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Hello World,
My name is Daemon Bernstein. And before anyone asks, I am not (technically) Jewish. My great grandfather was from Russia, and he was Jewish. But no one in my mother's family is Jewish. And because I did not adopt the Jewish religion, I am not part of that most exclusive club. Please don't tell anyone, because I don't want to argue about it.
I am writing to you to encourage you. Please take a moment and look at your family. Look at your friends, your community, your city, your country. The way many people are behaving, even some of you, an outside observer might think that the people on our world escaped from an institution for the insane. People are hurting each other in every way one might think of.
It is kind of like being shot. A bullet makes a hole in you, your blood leaks out and you get weak. You don't feel so good. Your feelings change, your behavior changes, your decisions change. And you have a tendency to want to feel better. Please, feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
We must see what we all have in common. We have different spiritual and religious beliefs. But we all breath oxygen, eat food, drink water. We all have a similar idea of what a family, a community and a country is. We have similar, maybe even the same idea about what a home is, the philosophical, not the physical. We all know that when we are sincerely smiling a lot, that we are often happier. We know what it means to have a heavy heart. We all have red blood, even those with blue blood. For those that do not know the reference to blue blood, it is a metaphor for royalty. Even with our various spiritual beliefs, we have more in common with each other, than is different. Our differences are few.
We can all Love. If there is anything we have in common that is important, Love is the most important. It is the one power we all have that we can all do that we can all use to create a beautiful planet full of good feelings and all life on Earth.
Please look at your neighbor and see what you have in common. And give a smile and a kind word. Be aware each moment of what you do and how you affect your family. Your family affects your community. Your community affects a larger community, your city, which has effects in other cities. The effect expands outward with the interactions between people who are in some way connected to the people you know and interacted with. Everyone knows someone. What you do affects a larger community across the world you will never meet personally. Yet you still have an effect on them.
Imagine the effect you want them to have on your family. They are out there, affecting their family, which is affecting their community. Their community is affecting their city, which has effects on other cities. And their effect expands outward across the world with the interactions between people who are in some way connected to the people they know and interacted with. Everyone knows someone. What effects do you want their community to have on your family?
The effect you have on those around you effects people who effect people who effect people who effect people who... affect your family, and you.
Please be kind and honest. No matter your spiritual and religious beliefs, accept each other, Love each other, be kind to each other. Because no matter what you do, you affect people who affect you.
-- Daemon Bernstein
(Note: If you wish to translate my essay, please do, but also please email me.)