don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

I was in Italy seven years ago when 19 Islamic fundamentalists on four hijacked airliners attacked civilization. I wrote that changes were coming. I struggled, like nearly everyone else, to connect the new world order that had just arrived with my serene reality as a wellness enthusiast and promoter. I mused about: 

• How to sustain a healthy mindset in the presence of madness.
  
  
• The nature of best responses to a stateless enemy out to destroy civilization as we view it.  
  
  
• If and when global peace might be regained. 
  
  
• How events like those of 9/11 could be prevented. 

I acknowledged that answers were elusive and dependent on variables impossible to manage, such as conditions in despotic, theocratic cultures.

But, the anniversary of this fateful day seems an occasion for revisiting such matters. How can such global issues not have an affect upon our personal choices and prospects for long-term quality of life?

Seven years ago, I had questions. I asked:

• How does a wellness mindset help when terrorists attack?
  
  
• Will key principles of emotional intelligence, effective decision-making, stress management, mental health, meaning and purpose and the like contribute to making sense of and dealing with horrors?
  
  
• Can we understand the big picture? 
  
  
• Can we think effectively at such times as this?
  
  
• How much does American policy create hatred in the medieval minds of Islamic true believers?  
  
  
• Is it possible to convince Taliban-like fundamentalists that human beings have inherent rights to choose different philosophies about god and how life should be lived and to evolve to the point of being able to tolerate if not accept such differences? 
  
  
• Can we convince the millions of Islamists in Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and other nations who despise our cultural and economic systems to drop their insistence that others conform to their ways? 
  
  
• Must we sacrifice constitutional liberties to deal with such challenges, as has been the policy of the Bush Administration since 9/11?
  
  
• How can we mitigate the influence of our own preachers who claim to know what God is thinking? (What could the late, not very great Jerry Falwell have been thinking when he blamed "the ACLU, the court system, abortionists, pagans, feminists, gays and lesbians, People For the American Way, Christ-haters" and others who he claimed "incurred God's wrath trying to secularize America?") 
  
  
• How can we work with our own people who don't realize that America IS a secular society, not a Christian nation? 

Some believe that the people of Afghanistan have been victimized by the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and their associates and that we ought not worsen their plight with bombing campaigns? Tamim Ansary, an Afghani-American writer, suggested that the Taliban and Ben Laden are not remotely representative of Afghanistan, but rather constitute "a cult of ignorant psychotics." Ansary writes, "When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think people of Afghanistan, think Jews in the concentration camps." He argues that the Afghan people "had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would "go in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country." 

I don't think for a minute that these are all or the most important questions to ask, but they came to me in Italy seven years ago, and I'm still pondering possible answers. 

Look after yourself, be well and try, somehow, to look on the bright side as much as you can.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MEANING DOMAIN under the skill area of meaning and purpose. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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