Original YT playout date: 21 December 2008
Duration: 5:13
In the olden days when YouTube was a Community thing first and foremost, we had a “Re” function for video reponses. These have long disappeared and all the links have gone. All that is left is the “Re” in the title of the video.
This video response was to a wonderful songt by Mark Maysey, an unsigned country musician I used to follow back then.
***Statistics and Credits***
Views at the time added to HTV: 174
Likes at the time added to HTV: 9
Dislikes at time added to HTV: 0
Popularity % ” ” ” =L/(L+D): 100.0%
Comments at time added: 2
Total interactions at time added: 11
Total interactions to views 6.3%
Location: At home
Other people featured: Mark Maysey
Genre: Song, Response,
Music used: When all we need is love
Languages used: English
Animals/plants featured: None
Other remarks: I would later do a Russian version of this.
Amen to the sentiment of the song. A sentiment so often expressed in literature and music and yearned for by the very many intelligent, compassionate and humane members of our species. The stumbling blocks for having a loving and compassionate world are ever-present and seemingly unstoppable.
Greed fuelled by a hard-core capitalism ; political power seeking and the lying and deception that surround it ; religions that still believe in the necessity for animal sacrifice ; an education system that has lost its broad-based humanistic approach to be replaced with a “getting ahead” approach and giving students the tools for pursuing a well-paid job. That is to say logic, reflection, morals and consideration for one’s fellow citizen have long been replaced with short-sightedness in acquiring qualifications that make a person eminently employable whilst ignoring the need for altruism and the fostering of a generous spirit. Its very noticible how much educational media time is given to self-aggrandisement, social networking and articles of the “how to get ahead” variety.
We need to question motives more than we do at present. For example, would Corporate businesses make large donations to charity if there were no tax breaks for doing so ? Maybe a minority of them would.
We might also consider the word ‘love’ and be certain of its meaning as it tends to be a very elastic word. I prefer the term compassion as this is generally deemed to mean “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others”. I like the inclusiveness of the word as it can include the “any sentient being” aspect as expressed in Buddhism. For me, the extension of the concern to anything that is capable of mental or physical suffering and not just us human beings, should be the essense of real love.
Great difficulty arises with the concept of loving one’s enemies though and I’m not sure that it is even possible or healthy to do this ; but that’s a whole other debate.
It grieves me to think it but I really believe that meaningful love on a grand scale will remain unachievable. Individually, all we can do is try to inculcate harmony and friendliness in our immediate surroundings. The more folk that are able to do this (and it is a pretty tall order) the closer the world will be to global caring.
Alan.