On the road again

I suppose there has always been a standard for being chosen.  The best has been in high demand since existence existed.

In the beginning it may have simply been existence, but I suspect it quickly moved on to what was biologically most prudent. The one who had the best chance of surviving. The healthiest looking, the strongest. The one with the most balanced features. If you can't be smart, at least be pretty.

Of course that quickly moved on to the one who could provide the best, the best hunter or gatherer, because surviving is high on the list of needs.

And then came the one who was so adept at survival that there was surplus that could be traded for necessities.  Money was born!

It was not refined money yet.  It was still bulky -- furs, crops, things that were still basically real and necessary, but that quickly evolved into silver and gold.  Our magpie DNA was emerging.

It was no longer a matter of valuing eating, and being sheltered and safe.  There was extra now and where to put that extra gradually grew in importance. The power to hunt evolved into the hunt for power.

It started as actual arm to arm combat, but even that has been refined now.  We simply let our money do the talking and although that may sound like a more civilized way of handling things, it really isn't.  It is more devastating world wide than any local battle could ever dream of being.

Now, one person, who simply inherits a chunk of change from his once worthy forbears has the possibility of destroying a people, a continent, a world. Because, like Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof,  "If you're rich they think you really know."

And the only real fail safe is to really think and to teach our children to think and not to forget that when we stop thinking and just react -- we are on the road to ruin.