Don't Dream Its Over.

Another favourite song of mine.

By vocalist/ songwriter: Neil Finn.

Don't Dream it's Over.

By Australian / New Zealand Band: Crowded House.

Tap or click on link for song.

Don't Dream its Over

(Agreed: Digital Anvil )

Worldviews? Are we Spectators and Participants ?

 

 Worldviews?

 Are we spectators a-n-d participants? 

 

Read any eNewsletter, book or track any article process in any platform of social media and you will witness a collision of different worlds. Everyday that goes by there is a report of controversy, debate, violence, scandal and conflict between individuals and among nations. These range from minor arguments to catastrophic events.

human to human: 

 To be human involves bumping up against other humans who see the world very differently to us. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, nothing can protect us from that reality. When confronted with this in both subtle and direct ways. many of us can feel uncomfortable, threatened, afraid, anxious and perhaps angry.

This essay introduces the concept of how a view of one's life -journey may depend on one or more  highly influential systems of thought or way of looking at the world.

 Each system is the articulation of a world view. The term world view comes from the German word Weltanschauung. It is a word social commentators like to use. We may be unaware of it, but each of US has a world view. It is an important concept to grapple with in order to understand reality. 

 

worldview: what is It? 

A world view may be understood as a framework or set of fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our place in it. This framework could be thought of as being like the frame of a house'--that is not seen, but is crucial to the Way our reality IS constructed and held together. It supports our beliefs, our actions and our plans and hopes for the future. It gives shape to our lives and creates the space in which we live and think,speak, act and dream. This frame is our frame. It might be the same as some, but is very different from others.

 

lens: our eyes have them and so do we. 

Our world view acts as the lens through which we view the world. We might not look at the lens, but we do look through it, and it will largely determine what we see in front of us. That lens can be very different for different people, and produce vastly divergent ways of understanding reality.

 

The nature of different and conflicting world views can present to us a vision of the world and reality that is distinct and very different to others.

 

 worldviews: how are they formed?

Significantly but relevant to one's way of thinking, one's worldview, is the how, when and who raised us. What and where one is taught is highly relevant and important too.

Childhood, Formal education, work-life and other accretions or layers of  beliefs make up our personal view or belief system through time.

 

random views or beliefs ? almost! 

 

Something as simple as a  catchy advertising slogan to a tome of a book can affect our personal frame of understanding or reference. 

It is my contention that most of what we believe is made up of un-appraised elements of the world around us. Almost unconsciously, snippets, lines of text, ,slices of pages, words,phrases,pictures, graphics,narrations, memes and lyrics that we embrace or reject can comprise our world view.

 Our worldview can change even with our moods ,location and who we are with daily.

I also believe that much of what we choose to believe is not necessarily logical,nor absorbed reason-ably.

Of course part of our world view is unchangeable and remains largely permanent. But when we encounter another worldview, we could clash with it and therefore alter  or harden our  belief system accordingly.

On the other hand,an innocuous, minor belief if embraced can transform one's thought system instantly with implications for the rest.

Our hormones, if followed, can instantly alter our long-held convictions. Such are our emotions which can assail or confirm our worldview on a day to day basis 

love: the ultimate agent of change.

Most significantly the most powerful  element of all-- Love can and does  truly affect our reasoning or logical worldview no matter how endearingly held. We hear of enemies becoming friends when the other is embraced or have joined forces to counter evil opposition.

If you've read up to here, thanks, I shall not labour with the main  points any further.

Perhaps you have digested the meat of my essay and agree on principle.

how do we determine a person's worldview, you may ask?

The answers that we give to these 4 questions  below provide an indication of the world view that we hold.

James Sire, who has spent decades thinking about how to describe world views suggests that world view may be discovered in the answers you and I give to four key questions

1|

Who am I? What is the nature and task of the human being?

 

2I

 Where am I? What is the nature of the world and universe  that we live in? Do I see the world and universe as personal, ordered and meaningful  or chaotic. cruel and random?

 

3I

 What's wrong? Why is it that my world appears to be not as it's supposed to be? How do I make sense of evil?

 

4I

 What is the solution? Where do I find hope for some peace, meaning and direction?

