If an open faucet is causing your home to flood, what do you do?

Pray to God to fix it?

Start bailing the water out?

Blame the person who left the water running?

Convince yourself the house is not actually flooding?

If your goal is to solve the problem, then the answer is simple: you turn the water off and then begin the clean up work.

It would be a sign of varying degrees of insanity (or ignorance) to genuinely want to solve the problem and simultaneously employ any or all of the solutions above.

We, as humans, come equipped with common sense. It was given by nature to ensure environmental equilibrium and harmony, even amongst our own human affairs.

Should we destroy the same environment that gives us life? Common sense says no. Hopefully, that's breathtakingly obvious.

The fact that the human race is doing just that — and employing analogues of the above solutions to address the consequences – tells us something is in urgent need of attention, and has been for some time.

Politics, personal ambitions, and other such egoic tendencies can override common sense. That's the problem.

Somebody who has a point to prove or craving to satisfy, like a child, will follow the logic of the ego, which speaks in the mind, instead of follow the logic of common sense, which speaks in the heart.

Doing so, rightly, produces a feeling of shame, which is intended to override the ego's override for next time. The ego doubles and triples down with further rationalisations and will even fight to the death to have its way, if need be.

Who can exercise enough restraint to follow common sense even if that means a blow to the aggressive ego?

We're about to find out.