The World Stage

The World Stage

"All the world's a stage." - William Shakespeare

Thorough and thoughtful snapshots of the global narrative provided by According to Time...

20 July 2024

by ben yosaf aperitif

Humankind is crafted by their Creator to fulfill the purposes of a salvific redemption of sin, to enter into and always extend into a deeper relationship with God, and to manifest in their truest essences love amongst one another.  According to Jesus, the two greatest commandments, which both find their inception in the Old Testament of The Holy Bible are to love the Lord your God with all of your mind, all of your heart, and all of your soul, and another similar to it-- to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 36-40).  These are the central motivations of the global cosmopolitan mold.

All people are born with their home as Mother Earth and their family as the human family, along with a locality and a closer-in-kin family who they share their aspirations, hopes, and dreams with, along with their shortcomings, shortsightedness, and losses.  From the beginning of time, humankind has been brought into joyous, triumphant happiness when they themselves or others around them prevail over obstacles, whether it is capturing a rabbit with a hunting trap (as happened in lots of small communities throughout history) or conquering the world through controlling the news (what I do here on According to Time).  When someone does well, the goodness pervades the entire global sphere, as God is all-pervasive and all-present, immanent and transcendent, and all events and essences are interconnected.

As we watch the world unfold as on a triumphant drama throughout the first quarter of the twenty-first century, we see people helping refugees by donating time, funds, food, property; we see people settling humanitarian crises from the outlooks of international legislative forums to war tribunals; we see people working together collectively to find even more effective ways to take on the early phases of widespread climate degradation and global warming; we see people volunteering their time and efforts to help the poor and needy; we see individuals filling up mosques, synagogues, and churches to engage in collective worship.  And with all this beneficial behavior, we come more fully to realize what our lives mean individually and collectively.

5 March 2025

by ben yosaf aperitif

In the way in which we are all together, in the human family, together as one, bonded kinsman who share in who we are, each of us: we were all born on planet earth, and as such, our home is the Earth and our home of our birth is Mother Earth; sometimes countries and nations provide membership in nationality—citizenship— based on one being born in the national territorial boundaries in which the nation has a sovereignty-claim; but to look deeper into this, all people are born, we see, and this takes precedence to citizenship according to state, nation, country, township— what have you— all people are born on earth, and share in that.  So in a sense, we are all kinsman of the earth.  We share the—so-called— nationality of Mother Earth.  We are children of Mother Earth, and that connects us all together, all the people of the earth, far greater than a citizenship-claim to certain countries can pull us apart, or for that matter, bring us closer together.  All people are citizens of Mother Earth, as all people are born on the third planet from the sun.  This is an identification-claim that is constant in each person.

There is Biblical evidence that substantiates the claim that mankind is made of the earth.  According to Genesis 2, God made man out of the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life, and formed woman from one of man’s ribs.  From this we can see, according to The Holy Bible, our genealogy of species yields as far back as, ‘from the earth, man was formed.’

But we need not even look to Biblical evidence to see that, indeed, we are ‘people of the earth.’  We are rooted in the earth, attached to the earth, and part and part in parcel of the earth.  It goes without saying that we are even more derivative, as a people, of Mother Earth, than any given nationality or citizenship-claim.  We are created by a miracle, the miracle of life, and by extension, we are all, what I would like to coin as, Citizens of Mother Earth.

There is a lot one has to do to be considered a world citizen, or global citizen, including taking part in a Non-Governmental-Organization that is non-profit and helping people around the globe; moreover, one needs to be informed and invested in the workings and people and events of a few various nations beside her own; on top of that, one needs to be a good citizen of her country and positively benefit her local community in a meaningful and substantial manner.

But as far as being a Citizen of Mother Earth, it is in all peoples genes as those indicate they are homo sapiens, people who share in the lovely, beautiful complexion of the sun, moon, and Mother Earth.

October 26, 2025

by ben yosaf aperitif

There is much disorder and tension in this recently calamitous time in the international order, but as it has been, since the beginning of the eons, there is an overarching, overriding peace and harmony amongst the vast majority of the world's people.