( Agreed: Edited,Reworked and Final Form by Digital Anvil )

Initially based on the book: Worldviews. Edited by Simon Smart.

The Matilda Effect:

If you are a woman or a girl,you might like to read this.

If you are a man or a boy,you should read this too.

She kept finding women in old photographs working in laboratories and listed on research teams, yet when she read the published papers those same women had vanished.

In the late nineteen sixties at Yale University, Margaret Rossiter sat in the archives surrounded by boxes of scientific records. She was researching the history of American science for her dissertation. It was supposed to be straightforward academic work, a simple tracing of discoveries and breakthroughs. But something kept unsettling her. In photograph after photograph she saw women standing at benches, working with equipment, included on laboratory rosters. Yet when she read the papers, the award citations, and the official histories, the women were gone. Their names were missing. Their contributions erased as if they had never existed.

Margaret realized she had uncovered a pattern that stretched across centuries. Women had always been present in science, but the record had quietly pushed them aside.

Born in nineteen forty four, Margaret grew up during the early years of the feminist movement. But as she read deeper into archival collections, she discovered that the problem she was witnessing was not new. Women had been doing scientific work since the earliest days of research laboratories. They had simply not been acknowledged. She found countless examples. Women who designed experiments, only to see male colleagues publish the results without giving them credit. Women whose discoveries were assigned to supervisors. Women listed in acknowledgments instead of as full authors. Women passed over for awards that went to male collaborators who contributed far less.

It was not random. It was not accidental. It was systemic.

Margaret needed a name for what she was documenting. She found it in the work of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a nineteenth century suffragist who had written about this exact pattern. Margaret called it the Matilda Effect. The term captured something that had been hidden in plain sight for generations and made the invisible visible. Once you knew the term, you saw it everywhere.

Her dissertation became a lifelong mission. Margaret spent more than thirty years researching and writing a landmark three volume series titled Women Scientists in America. She read letters, examined institutional policies, followed individual careers, and gathered evidence that proved women in science had been consistently undercredited and structurally excluded. Her work faced resistance. Many scholars dismissed women’s history as political rather than academic. Others insisted she was exaggerating bias. Margaret did not argue emotionally. She simply presented data. She showed documented cases. She showed patterns repeated across decades and institutions.

Eventually the evidence became undeniable.

Her research helped restore recognition to scientists who had been pushed out of the story. Rosalind Franklin, whose X ray work made the structure of DNA visible. Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission but was omitted from the Nobel Prize. Nettie Stevens, who discovered sex chromosomes but received little credit. Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin, who discovered the composition of stars but was dismissed at first. And countless other women whose names had nearly disappeared from the historical record.

Margaret changed the narrative. Science was no longer the tale of solitary male geniuses. It became a story of collaboration that included women who had been written out.

The Matilda Effect became standard terminology. Scholars used it to examine how credit is assigned, how publications list authors, who receives awards, and who is left out. Universities updated curricula. New biographies were written. Exhibits were created. Entire fields began re examining the stories they had accepted as truth.

Margaret received the Sarton Medal, the highest honor in the history of science field. More importantly, she reshaped how we understand scientific progress. She revealed that much of the history we had been taught was incomplete at best and deliberately distorted at worst.

The Matilda Effect did not end in the past. It continues today. Women scientists still receive fewer citations, fewer awards, and fewer promotions. But now the pattern has a name. Now the bias can be measured. And once a pattern is visible, it becomes harder to ignore.

Margaret Rossiter showed that women scientists had always been present. They had simply been erased. She spent fifty years bringing them back into the light. Because of her, their names are known. Because of her, the pattern cannot hide. Because of her, the story of science is finally beginning to reflect the truth.

Fun Fact: Margaret Rossiter first identified the Matilda Effect while studying forgotten letters in dusty boxes that had gone untouched for decades, proving that sometimes the most important discoveries begin with a question no one has thought to ask.

If one historian can restore the voices of generations who were written out, what else might change when we decide to tell the full story instead of the convenient one?

#WomenInScience #HiddenHistory #TruthInResearch #ScientificLegacy #VoicesRestored

Sources

Margaret Rossiter

American Historical Association

Oxford University Press

Ceasefire: Sudanese Forces Reject Plan.

