Have you Ever been Swept Off Your Feet?

In both cases – whether the bubble was inflated with positive or negative energy – the participants in the bubble are being swept away further and further away from actual physical reality and start to see everything either ‘extremely negatively’ or ‘extremely positively’ – neither experience is grounded in reality – because the physical is neither positive or negative – it just is what it is.

And Then You Crash – Meconomics

In this little series, we’ve been investigating the phenomenon of inflation, how we in our daily lives participate in ‘inflating our reality’ and so, how we are on a personal level participating in the same principles/dynamics that we see playing out on a bigger scale when it comes to inflation, speculative bubbles and financial market crashes.

Welcoming New Life with Living Income Guaranteed

Comfort, security and nurturing are all things we wish are present when a baby comes into this world. Yet, these conditions are not a reality for many babies, as parents themselves like these things in their lives. In Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa, 3 to 5 babies are…

Humanity Washed Ashore

This was an excerpt of just one of the stories about the boy. Over the last few days, dozens have been written and published on various major news sites. What is more striking than the content of the posts, is the comments that are left on these articles. What is humanity’s response to such images, to such news?

Voting Fun – What does it Feel Like to Have a Say?

Now – before such increased direct political participation is a reality – let’s do a little test to see what it feels like. So – here are some mock-questions where you’re asked to give your input. Imagine that this relates to your direct reality (eg. your town) – and your answer has a weight that influences the outcome of the decision. Of course, in reality…

Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts

08 November 2015

Can we Live Simply Ever After?

When you tear down everything that makes life a burden, when you strip away everything that complicates life and sucks the joy out of it – there’s not ‘much’ left. Much from the perspective of: you can go without many things. Many things in our world currently make our life ‘fuller’ but not necessarily more ‘fulfilled’ – BIG difference. Have a look at what we have made ‘life’ to be – human life is super-complicated – it is true, we’ve made a terrific mess.

In the past 7 years, I’ve set out to discover what a person needs to be ‘happy’ – happy from the perspective of ‘not being in wanting’, where you have everything you need and there is nothing you are missing out on – your life is complete. Turns out – there’s not that much a person needs to have to be fulfilled, really. The more you remove the clutter, the clearer you see your relationship with yourself – which is the key to your own happiness.

If we had a blank slate – it would be easy to provide everyone with that which is needed, because it really is rather simplistic. The challenge is not in seeing what needs to be achieved – the challenge lies within creating the solution from where we are now. How to move from complexity to simplicity? Are we ready to live in simplicity, to simply live? Are we ready to let go of the clutter that we’ve given so much value to?

Have you ever watched those survival type TV shows where people have to survive on the bare minimum in the wild? Most of them will come out of such experiences with a new perspective on what’s really important in life and how most of the stuff we do and participate in, really doesn’t add value or support life /living in any way. And yet – how many of them actually follow through on implementing these fresh perspectives in the form of huge life changes? I daresay very few. Most of them will revert back to old habits, because everything in and of ‘human civilization’ is pushing each one to conform to the status quo. It seems to be the same with world change – everyone actually knows what does and doesn’t make us happy and fulfilled, and yet – there seems to be this fear of missing out and losing out if we were to change the status quo – because we’re all apparently so happy with how things are today. To be honest, I’m not sure what humanity has left to lose, so much of what could make us ‘great’ as a species – honor, dignity, care, compassion – seems to have been lost a long time ago. We cannot look at the state of the world today and make claim to any of these qualities.

And yet, I have no doubt that we could, that we can, that the potential exists – for us to be that species – that species that lives in harmony with itself and its environment, that species that knows what is truly important and doesn’t participate in things that will only create harm, tension and discord. It will require us to change our definition of ‘happiness’ – and to realize that living simply doesn’t mean living in poverty, or that living *with* riches means to live a rich life. It will require us to realize that letting go is not the same as losing out...

So, humanity – are you ready to live simply ever after?

04 June 2015

Meconomics: Can you Buy Happiness?

This post is a continuation to:

Meconomics: I need my Wants and Want my Needs to be Satisfied
Meconomics: Wants and Needs in your Daily Living 
Meconomics: Do you Spend your Money Objectively or Subjectively?
 


I ended off my previous post with the following:

“So – we have looked at how wants can in a moment override a need – where we identified subjective experiences and time as important players – but we can look a bit further and ask: why does it sometimes feel like we ‘NEEEED’ the things that we ACTUALLY don’t need. Objectively speaking – they are wants, things you can go without – and yet, you can experience a sense of ‘urgency’ and ‘must have’ and ‘I need it’ towards that which you want. Now wants really start messing with your sense of priority, lol. It’s one thing to be clear on the fact that what you are enticed by in a moment is not something you truly need, but you want to indulge yourself anyway – it’s another to feel like you actually NEED it when you don’t.”

