Leveraging Oatmeal

In the new world, you should make other areas of life more like oatmeal, for it is at once warm, nutritious and satisfying. Plus, it’s easy to add other healthy items to cooked oatmeal. Among my favorites (as you know) are dried cherries, golden raisins, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, brown sugar and shredded coconut – in various combinations (as you also know).

Start with a trivial item like chairs. To use the oatmeal analogy, give the production and distribution of chairs a consistently beneficial outcome. Otherwise they will vary from sinfully luxurious chairs to hard metal folding chairs used for mass assemblages (e.g., schools, municipal facilities). The latter is so far removed from the oatmeal-like qualities that I would like to see replicated throughout Earth 2.0.

Your philosophy has been, as I understand it, to let people figure everything out for themselves. I would ask you to challenge your assumptions and consider becoming more involved in our affairs. Every good actor benefits from a good director, who provides support and offers recommendations. To improve our performance, why don’t you be the director? You kind of are in so many other areas. It really wouldn’t be a stretch.

Of course, you have to like oatmeal for my scheme to work. Some people just don’t care for it. They are probably petitioning you at this very moment to make automobile shopping more like drinking a yogurt smoothie. I have no problem with that.

Tip Jars?

Hey, will there be tip jars in the future? Or will you see to it that everyone is adequately compensated for their daily labor? Example: When I buy a cup of coffee, I feel obliged to contribute to the disproportionately large tip jar (half the size of the cash register and twice the size of anything else on the counter). If I leave without enriching the staff, will they collectively curse the day I was born? Will they remember me and weaken my next cup of coffee?

I would rather the merchant add five or ten cents to the price of a cup of coffee. Take the fickle consumer out of the equation. Eliminate behind-the-back cursing and awkward face-to-face encounters. The highest life form on the planet deserves better than this. I’m not sure how you solve the tip jar problem from reoccurring on Earth 2.0, God. I will leave that in your capable hands.

Come to think of it, will there be jobs in the future? If you are serious about completely redesigning the human race after you destroy all life on earth (i.e., Apocalypse), why should people have to “earn” a living?

My Snowy Fate

On my walk this morning to procure chicken legs, red wine and bathroom spray, I encountered a gentle snowfall and moderate winds. Neither of these troubled me because I was born in this climate and have returned to it willingly. Fate has assigned me to be cold a few months out of the year, which I suppose is better than being blind or paralyzed on a consistent basis.

As you lay out the framework for Earth 2.0, I hope you'll take a fresh look at bestowing major physical impediments on some people. The only justification, in my view, is that you're making them pay for being nasty in a previous life. I could live with that, as long as it was clear to everyone. But reincarnation is not widely accepted, so many of us are puzzled by these hardships.

While you're sorting that out, I would ask you not to fuss with the weather variations that currently exist on our planet. It makes us northerners anticipate spring, cherish summer and cling to autumn with our entire being. We are alive with promise and joy for much of the year. On the other hand, those who live near the equator wait patiently for a mild breeze, and when it comes they are likely to slaughter a calf and dance outdoors for a week. People all over the world are delighted when the weather changes in their favor. And they invariably thank you. That has to feel good!