Ralph and Louie

Viewers of The Dream Hat either like Ralph and Louie the best, or think it is deeply sacrilegious.  I don't consider Ralph and Louie sacrilegious because at the end they realize "paradise is everywhere".  Ralph and Louie got their names from slang for right and left.  When I was younger people would give directions, "Go down a block and hang a ralph.  Go down another block and hand a louie."

Ralph and Louie represent people who agree on the fundamentals and fight to the death over insignificant details.  

There are three major western religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Muslim.  They all share the Ten Commandments and yet they are constantly at war.  I like the old story of the blind men and the elephant.  One blind man holds the elephant's trunk and declares, "The elephant is a snake".  One blind man holds the elephant's leg and declares, "The elephant is a tree."  One blind man holds the elephant's tail and declares,  "The elephant is a rope."  None of these blind men can experience the whole elephant at once.  If they fought the other blind men because they thought their limited point of view was the right one and everyone else was wrong, they would be like Ralph and Louie.  Nobody can see all of the elephant.  You have to be bigger than the elephant and have your sight.

And nobody can see all of God (or whatever you want to call that undefinable spirit) and to think you can is highly egotistical, arrogant, and probably blasphemous.  We all can see a piece of it. 

There was an old pop psychology book "I'm OK, You're OK" by Thomas Harris that popularized transactional analysis.  I'm very visual and I liked the chart it had, that broke down personal philosophy to its' simplest components.  This pretty well boils down every philosophy the world has created.

I'm Ok, You're Not OK:

I'm right and everything about you is wrong and if you take it to the logical extreme, it justifies murder in your mind.

I'm Not OK, You're OK:

You are right and everything about me is wrong and if you take it to the logical extreme, it justifies suicide in your mind.

I'm Not Ok, You're Not OK:

Everyone is all wrong and if you take it to the logical extreme, it justifies murder/suicide.

I'm OK, You're Ok:

Everyone's point of view is worth considering and has some validity.  Taken to its logical extreme, it is live and let live and we all survive.

This is why I threw in the line by Ralph and Louie, "You've got to choose a side, son.  Homicide.  Suicide."  By finding the differences between us, you are killing a part of humanity.  By finding what we have in common, we can build on our experience and grow.