When will we learn?

As I slowly begin to return to "normal" life (whatever that means) after months of immersion in Robert Schenkkan's Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, The Kentucky Cycle, I find I am left with a new intensity of conviction that whenever we act out of self-interest, greed, or revenge we drive ourselves -- and potentially generations of humanity to follow -- further from that for which we actually hunger.

When -- if ever -- will we come to understand that the root of that hunger (which we so often see as a desire for more of whatever it is that we think we crave -- more love; more attention; more power, influence, or prestige; more excitement; more money; more things) is, at its core, a longing to return to oneness, to innocence, to wholeness... even to the kind of connectedness we feel when we are part of something larger than ourselves; working together with others for the common good.

However flawed movements like socialism, communism, and the unions that were envisioned by my character, Mother Jones, might be, they have at their root an understanding that greed and inequity -- the impoverishment, enslavement, imprisonment or abuse of any group or class of people to feed an excess of wealth in others -- is simply wrong; is not only not what is best for humanity as a whole but inevitably triggers whole new cycles of resentment, entitlement and revenge.

When will we learn, I wonder.

When will we learn?