Ceasefire plan for Sudan has been rejected.

International governments have called on warring Sudanese militias to negotiate a ceasefire this week, with neither side accepting a proposal led by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) rejected the plan, partly due to the UAE’s involvement, having previously accused the country of “complicity in genocide”.

The RSF had earlier signalled it would accept the U.S/UAE plan, and said this week it would implement a ceasefire.

However, the U.S. has since said the RSF didn’t formally accept their proposal.

Background

Sudan was ruled for decades by dictator Omar al-Bashir, who faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The SAF removed al-Bashir with RSF support in 2019.

Democratic elections were supposed to follow, but the SAF and RSF worked together again to overthrow the remainder of the existing government and took power in 2021.

In April 2023, the partnership fell apart, resulting in the ongoing violent conflict between the two groups.

Since then, the violence between RSF and SAF has been ongoing and has caused a humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

The UN has not provided a death toll for this conflict, though estimates put the toll as high as 150,000.

According to the World Food Programme, almost half of the country’s population – 21.2 million people – is experiencing acute food insecurity. Famine has been declared in two cities.

In July 2025, the Migration Policy Institute found the violence had forced at least 12 million people from their homes.

Genocide

Sudanese and international groups have accused the RSF of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Genocide is defined under international law as killing members of a “national, ethnic, racial, or religious group,” or making their survival impossible.

Ethnic cleansing has been described by UN experts as removing members of an ethnic or religious group from an area “by violent or terror-inspiring means”.

This year, International Criminal Court Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameen Khan said her team is actively gathering evidence of war crimes in Sudan.

Quad plan

In September, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and the UAE proposed a ceasefire plan for Sudan.

While the exact details have not been released, the group released a statement outlining some of their ideas, including a three month truce to allow “the swift entry of humanitarian aid,” followed by a permanent ceasefire.

The statement said Sudan’s future government “is for the Sudanese people to decide... not controlled by any warring party”.

The SAF currently runs Sudan’s government, while the RSF seeks to form a new one.

Response

Earlier this month, the RSF signalled willingness to accept the ceasefire proposal, and last week said it was implementing a three month truce.

However, the RSF has continued to bomb and carry out attacks on SAF-held territory and infrastructure.

The SAF has rejected the RSF’s ‘truce’ and the proposal, calling it the “worst [plan] yet”. The SAF said the plan would “eliminate” them and keep the RSF “in its positions”.

The SAF also criticised the UAE’s involvement, repeating allegations it is supplying weapons to the RSF. The UAE has denied these allegations.

International observers have documented the movement of weapons on planes from the UAE to an airport in Chad near its border with Sudan, to RSF training camps.

In March, Sudan sued the UAE in the International Court of Justice (the ‘World Court’), alleging it provided “unlimited support” to the RSF, enabling the group to perpetrate “genocide, forcible displacement, and murder.”

The ICJ threw out Sudan’s case in May, saying that while it was “deeply concerned” by the conflict, it did not have the power to hear the case.

The UAE and Sudan have both signed the UN’s Genocide Convention, which obliges countries to prevent it and to punish those who carry it out.

One section of the convention states that countries can take disputes, “including those relating to the responsibility of a [country] for genocide,” to the ICJ.

The UAE is not party to this specific section, which meant the ICJ couldn’t hear a case where it was a defendant.

Calls to end

At a press conference last week, U.S. envoy to Africa Massad Boulos called on both sides to accept the plan in full.

Boulos is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany.

The European Parliament also passed a motion last week calling for a ceasefire, noting “there is no viable military solution to the conflict”.

Politico reported representatives of the UAE were present at the EU Parliament negotiating the language of the motion.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell of The Daily Aus. ( TDA Newsletter) Courtesy of TDA with Thanks.

 

Has Humanity lost its way?

 

 Moments

Some of our greatest insights, aha moments or light-bulb moments come as flashes of illumination.  Others arrived after sinking in as lessons of maturity birthed 10 or 20 years prior. 

Even a few others arrive with freshly ground insight. Learned wholly with a fresh perspective on an old idea.

Any of the above insightful ways are taught in the crucible of life are valid for our experience and guidance.

