{This is a continuation of yesterday's blog.}
Weaver says that the real answer--the only answer--is the fact that we in the U.S.A. have made more effective use of our human energies than any other people on the face of the globe--anywhere or at any time. It's a very simple answer, perhaps too simple to be readily accepted. He says that the purpose of his book is to dig beneath the surface and to seek the reasons underlying the reason.
In other words, just why does human energy work better here than anywhere else? And answering that question leads us into a whole string of questions, such as:
1) What is the nature of human energy?
2) How does it differ from other forms of energy?
3) What makes it work?
4) What are the things that keep it from working?
5) How can it be made to work better? more efficiently? more effectively?
The answers, even the partial answers, to these questions should be extremely helpful in contributing to future progress. In the last analysis, poverty, famine, and the devastions of war are all traceable to a lack of understanding of human energy and to a failure to use it to the best advantage.
Weaver says that textbooks stress war and conflict, rather than the causes of war and what might be done to prevent war. Instead, he's trying to see what can be learned from history as bearing upon the effective use of human energy, which advances progress--as against the misuse of human energy, which retards progress and leads to the destruction of life as well as health. So he reviews a few elementary facts--things we already know but often overlook.
Energy: Human vs. Nonhuman
1) This entire planet is made up of energy.
2) The atoms of air surrounding it are energy.
3) The sun pours energy upon this air and upon the earth.
4) Life depends on energy; in fact, life IS energy.
Weaver further says that doctors and nurses, farmers, sailors, construction engineers, weather forecasters, etc.--are keenly aware that men and women survive on this earth only because their energies constantly convert other forms of energy to satisfy human needs, and constantly attack the nonhuman energies that are dangerous to human existance. And he ends by saying that we shouldn't forget that there can be no progress except through the more effective use of our individual energies, personal initiatives, and imaginative abilities--applied to the things and forces of nature.
Energy at Work
Weaver next takes a closer look at human energy at work. He reminds us that we are the dynamos that generate the energy to turn the page of a book. Your brain-energy makes the decision and controls the movement of the muscle-pulleys and bone-levers of your arm, your hand, and your fingers. The energy used to turn a page is the same energy that created the book, down through centuries of time.
And it all comes down to the effective use of human energy, which operates according to certain natural laws, such as, your decision to turn the page released the energy to do it. Your will controlled the use of that energy...nothing else can control it. The decision to act and the action itself are always under your own control.
Half the week is gone! I'm sure you have accomplished a lot this week and I'm very proud of you.
Blessings...Mimi
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