Things are always changing. How different are they over time? The Buddha lived and died and suffering hasn’t been reduced over time. Jesus lived and died and suffering hasn’t been reduced over time. The Saviors haven’t improved much, if anything, in the way the world works. How different can things be? Different worse? Or different better? How much impact can one person have? How much impact can an entire population of people have? Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, Yin/Yang “and all that jazz” did little or nothing to improve the living conditions of the times. Our standard of living improves over time, yet our lives aren’t all that great even though we are living longer.

I was born in 1945 and have lived a better life than anyone lived before 1945. And yet, and yet racism, sexism, alcoholism, drug usage and all the markers weighing in on Whoopee! and Boo! do not make 2026 all that much to rave about. Suffering isn’t much different that it was in the days of Buddha and Jesus, and all who went before them and came after them. And the threat of nuclear holocaust continues to be a possibility, and no one before 1945 ever had that to contend with. Suffering will always be with us until the end of life in the Cosmos. The only way to disappear suffering is to change our perspective, perception, way of thinking about it, and become a cork upon the water, a leaf in the wind.