Arbeit macht frei
Work makes people free
-Inscription on the entrance to the
Auschwitz concentration camp

By now everybody knows the real significance and meaning of that inscription on the concentration camp gate. As with many other things the Nazis took a legitimate concept and adapted it to their own evil and corrupt purposes.

However, although that expression is no longer used in polite Jewish circles, people cannot deny that the original concept behind it was and remains legitimate. It is important for people to work. If people do not work they collapse and may fall apart. We see what happens when some people reach retirement age, especially if they retire earlier than others around them and their life ceases to have meaning.

It is important to work. It is important to have a structure for the day. It is important have a reason to get up in the morning and to do worthwhile things so that you feel that you are accomplishing something. For most people this work may also be therapeutic.

However, you don't need arbeit in order to be frei. There are other ways in which you can do and accomplish worthwhile things in a productive way so that your life will have meaning as well. Some of these things do not necessarily have a pecuniary motive. To the contrary, you can do something for society.

If you think about yourself in the long chain of tradition and you do certain things to leave behind for a better world, for your well-being, for your own knowledge at any age, you will also have meaning for life. You may have your own unique and special way of looking at the world or of improving things in the world. Although your concepts may not bear fruit in your generation or even in the forseeable future, it may still be a good idea to initiate things, to leave your concepts behind. Maybe at some time in the future people will see things differently, in a different and better world and they will be able to adapt some or all of your concepts. At that time it will be worth it.

How many times have you seen things in which somebody started a new concept or there was a new invention and you read that many years before so-and-so had already thought about this concept and he wrote about it, and they present that idea. It happens all the time. Things need to germinate. Important ideas and concepts have to be started by somebody, the idea has to spring forth, to be put into the world, to go into the air. Others read about it, many people may laugh at it, many others may reject it, but many years later you will be considered the father of your new concept or idea.

If you have innovative ideas or concepts, write them down and publicize or publish them, if you can. Let the world see about them. Nobody is going to vote on what people do now. Nobody is going to say hey, nobody does that kind of thing that you have, your great idea. People may reject it, but that's okay. Give the world your ideas. Share your concepts. Share the things that are going on in your head. Let other people know about them.

The world will be a richer place for your comments and someday in the future, if your comments do have merit, they are likely to be put into practice and perhaps at that time you will be able to look back from Above or othes may discover the validity of what you wrote and that too will have an impact on the new developments and those changes.

It will be similar to when Columbus discovered America, but American itself had been discovered previously by Amerigo Vespucci and he was the real father of America. Like Leonardo da Vinci, who made many discoveries that required the implementation of advanced concepts in electricity and electronics, but today we see that all of his dreams, all of his thoughts came true and were even greater than he had imagined or expected.

Don't keep your ideas in your tummy because they are not politically correct. If you're not going to do regular work, then work on your mind, work on your thoughts and leave them for the world. Let everybody else become more frei as a result of your arbeit or as a result of your thoughts, concepts, and dreams. Let everybody else know about them.

Make the world a better place, if not in your lifetime then maybe centuries or millenia later. Share your ideas with the world. Let everybody know about it. Let everybody know about them.

You do owe it to those future generations.