In most of the developed societies of the world, we have become beings that no longer love the good and the beautiful. A huge number of our human society no longer value music and poetry, love and happiness – those things are not exciting enough anymore, not thrilling enough. We love to be afraid, horrified, to feel misery and disgust. As a modern society, the trend is powerfull and clear; a great many of us, whether we realize it or not, love violence and death, and we celebrate it in most of our popular music, film, art, and entertainment, and we are relentlessly teaching it to our children with cartoons, commercials, and most pervasive of all, video games.

I was fortunate to grow up in kinder times, around great music with meaningful lyrics, and rock 'n roll that joyfully celebrated life, not death. Singers and songwriters like Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Loggins and Messina, Allman Brothers, the Eagles, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, and many more were on my radio and tapes. Other not-famous but very good musicians "jammed" in my living room on winter afternoons in Minnesota. The songs and music were mostly about love and life and good times together.

Now our young adults' lives and beliefs are shaped by "rap music" about violence, disrespect, brutal sex, hatred, and murder. The popular music now is often not music at all, just shouting, grunting, and screaming obscenities with a hard-driving background of drums and noise. It's all about hatred and rage, rebellion and desolation. We have coined clever catchy names for acts of violence, like "road rage" so that these things are even more accepted as normal everyday attitudes in our lives. The concept of road rage has now made senseless acts of violence ordinary and okay.

TV shows and car commerdials are crammed with every kind of bizarre violence. An ad for a children's frosted cereal shows one cute little cereal-bit committing murder and cannibalism on others of its own kind. Crime, especially for revenge, is very much in style. If you drive insanely dangerously in this new car, that wil make you a really really cool guy. Why? what happened to telling about the product as it is, what it's good for, etc. rather than pushing the "fantasy image" you can create for yourself? Why do we need murder and cannibalism to sell children's cereals?

Why is it that when I flip my remote through all the channels, every one of them, within 15 seconds or less, shows a grisly bloody murder with guts onthe pavement, or blood running down someone's face, or a young girl being raped, or a beautiful woman savagely shaking her genitals into the camera?

The answer is grim but simple; any TV producer will tell you in an instant "It's what the people want." It's what human society in the most developed countries of the world have chosen, and we are choosing. If it's not your choice or mine, we have gone along with it and let it happen in the name of: freedom of speech or democracy or majority rule or profit margin or something else. Somehow those reasonable ideas have created a human society that is no longer reasonable, but seriously out of control. Some of us sit in front of the TV set wondering why we can't find anything to watch if we're not in the mood for blood and guts, horror and death, assault and rape. "Gee, my boyfriend/girlfriend and I are not in the mood for that tonight. Isn't there anything else?" No, not really. Not much. Violence dominates the menu. Add to this the fact that our techno-toys have facilitated a society that is no longer even social, we don't even talk to each other except synthetically over mechanical devices instead of face-to-face. Parents don't talk to their children. We give them TV and video games to keep them quiet.

In past generations, hard times, wars, accidents, tragedies, and natural disasters used to bring people closer together to help each other. Now those events are simply the routine headlines on the 10 o'clock news. The film shows the sidewalk where the teen was shot or stabbed to death, the crowd of "friends" trying to get on-camera. and the pile of notes to the deceased, the cheap grocery store candles and flower bouquets, as the friends/survivors "celebrate" another murder. They celebrate the death, and now this person is a star on TV.

And they are already busy planning revenge. To get back at the rival gang. To get back at the police for doing their job. Everybody thinks they are right and everybody else is wrong. Well, EVERYBODY CAN'T BE THE ONLY ONE that counts, but everyone believes they are, or ought to be. That's another thing we have inherited from the fantasy mindset of the video life.

We have made ourselves numb and casual about suffering and death. We don't even care or notice unless it is somebody we know, and then we are outraged. This too is a product of the fantasy mindset so many people live in now. All those other people aren't real, only WE are. Any reasonably smart person can see that this is not going to work, but we don't want to see, so we just don't.

If you as an individual and intelligent human being are NOT willing to take responsibility for your own life and your influence in this world, don't read any further. You won't like what it says.

