Made with the best bullshit on earth.
Alternate title: Hold Yours, Take Theirs
Do you want to get rich? I’ve got a secret equation.
Money In – Money Out = How Rich You Are
There are two ways to get rich given my secret formula. Get more money or give less money. If you do both… Whamo! Well, the first thing you know, Old Jed’s a Millionaire.
Why aren’t there more millionaires then? Money’s got to be the most realistic illusion ever. What else could blow the tops off mountains, create Gods, pull oil 18,000 feet below the Earth’s surface? The concept of money built universities, sent mavericks into space, birthed billions of people, created the Internet. There aren’t more millionaires because the minority money masters understand the nature of fear, passion, doubt, hope — the human mind’s freeloaders.
Money is important only because everybody thinks it’s important. See the cycle? There’s a problem now though — people are doing important shit for free. Purpose is beginning to trump money. When I say “beginning” I mean really just beginning — as in, the past couple of years. Look at projects like Linux where some of the top-rated programmers work 20-30 hours per week for free. Why? For Purpose.
Purpose Currency is really fucking up traditional money paradigms, and large corporations are figuring out they need to contribute something behind a legacy of wreckage. Organic, free trade Coke? Can’t we sort of see right through this? I’m starting to think the term “organic” is mostly a marketing tool anyway. I prefer, “backyard-grown” or maybe, “made by people I know/trust.”
I spend a lot of time on the streets of NYC carefully observing people and wondering what the hell they’re doing or what the hell they’re thinking. Why do people live in cities? Usually, it’s for access to money, jobs, culture. Really, we’re just a hive of organisms trading illusions. I’ll give you my bullshit for yours.
I’m afraid that if your industry or business exists solely to make profit, you will not exist after the transition. The demand for Bullshit seems to be diminishing.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
People are so conditioned to want money that it blows their minds when you don’t operate under the same paradigm. Case in point: I had a small company that I wanted to sell. I put a reasonable price on it and had a young fellow interested, but he didn’t have enough cash. I lowered the price and carried the note with no interest. He was totally into acquiring this company, but when I did that, he was suddenly suspicious and the deal fell through. So I turned around and sold it for more to someone who had to get a bank loan, much to my chagrin, but I wanted to sell it and was tired of screwing around.
People are so conditioned to think in the terms they’ve had imprinted on them by the banking cartel that they think it’s subterfuge and anarchy when someone else doesn’t. Hope things are changing.
Once you see what money really is (or isn’t), the whole world looks different. It’s really an incredible personal transition, but one which very few people are even close to making yet.
“I’m afraid that if your industry or business exists solely to make profit, you will not exist after the transition.” Gees, I hope so. There is so much unproductive, useless work being done and crap being made for no other reason than profit.
I have to make a contention here, Tommy. Purpose is not BEGINNING to trump money, although it might be the beginning of your awareness of it. People have forsaken mammon for thousands of years. They simply have received little or no press.
Religion gets knocked around on this blog, and it is probably deserved, most of the time. However, I do not believe that it has received its fair treatment in this regard. Has RELIGION contributed to economic and social slavery, genocide, delusion, ignorance, etc/ad infinitum? YES, YES, and YES. It is a human instrument, like any tool, and can be used and manipulated in and out of accordance with its designed purpose.
BUT, religion is one area of the human story that has also given the space and opportunity to pursue Purpose throughout Time and Culture. The religious orders of Christian tradition have allowed for this pursuit of Purpose for over two thousand years. Jewish sects have been doing it even longer. Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and many other “isms” have thousands of years of rich and vibrant traditions of dismissing the banal pursuit of material wealth in favor of absolute devotion to Purpose.
Perhaps we should be a little more grateful for the legacy of religion, despite its heartbreaking shortcomings.
I believe that what we are now witnessing is a universal/secular recognition of what many religious traditions have been pointing to. This makes me excited, for we no longer have to attach the value-laden language of religion, and this helps to have a meaningful dialog.
Youbetcha.
Mia: Yeah, I hope so, too.
I think humanity’s (and my) fascination with “stuff” (see. “The Story of Stuff”) is running on the tracks at full speed toward the solid rock wall. In the middle of the wall is a hole the size of a person. The future lies through that hole, and we will only be able to take what fits through that hole with us. Unfortunately, money will still fit, so there needs to be an Electromagnetic Pulse generator installed to prevent electronic money from going through.