We see, that all people are capable of being grateful for her or his life; all people can come to a simple peace of mind, in which it goes, I am grateful for life, I am grateful for living; I am grateful for my hard work and good accomplishments; I am grateful for planet earth; I am grateful for the Lord.  All people may come to this simple peace of mind in time: I am grateful for all the various fecundity of my life experiences; I have come to peace for all the good peace I have had in my life; I am in peace, the peace of all my experiences, the peace of all my life; I am at peace in all things.

To go back to the status of current events, this poet who is writing in this journalistic fashion, ben bussewitz, would like you to enjoy your safety and good times in the world.  He prays for your safety; he prays for your happiness.

There is an overwhelming state of tension and conflict in the international dispute for the ways in which economic thought is central to one's understanding of who she or he is.  Many stand as people who attest to the virtue of socialism, others the virtue of capitalism, others the virtue of communism, etc.

Insofar as we are born in a geographic region that is land claimed by a specific country, many of us choose our nation-state of affiliation and our primary citizenry status by the serendipity, accident, or design of the place in which we enter Mother Earth as a newborn.  In this sense, we often come to identify with our family, our local culture, our local parish, our local education facility, our local dialectic principles, etc. in our youth when we are too young to come to our own ways of thinking through these ethos, these ideas, these affinities for the ways in which we make our decisions, these ways in which we come to certain ways of perception, our philosophic ideas, our ways around the world, our ways of relating to people (friends, relatives, neighbors-- all the people we touch)... when we are in our youth, to young to think these ideas and ways of acting out for ourselves.  Eventually, we reflect on them, and bear the responsibility of their weight.  Eventually, we come to become even better good people.  Eventually, we come to even better days.  All people are good, as all people are composed of love, and all people are good, as most of the time, that clearly shows, in ourselves, and all of those we have seen and known.

We are born of Mother Earth.  We are all born on this planet.  Therefore, we are earth citizens; we are the citizens of this planet.  We are Earth Citizens.  We are Citizens of Mother Earth.  We are a people of love this land, this land around us, this planet of our birth and home.  We are a people who love Mother Earth.

And, hence, therefore, most of us are happy most of the time.  Most of us are safe most of the time.  Most of us are doing just fine.  Most of us are happy.  Most of us are in love with the Lord.  Most of us have lived with most people as those who love their neighbor and their home.

Hence, and therefore, the planet is blessed; it is blessed always.  You can see it for yourself, then.  And you can see that, for yourself, this is a blessed planet.  Therefore, we are blessed because of, you.

February 19, 2026

by ben yosaf aperitif

We have a widely impoverished world we live in, with only about twenty percent of the world's population living in a prosperous and overall wealthy state of being.  The United Nations, the only intergovernmental body representing all countries of the world, predicted and set as their aim to eliminate poverty and ensure that there would be a negligible status of substantial hunger in the world by 2030 in their Sustainable Development Goals plan.  We, the people familiar with these purposes that the United Nations fashions, are hopeful that they are fulfilled.  It was made clear in the sense of truth in objectivity, as this blueprint was provided and put forth in this global forum, it was plausible, and within the ability of the leaders of the world, to ensure that all the aims, including both these, not to mention equal status and identities in terms of gender, were achieved and accomplished.

This new millennium, the ripeness of the Technology Age --!, it came as a time of great possibilities and potentialities for the world to become peacefully interconnected and to overcome the trials and hardship that historically are overtly prevalent in life.  At first, in the category of war and peace, we found ourselves in a time of great goodness.  In the wake of the calamitous and perilous twentieth century in which there were two momentous and ravaging world wars, for the first two decades, there were no wars, at all, of conquest-- no wars by which one territory attempts to invade and claim another's land as their own.  It seemed as though this had been ridded from human history, with the landmark legislation of greater human rights accord throughout the latter half of the 1900s, notwithstanding the seminal Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.  We see, here, that there was wide acceptance and understanding that history be remembered and history never be repeated.  We still hold onto this hope and assurance, however, it was largely taken for granted, then, that there would be a termination in the history of wars of conquest.  It seemed a more peaceful era, where the only standing wars had been wars of self-defense.  Then, out of no where, the country of Russia marched into Ukraine, an offensive war to claim another territory as their own.  Where did this come from, but aggressive and overridden violent, national chauvinism, completely naive and overlooking the true status of an era of greater peacefulness and broadly acclaimed and celebrated human rights outlook?