Let’s do an exercise: search for one of those moments in your memory – a moment where: you felt that you absolutely NEEDED to have something, where, if you look back at it now, you didn’t ACTUALLY really need it, but you wanted it so bad that it FELT like you needed it. Now zoom in to the actual experience of need and ask yourself the following: were you experiencing physical discomfort? Were you deprived of something on a physical level, which needed replenishing to ensure you remain functional in your body? Were you in physical danger?

You’ll see that the answers to those questions are ‘no’ – because the apparent ‘need’ was not experienced on a physical level – it was instead experienced on an ENERGETIC/ EMOTIONAL level – where we feel we are being emotionally tortured so long as we don’t go and buy whatever it is we’ve now fixated on wanting to get. If those are not actual, physical, genuine needs, then what are they?

Here we need to actually look at different types of wants or desires. And more specifically – how realistic our expectations are of fulfilling these wants and desires. See – you can want to have a cup of coffee, because you expect that for a moment you’ll really enjoy drinking that coffee and it might assist you being more focused and awake for a short period of time – and when actually having that coffee – that’s exactly what you’re experiencing and what happens. That would be a want with realistic expectations. A want with unrealistic expectations, would be for instance if you want to buy the newest smart-phone because you think your friends will accept you if you keep up with the latest tech trends. What you actually want here, or expect to gain – is acceptance – that is the underlying want you are looking to fulfil. Now smartphones can increasingly do very impressive stuff – but giving you acceptance in yourself and your life is a huge and unrealistic responsibility to place on any phone. Realistic expectations of fulfilling a want stand in direct relation to the actual properties and functions of your want. If you like the taste of coffee, then you will enjoy drinking that cup of coffee and coffee has the characteristic and property of keeping you awake and more focused for a little while – those expectations stand in direct relation to your want, which is coffee. Acceptance however, is not directly related to a smartphone – it’s not within its power to give that to you. When you buy a smartphone, what you will get is a smartphone – acceptance is not part of the package.

It is when we have such unrealistic expectations of fulfilling a particular want – that the experience of ‘want’ can be experienced as a ‘need’ or a ‘must have’. And this is known by the marketing industry and is deliberately used within advertising strategies. I watched a series the other day where one of the characters, who was a car salesman said: “I don’t sell cars, I sell freedom”. As an exercise for yourself, you can look at advertisement and try to see what unrealistic expectation they are trying to create within their viewers – and as a fun challenge within that: try to see how many products apparently will give you passionate sex, lol – advertisements of all kinds of products, from soft drinks, to cars, to perfumes – implicitly play on the desire and urge for sex to sell their products for them. 

So what is it about those wants where we have unrealistic expectations, that we would experience them as a ‘need’?

I’ll continue exploring this topic in my next post.

17 June 2012

Day 21: Consumerism: Exploit Thy Neighbour for Thy Self

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that it requires four to six hectares of land to maintain the consumption level of the average person from a high-consumption country -- while the Earth is not practically, physically able to provide this for everyone -- where two decades ago we were at a point where there were only 1.7 hectares of ecologically productive land for each person  -- and within this I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to design an economic system which supports a sustainable life style and not a life style which only sustains a few in abundance while a majority suffer and starve

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that capitalism in its present form can only work as long as we keep on producing, selling and consuming – and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have defined terms such as “growth”, “prosperity” and “advancement” within the limited framework of how much a society is producing and selling

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that using concepts such as GDP and GNI to measure and indicate economic prosperity within a society only reflects the success of the society as a consumer – not as a society of living beings

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created an unsustainable economic system of over consumption of the few at the expense of the majority where the few rich will prey on the land of the weak/poor and seize their resources for the personal gain of the few, leaving even less for those who need it most

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that within making consumerism/consumption the sole purpose/reason within one’s life on earth we are in fact misusing and abusing the earth and it’s natural resources to satisfy a fantasy which cannot be fulfilled – as there is always more to consume and newer things to buy – in fact contributing to poverty and hunger as resources are ineffectively and unequally distributed to those with money only

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that our consumption lifestyle is moving land ownership into the hands of a few – where large corporations take over and swallow smaller ones resulting in job losses and the migration of people to the cities looking and hoping for better jobs which results in more slum areas, health problems, increased crime etc – or where in the case of agricultural takeover, the landless will move to less arable land which may conflict with wildlife, or moving into forests causing deforestation and disturb the natural habitat of wildlife – all as a ripple effect of our consumption behaviour and need to buy and have more

