A Commentary On Life

We Live In This World Of Our Own Creation

Many of us complain that we had nothing to do with it, it was this way when we got here and has not changed with our journey through life, and will not change with our passing.

I came to a realization recently about my own life and those of the people I have connected with over the years and in the creation of my career, my business, and SCARSSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS. that I thought I would share.

Why because I think there is something important in it.

Why do scamsScams A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. happen?

Is it because trusting people are taken advantage of? Yes, certainly, but also no, I do not think so.

I believe that scams happen because of a fundamental human need.

Regardless of the risks, human beings need something just as much as they need food and water, warmth and shelter.

They need a connection.

We, humans, are willing to do almost anything to obtain it.

Each of us needs a connection to others to survive.

In today’s world, it is so easy to strip away our connections. They fade away without us even being aware of it. Family, friends, even children go away. It’s not that they die, but they might as well – they are just gone from our lives. Of course, you can pick up the phone and call them, or maybe every few months when they realize the void in their lives they call you.

But ask yourself this? If you died right now, how long would it be before someone discovered the body?

For far too many, it would be weeks. The smell would be the thing that brought the police, not the concern of family or friends.

I recently came to the conclusion that I have no friends, no real friends, not the way we really think of them. Not the friends that people see regularly, go to lunch with, have a drink with, speak with daily. Don’t misunderstand, I have plenty of people I interact with all the time.

But are they real friends? No. They are coworkers, bosses, clients, etc. To be sure, I trust them, I count on them, I value them. They might note my absence but would not call the police to check on me, much less come and knock on my door. I no longer have any of those.

That is not to say I do not value or trust them. I appreciate each one immensely. But they are not the kind of real connections I wish I had.

Where did all of our connections go?

Were they ever that kind of connection?

What about family?

I have a large one. Hundreds of people. But it is not a family. Not even my children. Everyone has spread themselves to the four corners of the country or world. I did that too.

Some speak with me annually, some have not spoken with me for many years. Even my own children do not speak with me more than a few times a month, and in many of those cases, I have to call. Easily a week or two can go by without contact.

I regret incredibly, more than I can say, how much I wished I had spoken with my own parents more often before their passing.

Clearly, something is wrong with this world. Something is wrong with us. Something is wrong with me.

Did we do this to ourselves or did society do it to us?

We are increasingly a society of narcissists, focused on ourselves and our needs and no one else’s. Of course, we tell ourselves something quite different, but that is the day to day reality for most of us in the developed countries. The distances are beyond the point of no return. Most of us are more connected with characters on TV than our own family. We spend more time in the lives of fictional characters each day than in the lives of those we say we love. We did that, no one did it to us.

Politicians know this, especially those on the left who exploit our disconnection as a means of fomenting disaffection. They promise that only they can provide for us. But we don’t need them, we need connections and the rest will take care of itself. Long before we had a welfare state we had communities where villagers took care of their others, or was that fiction as well? We at least tended to stay put and so developed connected communities with real people we connected with and counted on every day.

It is ironic that the technology that was supposed to bring the whole world together has actually driven us farther apart. We used to understand distance, but we lost that. We used to understand loss, but we forgot that too – everything is instantly available online – but that is not connection. That is actually a disconnection – intermediation, but we used to be connected.

We used to understand communication. 50 years ago placing a phone call was a big deal and everyone wanted to talk. We planned our calls, even made appointments. We wrote letters with meaning and substance. Now a call is nothing. There are no letters, just fractional texts. We have lost how to communicate meaningfully with feeling and truth.

Don’t misunderstand, we all have affiliations, acquaintances, people we know – but those are not real connections. A marriage, if it is a good one has connection. But those disappear too.

What are we left with?

Are we just minds in a MATRIX of our own or someone else’s creation?

This brings us back to romance scams.

In a world of fundamental disconnection, we understand that something is missing. We know deep down inside that we feel more alone than ever. Yet, connection escapes us in the real world.

We are willing to risk anything for a connection.

Yet, the real world makes it harder than ever. If you are a man, you are scared to death to talk to a woman now – thank you Feminism. In the zeal for equality, everyone is more unequal than ever. Some of it needed to be lost – people are bullies and pressure people into situations that are uncomfortable, or worse. Yet at the same time, we have lost something so simple as just being able to talk to someone of the opposite sex without fear – every word must be measured and calculated not to offend. That is not to say that great things have not been achieved, they have, but everything comes at a cost.

If you are a woman then you are just as afraid as society paints men as violent and evil wrongdoers. Some are, but most are not.

We, therefore, turn to the online world where we believe it is safe to talk, where the risks seem lower. We can connect with people everywhere on the planet, but are those connections? Are they friends? Not really, because in the end what do we know of them?

Regardless, we think there has to be a connection out there in cyberspace for us.

We search and open ourselves up to the potential. A stranger comes along, and we are so needy, so desperate for a connection, any connection, that we ignore the risks, we ignore the red flags.

We see and hear things that do not feel right, but we ignore the obvious deception. We hunger so much for that connection that all other considerations fade away and we live in the glow of the connection – even if it is fake. For in those few days or weeks or months, we have a connection, we hav