter despair.



Thousands of years of civilization

and yet,

shallow brains

filled with petty differences

still provoke

wild and unimaginable

horrors of such magnitude

that populate

innumerable nightmares,

that test the boundaries of

hope and resilience.



Thousands of years of civilization

and yet,

humanity remains fixated

on delusional ideas

and fails to see the

connection between choices

and consequences,

and fails to see the distinction

between the real and illusion,

between truth and lie,

between what is significant

and what is not.



Thousands of years of civilization

and yet,

the immutable reality is not seen

or recognized

that we are all,

eight billion of us,

members of the

same human family.



Thousands of years of civilization

and yet.