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created and imposed an economic system within this world which promotes consumerism at all end – which results in millions of acres of land being misused and directed towards non-productive luxury  goods for the wealthy while millions suffer and starve in a world of plenty

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a world economic system where food and basic essentials are produced conditionally – and that this condition is MONEY – and if you do not have money you cannot have these essentials – which is in fact a crime to Life

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to tell the poor to do as I do and step in the footsteps of globalizations if they want to be “lifted up” into the world of consumerism – where the belief is held that “it worked for me, so it must work for you” – without seeing and realising that the reality of consumerism came about through acquiring massive amount of resources – resources which were not local but which were taken from other societies and people – those societies and people who are currently poor – where the rich took it upon themselves to Exploit Thy Neighbour for Thy Gain – which implies that if the poor should follow the footsteps of the rich, they should invade the land of the rich and take what it is they need and place the rich in an inferior position –  only reversing the roles – which is obviously not a real solution as it merely switches the tables around without in fact changing the problem with a solution that is Bestfor All as Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to consider the outflows and consequences which follow from a lifestyle of consumption – as consumption is linked in with pollution and if we consume at a unsustainable level we produce pollution at an unsustainable level  -- revealing and showing how the human has placed more value in money as energy as delightful experiences within the Mind at the expense of the Physical Body as the Earth suffering the consequences of our idiocy

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that saying to poor people that “they must do as we did” is within this physical reality with the current available resources impossible – as currently 86% of the world’s resources are being consumed by the world’s wealthiest 20% -- implying that if everyone consumes at this level we need several more planet Earths which are non-existent – proving again the unsustainability of our current accepted economic system and lifestyle and showing that it is a system that is doomed to fail as it does not consider all Life in anyway whatsoever

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse the position of the poor for the gain of the rich through migrating high pollution industries to poor countries with lower environmental standards as they will do anything to have more money circulate into their economy – while the rich can continue to abuse and waste at unprecedented levels

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide and cover up the harmful conditions within the world through pollution stemming forth from consumption as any increase in disease and decreasing health results in higher sales of pharmaceuticals which provide jobs and create a new form of consumption – creating the idea/belief that a society is doing better as the GDP of a country is growing while all the while living standards are declining but these are not taken into consideration as all that counts is the success and level of consumption within and through which we have defined our value as life – which is not Life in fact but a made up illusion to keep us trapped in a zombie state mode in order to not question our reality but keep us on track in our chase and Pursuit to Happiness which is never-ending as an illusion can never be achieved and made into something real

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that Wars in are in fact waged to protect and maintain our lifestyle of consumption – as our level of consumption is unsustainable inevitably leading to the depletion of resources – where societies will fight and kill one another over resources needed to satisfy our consumption compulsion – where wars are waged for resources to be exported to the West such as coltan which is a substance needed for computer chips to function

I commit myself to change our current lifestyle pattern of consumption to a lifestyle pattern that takes into consideration what is Best for All and the designing of an economic system which is created within the consideration of REALITY instead of ILLUSION and which is actually sustainable which can provide a lifestyle which is obtainable and sustainable for ALL on Earth

I commit myself to expose the consequences and outflows stemming from the Evil of Consumerism and the impact it has on the majority of the population here on Earth

I commit myself to expose the mathematical inconsistencies within propagating and promoting consumerism as THE ULTIMATE LIFESTYLE for ALL – as this is practically unsustainable, where the promotion and promise of this lifestyle is what is keeping millions enslaved in the hope that one day they will ascend into the world of Consumers and Consumerism while this is not practically possible and is merely wishful thinking – which keeps the masses from questioning the current economic system and how it does not in fact consider and provide for everyone in a way which is Best for All

I commit myself to designing and establishing a sustainable economic system which takes into consideration All Life, as plants, animals and humans and not just the monster called Consumer

I commit myself to expose the extensive abuse done unto Earth as the Physical Body we all share in the name of consumption and the pursuit of happiness

I commit myself to expose how the policies and suggestions of the rich to the poor are unsustainable and impossible to the core – as the existence of the rich is in its very foundation dependent on the existence of the poor and as long as we allow a world where some live in abundance in the pursuit of happiness there will always be the other side of the coin where the majority live in scarcity and dismay

I commit myself to expose that a Life of Consumption is really not a Life at All but merely a life of a pre-programmed robot following its every impulse without for a moment considering who it is or what it does and how this affects others

I commit myself to wake up Consumers so they may cease being Conned and Mesmerized by Consumption and live a Life in consideration of what is Best for All

See:  Anup Shah, Effects of Consumerism, Global Issues – for more information