TOLERANCE | MARCH 15, 2018

Peace On Earth By the Weekend! (Tuesday at the Latest)

It came to me like a bolt from the blue, like a bombshell from above, like a pardon from the Queen: Peace on Earth! It’s so simple! How could the solution to the world’s oldest riddle have eluded us for so many millennia? Eons, epochs, periods of literature, music and fine art have all flourished and dimmed, come and gone with no one noticing that the answer had been sitting there in the corner quietly, minding its own business, literally hiding in plain sight until I stumbled over it, suffering only mild contusions.

A bolt from the blue (Szpeti / Shutterstock.com)

I know it’s revolutionary, but hear me out on this.

Here, then, is my plan for peace on earth. All we do is eliminate the third person from the language! Yes! That’s him, her, they, them, he, she, his, hers, theirs. That way there’s nothing left but the first and second person: you and me. This would result in several mammoth outcomes. For one thing, no one would be able to say bad things behind anyone’s back anymore. Why? Because there’d be no more they and them. No more him or her. (I still haven’t decided about “it.” Eliminating the word, it, would make shopping impossible, and that would do way more harm than good.) But most importantly, we’d all have to talk to one another, as opposed to about each other. And there’d be no more wars. Voila! Peace on earth!

An African-American man put this to the test recently when he joined a white supremacist group.

I know it’s revolutionary, but hear me out on this. Think about it. Remember the last time you heard that someone said something unkind about you or your group or your race or religion? It was someone who had heard something about you or your group from someone else, right? They hadn’t heard it or seen it from YOU! Of course not!

Everything bad you’ve heard is precisely that: everything bad you’ve heard. The odds of hypocrisy, bigotry, distrust, suspicion, coldness and antipathy decrease enormously when we simply talk to one another. An African-American man put this to the test recently when he joined a white supremacist group. After the initial cold shoulder (and worse) he broke the ice simply by being in communication with the group members, making friends, and basically being the regular good guy he naturally was. Result: lots of new friends, and lots of ex-white supremacists.

Spread it around. Our Founder, L. Ron Hubbard, famously stated, “On the day when we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.” That trust starts with talking to each other. Really. If we did that, we would have peace on Earth by the weekend—Tuesday at the latest.

You heard it here first.

KEYWORDS

AUTHOR

Martin Landon

Martin Landon is happy to say that at present he is not doing anything he doesn’t love. Using Scientology, he helps people daily, both one-on-one through life coaching, and globally, through his webinars. He has also authored books, movies, plays, TV shows, and comic strips and currently writes for STAND, which gives him great joy.

╳