People fake it in bed, fake it out of bed, at the office, on the street, on TV, and in person. You go online and encounter another minefield of sham sound bites, overtures, relationships, friendships, and even profiles

Now everyone is calling each other a fraud. It’s like we’re all wandering around not knowing who is who, what is what, who is male, who is female, which purchase is as the ad says, which is not, whose credentials are genuine, whose were purchased in Times Square.

Yet we set aside another day in October each year to pretend to be somebody else!

Alas! That we could set aside one to be who we really are…”Reflections Along The Way”

Perhaps in ancient times, God did indeed use special individuals to guide and protect his peoples – but I daresay that today royalty is an anachronism that is an insult to the concept that all men and women are created equal. I am indeed proud to live in a country that does not include such privileges in its Constitution.

God bless the USA.

Let others rush in a frenzy for top of the list. If I bring up the rear, but made a difference for the better along the way for one, two, three persons, or a million people, my journey will have been a successful one.

After the countries in the region gained their independence, there was a flood of citizens to the colonial “mother countries'” leading many analysts to concur that this was further proof of the necessity for others to be Europe-dependent due to deficiencies in their own capabilities.

If you forcibly, or through economic stranglehold, move millions across oceans, then set them free generations later, or renege on promises made in recruiting their services and then leave them hanging, how can a better outcome occur than what has happened? The path to development did not occur via balanced and proportionate means…the end result is chaos. Economies struggle as, in order to survive, people fight for crumbs left behind by departing colonizers.

A bigger pie must be created…and a new psychology must emerge which recognizes that no one is innately inferior, that some are victims of historical injustice, that the ugly past is over, and that all of us – originating from the Old and the New Civilizations – must come together to make the entire world a better place and a more level playing field.

There is no racial inferiority or superiority. There has been a history of injustice. Now we must move on to bringing everyone up to speed, while ridding ourselves of the baggage of centuries gone by.

Not only does it often come across as disingenuous, but the record shows that good and evil, lofty and not so lofty, admirable and distasteful behavior and habits exist across the whole spectrum of humanity.

It’s great to point out the positive when too many view only from a negative perspective. But coming to terms with the reality that all human beings are flawed, that regardless of pigmentation, religion, class, caste, etc., one can end up a hero, a villain, or just plain average – such a recognition might perhaps go a longer way in clearing up the distortions and inaccuracies all around and might help us to co-exist more harmoniously.

What good old days were there during colonialism in Africa, Asia, and the Americas? Good for kings and queens and landed gentry? How about for the colonized? And slaves, commoners, laborers, farm workers?

Good old days for women? A gender that often could not vote or hold equal footing in public, social, or private life – save those with some alleged royal blood or position of nobility?

Yeah, there’s always been conflict, always been the haves and the have nots, periods of stability and instability. Any concept of the good old days, though, must address the issue of for whom were those idyllic and blessed days set aside.

One might well find out that the best days to be had are the ones we face today.

We must all be wary that we do not succumb to wolves in disguise pushing ideologies that are the opposite of what our individual and collective conscience tells us is beneficial to the human race.

Otherwise instead of religion freeing us from despair and uncertainty, it’ll end up sending us all hurling into a bottomless pit of gloom and doom.