The hopeful and sanguine Arab Spring protests turned out for the worser, with autocratic regimes rising up and brutally overturning mass demand for democracy and popular suffrage.  In Syria, the late autocrat has fled and an Islamist government has overall clout in the country's system of control now, ironically waved in and invited to have seats and say in the U.N., despite their terroristic associations and history.  In Egypt, there is a overzealous, despotic autocrat inculcating fear in humanistic journalism and depictions in the arts of their national pride and ancient history, while putting human rights defense workers, journalists, and other activist parties in detention without trial.  In Iran, there is the seemingly nominal dystopian 'morality-police' put women in prison for not properly placing the hijab on their heads, or others for not following rule-bound traditional Muslim customs.  Though, we currently see here hope with government protests for civilian inclusion and human rights and progressive norms on the rise. Worst of all, it is not unrealistic to say that the Arab Spring had met its conclusion, with the incursion of a human rights nihilistic government, in Tunisia, as this was the most favorable and propitious of countries where the Arab Spring had its toil and soil, and where the great martyrdom of a street-vendor that was denied his basic rights by the government set it in motion.

Elsewhere in Africa, we see the Rapid Support Forces and the government militias are sparring in Sudan, implementing widespread famine and the early stages of genocide.  In South Sudan there is a humanitarian emergency of drought.

With the commander-in-chief of U.S.A. unilaterally ceding the country from the Paris Climate Treaty and the Joint Comprehensive Peace Treaty, we see the other members of the international accords still aiming to stick to the climate warming goals and the continued pacification and reproachment of the Iranian nuclear program.

China is on the rise, a competing superpower, poised against the increasingly autocratic and ultranationalist United States, perhaps the quintessential power dispute of the century.  China is aiming to increase trade and widen partnership with nations of the Global South, while on the other side of the table, it seems like the United States is becoming more insular.  It would be positive for the United States to widen its reach in terms of peaceful stance and partnership with other nations, as it is seen as a leader in terms of global affairs and democratic process and throughout the twentieth century and until today it leads the world in regards of humanitarian process and impact.  With the likeness of erecting a barriers between Mexico and Canada, putting immigrants in detention whilst denying them speedy and fair trials in terms of their nominal charges, the central governmental administration putting down peaceful protests with violence and mobilizing the National Guard, among more, it seems that America is facing a litmus test.  It is a great hope that the country overcomes its surge of autocratic peril and returns to the leader of world events, national ethos, and global democracy, the position, it really has held until the election of this most recent presidential term.

Taiwan might be the real lever point, with the turn toward China, over the United States, in overall felicitous alliance stance and with a new head-of-state that is facilitating this juncture.  This is pivotal to peace in the South China Sea and the United States Asian peace partners.

India has overtaken China as the most populous country, with more than a billion of whom to boast.

We see this is a time of tension in the world, but in terms of the arts, in terms of the academy, we have great works and great caliber in regards to high merit performance of which we can enjoy and spend time in the engagement with, passing the moments joyfully ingesting the human condition energy, suffusion, and intentness.

- ben yosaf aperitif

Upcoming in the Global Narrative of the World as a Stage

 1) the constancy and unchangingness of Grandfather Earth, while the planet also proceeds in its transformations and morphing

2) the influence of world literature on the personalities of humankind and their interactions and interconnectivity

3) the state of art: its ability to embolden, engender, and enact greater responsiveness and resilience of world-wide humanitarian causes and caliber and kinesthetics

4) the nascent embeddedness and entrenchment of a semblance and typologies of a world-governance