Where are we going with this, as a human race? How have we become so violent, homicidal, and suicidal? So isolated from reality and each other? Because we CHOSE it, and we keep on choosing it. You chose it. The responsibility can't be denied. Everyone who allows violence, rape and murder into their home, their minds, and their children's games and TV shows, is responsible for this.

These are harsh words, but the truth is, you and I, as individuals are the most important factor in what our world is today and what it becomes. We as adults influence our children's and our associates' mental and spiritual health more than we realize. What we allow, or simply ignore as unimportant, is creating the kind of world we don't really want.

Many people (TV ratings seem to prove that the vast majority of people) enjoy the grotesque inhuman violence and grisly bloody pathological murderer plots of all those crime shows; and find these things horrors amusing and entertaining. Commercials too, with crazy stunts of reckless driving, advertise that this car will make you very smart and stylish. This car, and law-breaking dangerous driving will make you more of a Man. And that car will make you a successful woman CEO. All of this is absurd, but it sells cars. We are idiots to fall for this, but most of us unconsciously do, because we don't really think about it.

We don't think; that's the problem. We live vicariously a fantasy life through highly sophisticated electronic toys and tools. Few of us now still communicate on a personal level. Instead we text and tweet and e-mail with as few words as possible. Not even words, just letters. LOL. OMG. We do not live consciously or mindfully. Where are we going with this?

If your personal values do not love violence, hatred, murder, and insanity, then stop embracing them. Just simply stop watching; change the channel when the commercial comes on; don't buy the product. It costs nothing, not even time to do this: Don't allow violence and hatred and murder and insanity into your mind, your heart, or your home. Don't give your children toys and games with vivid images of violence and hatred and murder to play with, and don't display those things on your TV set or movies.

Children's and young people's minds are still forming. They are like sponges – taking everything in, learning what's "normal" and what's "right." They are in the process of forming their lifelong character, and their personal code of ethics and beliefs. As adults, our job in the world is to help them learn and grow in the best way to have good health and a good life. Please don't unintentionally teach death and destruction to anyone, especially children and young people. Please take this seriously. They are the future of our world. Please THINK as you make choices for them and for yourself, because your own choices powerfully influence their growing minds.

The level of violence has risen terrifyingly in one generation, and children are bullying, raping, and killing each other at school and in the streets. The suicide rate for teens keeps climbing alarmingly. This is how we, the current generation, have created this world we live in. The only way it can be changed is by changing the common mind – the accepted "normal" of human society. And you can do something about it.

It's not that we don't have good minds; we all do. When we make a solid decision stop accepting death and destruction as being "normal," wars will begin to decrease, and some day might actually end. The reason we have wars in our world is because most of the people want war, and the rest of us tolerate it, or believe that war is appropriate or unavoidable. But you don't really have to be one of those people. We have create our word by our beliefs and our actions upon them. If we change our awareness, and change our minds, the actions will naturally follow, and the world will change.

You are a unique human being with a free will and a powerful soul, created in the image of God, and given the power of choice and change. You certainly are not obligated to teach your children terrorist skills and murder as if they were something normal, like their games and TV shows are doing. You have a mind; you are an individual and spiritual being, you have been given the choice and the power to create the life you really want for yourself, your children, and the people who matter to you. You don't have to follow the crowd just because it's easier. It's not really easier when it creates a life and a world you don't want.

Whatever you choose, what you hold in your thoughts and beliefs, whether consciously or unaware, the universe will unfailingly deliver and manifest. This is the primary law of the universe; it's how the universe works. If you are saying now "Oh that's just a lot of B.S." be assured, the laws of the universe don't care, they will work the same way regardless, whether you acknowledge them or not. The universe is not powered by your individual thoughts, but you are, and your world is.

Our global world desperately needs an "attitude adjustment," but that can only happen one mind at a time. Take a moment now, to think about it. Are you living consciously? Are you really fully aware of the choices you are making each day? The habits you are keeping? and what your habits are showing (by your example) to others around you?

Consider this: You always have the power to change your mind. Your mind is 100% yours. Nobody, and nothing, has access to it, except as you allow. You can and do choose what you allow. And whatever you allow to influence your mind, shapes your life. Ultimately it shapes your actions, and your world.

By who and what we are, we create the world we live in. Take this responsibility seriously. Change your mind and you really can change the world.