 

Happiness is default rollercoaster

My happiness as does yours fluctuates for a myriad of reasons.

The world teaching is one of a broad spectrum of answers.  

However Jesus sought others and taught them while tracking slowly on a narrow dusty path.  Rarely straying  more than 100 miles from Jerusalem. 

While this may  be true, we modern men and women learn entirely differently today. Most of us learn formally at school, college and university. Some travel overseas to gain wider knowledge.  Most would agree with the statement that experience is the best way to  apply and learn. From the school of hard knocks as it were. 

Life is a progressive schooling or life- long learning. 

So it should come with little surprise  that many of us learn by having our knowledge engraved into our heart and mind. By repeating what we learned over and over again. Until the " message "  fully sinks in. We  can learn all kinds of things by rote,repetition and choice. It's been said that by personal interest is our better choice for retaining knowledge. 

Abundance from Obedience

Author Dallas Willard believes that Jesus links a broad path to a life of abundance with travelling the narrow road of obedience. If happiness were exclusively link-ed with financial abundance then Billionaires would have the greatest reason for happiness.

But as we all suspect happiness sometimes eludes the greatest, the richest, the ones with the most toys.

While watching a documentary on the slums of the Philippines I could not help observe that the very poor children were often the happier ones!

What was their secret? 

How with so little  were they able to smile, play laugh and love each other? While the obviously wealthy are subject to illness, calamity and " mental torment"

One could note that wealth didn't seem to confer happiness, at least not the freely given kind. Which it seemed the Filipinos exhibit or possess.

 It would seem the more one has the unhappier one is?  Could that be true?

Of course by that line of reasoning a middle course of happiness is achieved by not having the most nor by having the least. Can we really  be mostly happy but not ecstatically so ? If we limit our purchases or materialism, take a middle road, then we are neither greedy nor paupers. But this makes it a game.Is happiness a foolish game?

It would seem a logical conclusion. 

Not too much,not too little. 

Greater minds than mine have thought so. The ancients, particularly the Greek philosophers  thought so. The hedonistic, the stoic (and the devil sells both) supposed so. The range of thought available isn't small.

 But my mind returns to the freely happy playful children whose smiles are imprinted upon my heart.Including children of Syrian refugees in a more recently viewed documentary and in real life.Though they seemed more guarded in their play.

So little, yet so happy.

Is there a secret here to be revealed? Or have Western societies lost their way temporarily? What about the other societies,have they lost their way as well?

The Ancient of Days has revealed to us his ways. Opening his book is all it took for me a half century ago. Could knowledge equal happiness?

Could happiness be learned like knowledge?

Is happiness learned by choice?

Or is happiness always organic?

Is happiness a decision?

The foundation of Western civilization was a combination, a mix of the Judeo-Christian and Greek and Roman traditions. But I hastily add that like Paul the great Apostle states," I haven't arrived or achieved  such open, lasting perfect happiness. But i can be content."

However I haven't left the  narrow path often fraught with no easy labour, loss and suffering  climbing heaven-ward to reach the sublime. A goal that all seek,when awaken from sleep.

The Ancient of days has revealed to us his ways. All it took was one book.

Stepping Out:

 

 

 

I   Feel   Like   A   Man   Stepping   Out   Of   The   Dark   Into   A     Dream. 

 

 Eagles Fly Alone, Crows Fly in Groups:

 

 Can You Stand Alone?

 

Every great idea and dream must be established within you and you alone. There will come times when only you will believe it is going to happen. Can you stand alone? Can you believe when it looks as if no one else does?

John Gardner declared, "The cynic says, 'One man can't do anything: I say, "Only one man can do anything."

Nobody can do it for you. No one will do it for you.'

Henry W Longfellow put it this way:

"Not in the clamor of the crowded streets, not in the shouts or plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat"

You can't delegate your thinking, dreaming, or believing to others.

Thomas Edison, (who claimed he could think better be cause of his partial deafness,) said, 

"The best thinking has been done in solitude, The worst has been done in turmoil."

 Eagles fly alone; crows fly in groups.

 (Agreed: Digital Anvil )

(Above post initially based on You can do It  by J. Mason.)