I nominate Mia to be the first Secretary of Usefulness. I get to be deputy Secretary, in charge of Technology Filtering and Simplification (I stand around and say, “What the FUCK do you need THAT for?” I inherited the post from my father, who said, “Is it necessary?”).
RE: “Really, we’re just a hive of organisms trading illusions. I’ll give you my bullshit for yours.”
So true…UNTIL we discover/uncover/recover WHAT REALLY MATTERS and live life On Purpose. Then you never go back. You’ve experienced the TRUTH; being anything less is a compromise of your integrity.
I was thinking about this and always come back to “What are people FOR?”
Why? …I think because money represents some chunk of a person’s life somewhere. Trading money and making money on trading money (with no necessary goods involved) is like buying and selling stock in slave ships: sure, YOU aren’t the one with a whip and a gun, so it’s not YOUR fault. How many lives are traded for a double decaf latte every day? How many Nigerians will die of lead poisoning because someone wants to stockpile gold bars? How many ocean species will die because someone didn’t want the government to ‘waste’ money on cold fusion research back in 1987?
“Money money money money money..we can’t keep doing this, Bob!” –”The Incredibles”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mPJwI7VEoI&NR=1
Your quote, “I’m afraid that if your industry or business exists solely to make profit, you will not exist after the transition,” totally reminded me of my asshole boss. He’s a total bullshit salesman.
Hey all,
Unfortunately, many never wake up to see how the money game works. Of those that do, many don’t wake up until they’ve played long enough to be wearing those fetters. I can see those fetters now, but now am also chained to the system in ways I wish I weren’t.
The other problem is that the rest of the world still lives by those fetters. People almost don’t want to hear it. Even if hearing it were to set them free. Or even if hearing it meant they had more ‘nice things’ down the road because they played the system better.
Yesterday and today I am walking fence for an old farmer who is running into some health problems. Although I walked most of it, the younger buck wanted to bring the gator along. which is fine because we needed the weedwhacker too. Something as simple as running an electric fence took quite a bit of fuel and machinery (I am sure the old man has a scythe around somewhere, but I am also equally sure it won’t have been sharpened since 1942).
All day I am working in this beautiful pasture, 120 acres maybe? There is a creek running through it, some really old field trees. Hundreds of bugs, birds, frogs.
I love this guy’s land, and I am thinking of ways he might reduce his workload and still make some money. I have all sorts of wierd hippie ideas, trying to figure out how to grow organics that hippies will pay more for. How to work back up some of his croplands by putting some cattle out to graze.
BUT, he still needs income, and running the number of cattle that could be grazed here and sold to folks wanting pasture beef might not work. Mind you, I’m hardly giving suggestions, and he is deeply conservative with his business model. But I am always asking about the business of farming and dairying (I’ve known this guy for 20 years).
The fact is that the small farmer is fukd trying to play in the regular environment. It’s like the corner shoe store selling against wal mart. If a fellow like him were completely debt free, then he could try all sorts of permaculture ideas, grass fed cattle or dairy for paleos ideas, prairie restoration ideas. All of which might be arguably better for the land and the consumer. But to get into this game at this point, means you need to take out fairly large loans, which means you have to pay a mortgage which means — the most profitable, standard business model, possible. Which in this corner of the world means renting out the acreage for standard corn or soy, along with all the associated modern american chemistry.
Re: Michael’s comment — Money is needed for land. The bankers basically own all the land because few people have the cash to buy it outright. So they sign a mortgage making the banker the owner until the note is paid off.
But land is now so over-priced that it’s unlikely to ever be paid off. Ditto for houses. Renting an apartment, even.
The astronomical rise in land and the structures built on it has made bankers and the rentier class the new royalty. The rest of us are just serfs trying to come up with the money/tribute to continue living on their land.
Michael: Thanks very much. A good descriptive view.
KJean wrote: “Money is needed for land.”
Technically, what is needed to acquire land is power. Money is substituted for power to take and hold land away from other people when laws are enforceable through civilization.
Nature gives nobody ownership of itself.
The average amount of income spent on food (U.S.) is about 10%. It used to be 40%. Farmers have lost 3/4ths of the spending dollar of consumers to crap that people don’t really need, simply because they were good at what they do.
The price of food needs to go up 400% before they get that power to hold land back.