"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti.

 "It's our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other." - J. Krishnamurti.

 It is in our human nature that we have drifted so far from this simple truth and we have the audacity to claim ourselves being more civilized than our forefathers. Perhaps we are, civilized that is, however no moment in our history have come so close to wiping out the very planet we call our home and no moment in time have become so territorial and triballistic in our claim that we cannot even communicate with one another without building a barrier between us of racial and cultural/religious walls for safety. It is a sad we are living in and sadder still that we are handing down to our children what we have not been able to comprehend and overcome in our own timeline. In my 77 years of existence how many wars have I watched rise and fall, how many lives have been sacrificed through human errors or greed, hate and ignorance of the few who were in the power to make things happen for the better. For those who feel that we are doing fine at this stage I would ask them to go live in Gaza, or Sudan and tell me life is ok for humanity as a whole. I cannot avoid expressing my discontent every now and then when something hits me that triggers my view of the human condition we are in today, even saying hello to someone and receiving a dirty or deadpool look in return; at times it feels like i am existing in a zombie land. "What do you expect?" a friend once asked, "Do you think everyone is living a happy life, problem free, all good?" He is right, and we all do have our moments when shit happens out of the blue knocking us off our comfort zone and place us in a bad mood; it's called being human.Being aware of these shifts in our predispositions is a major practice in Buddhism as it is in most religions and cultures. Being derailed by unforeseen circumstances is part and parcel of being who we are, however, how we choose to rebound and place ourselves back on track is what makes us different from other creatures that walks this earth.Sadly enough most of us have forgotten how to or never really knew how to. We relegate our trials and tribulations to bad luck, ill intentions, spiritual punishments and so forth; rarely do we see mishaps as lack of attention or awareness, of being present in the moment. This is what business does, it makes us slip and forget, it makes us react and compound the negative with more negativity and we end up with self blame. "We are the masters of our environment and circumstances." This is a line from Swami Yogananda's book on Raja Yoga, or the Yoga of the Mind. " We are the masters of our Body, Speech and Mind." Not many are exposed to such teaching from the ancient schools, however, these words still echos in our modern thoughts and processes in different forms, but sadly they are becoming more rare and quaint to most modern man. From the Upanishads to the present day Quantum Physics, we are being reminded that the Mind creates what we see before our eyes, that the external is but a reflection of what is within, as the Hermetic Principles declared; All is Mind. Man is endowed with an awesome too, sadly very few took the trouble to get to know how it works and now it seems too late as we are about to be replaced by AI. In due time we will have to stop thinking about how to think as it will be done for us; then what? My daughter just made a delicious fried veggies with dried tofu and miso paste for dinner with the help of Chat GPT!

Brother, what strikes me most in your reflection is the tension between two truths that seem to coexist.

On one hand, humanity has achieved astonishing things. We can communicate across continents instantly, cure diseases that once devastated entire populations, and use tools that would have seemed miraculous to our ancestors. In that sense, we are indeed more "civilized."

Yet on the other hand, the fundamental problems that troubled sages like Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Buddha, and countless spiritual teachers remain largely unchanged. Fear, greed, tribalism, anger, and ignorance still operate beneath the surface of our technological sophistication. We have learned how to split the atom but have not learned how to stop dividing ourselves into "us" and "them."

Your reference to Gaza and Sudan is a sobering reminder that statistics and economic reports can sometimes conceal the lived reality of suffering. For those enduring war, displacement, hunger, or loss, discussions of human progress can sound hollow.

I also smiled when I reached the part about your daughter using ChatGPT to help prepare a meal. There is a certain irony there. After reflecting on humanity's possible replacement by AI, the essay ends with a simple act of nourishment: a daughter preparing dinner for her father. To me, that scene contains an important distinction.

AI can suggest recipes.
AI can organize information.
AI can even discuss philosophy.

But AI did not grow the vegetables, taste the food, care about whether you enjoyed the meal, or share the moment of eating together. Those remain profoundly human experiences.

Perhaps the challenge is not whether AI will think for us, but whether we will surrender the responsibility of understanding ourselves. Krishnamurti's concern was never about machines; it was about unconsciousness. A human being can become mechanical without any help from technology at all.

Your friend's remark—"Do you think everyone is living a happy life?"—touches on something essential. We rarely know what burden another person is carrying. The person who returns a cold stare may be wrestling with grief, debt, illness, fear, or loneliness. Awareness begins when we recognize that others are fighting battles we cannot see.

I am reminded of another observation by Krishnamurti:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Many people sense that something is amiss in the modern world, yet few know how to respond. Some become angry. Some withdraw. Some distract themselves endlessly. A smaller number turn inward and begin examining the movement of their own minds. That, I think, is what your reflection ultimately points toward.

The world may not become peaceful because governments become wiser or technologies become more advanced. It may become more peaceful only when individuals see clearly how conflict begins within themselves—in thought, in judgment, in attachment to identities and beliefs.

For someone who has watched seventy-seven years of history unfold, your frustration is understandable. Yet the fact that you still greet strangers, still reflect, still write, still question, and still sit down to enjoy a meal prepared by your daughter suggests that you have not surrendered to cynicism. There is a quiet hopefulness in that.

And perhaps that is where change always begins: not in saving the whole world at once, but in remaining awake enough to meet the next person, the next meal, the next moment, with a little more awareness than before.