If you’re on an airplane and suddenly the oxygen masks drop down from the ceiling, by now, we all know that even if you’re sitting next to your kids, you put the oxygen mask on yourself FIRST. I think we all understand the good sense of this practice.

I believe that we all have to apply this common-sense practice to the issues that we all face in the world today.

Fix yourself first before you deal with the rest.

Consider why this pandemic happened in the first place. I believe it is because we, the people, created it by letting down our guard and losing our higher consciousness of morality, of sensitivity to others, of our grasp of the concept of honesty, and of our respect of our fellow man. The polarization that exists between races, politics, religions, and ideals can only engender hatred. And hatred will only eventually evolve to murder, war, cyber war and, yes, pandemic.

In the decades of the AIDS crisis I lost over a hundred friends. Having lived through that time, I will always believe that AIDS was a direct result of the loss of moral integrity in the gay community previous to the crisis. I am not a gay man, but working in the theater during those decades I had many gay friends and associates, and I witnessed too often the rampant degradation of sexual behavior in the streets of the West Village of NYC, in the gay bars and in the baths and even in the discos. Simply put, sexual behavior among many gay men went way too far from the norm and so what was to stop it? Evil is evil’s worst enemy. Evil destroys evil.

The same fundamental exists today. The polarity between people, sexes, religion, countries and politics has created a great dis-ease among us all.

I have watched this dis-ease become so prevalent and people become so separate that hatred is now the controlling factor in our every day conversations. It’s OK to hate Trump, hate Republicans, hate Democrats, hate Iranians, Russians, Americans, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Black, White, Brown, Yellow … whatever. My mom used to tell me, “You don’t hurt anyone by hating them; only yourself.” The definition of the word “hate” is “passionate dislike.” We have become passionate in our dislikes. Our leaders have passionate dislikes of one another. Hatred rules.

When hatred rules, we have war, we have dis-ease among mankind.

We get what we create.

So how do we fix it? I am watching the pandemic force people to be more sensitive to one another, create more compassionate responses from man to man, person to person, to unify families against the evil that seems to be at our doorstep, to force people to pray more consistently, to respect the new laws of home and travel and business and even food shopping. I’ve watched the level of personal respect among strangers being raised to more sensitive levels. Even a polarized Congress has come together to vote “yes” to help the people they represent. In our neighborhood there are a group of people who go around each day to the homes of seniors and offer to shop for them. I found myself calling after our mailman yesterday to say “Thank you” for continuing to work and bring our mail.

So how do we fix it?

Maybe some doctor or scientist will invent the right chemicals that will stop the virus, but that won’t fix the problem. The problem starts with each of us. Each of us, first, has to put on our own oxygen mask. Each of us, first, has to raise our own conscious and do our part to heal the evil that affects or infects us all. We each must clean up our own thought first – working moment to moment, day by day to live better lives, to be a better person. To love more.

How do we love more? We love more by forgiving. We love more by letting go of our prejudice. What is prejudice? Pre-judging. Racism is pre-judging. Because we are white, or black or green does not make us better or worse than others. We know this – most of us actually do know this, but we have to practice it – moment to moment.

We who think we’re already good, must become better.

We must each take a good hard look at our lives, at our thoughts, at our level of consciousness and first recognize where we can become a better example of the human race. Can we become a more spiritual human?

It strikes me at this moment that here is the solution to the pandemic. Can we become a more spiritual human? Not “Can we?” No. We simply must. That is doing out part in saving the world. Then we are not at the result of a pandemic. If we can make this promise to ourselves, and then go forward and practice it, we shall triumph. I know this is the Truth. I commit to this. Yet just yesterday I had a complete failing moment. So today I shall start again. I plan to stay ahead of this supposed evil. Please join me.

I also attach a song I wrote and produced around seven years ago that Jenny Burton knocked out of the box. Julia recently rediscovered it in our files and brought it back to life by making it our Inspirational Song Of The Week. Click here to listen. Put on them headphones and crank it up. It turns out it was written seven years ago for today.