Hark ye crooks collecting fees
Stop selling fears it’s a disease
Don’t worship greed with so much ease
And spreading debt through mock degrees
We vow to no more bend our knees
We’ll lift our heads and say -Oh Please
Blood from our stones you shall not squeeze
Today’s that day we choose to seize
Economic Policy
Don’t Worry We’ll get to the seeking peace and joy part in about 700 words or so… However, skipping right to that would be the same as riding a roller coaster that only had one hill and only went straight… let’s not glorify such adventures shall we?
As stated in the previous entry the next four entry will feature what might be characterized as major influences on the environments in which we bring meaning to our experiences,you know, the factors that shape the landscape we walk around in every day and factors that are so invasive and engulfing that they are in some ways like water is to fish or Amazon is to new credit card holders?
It’s hard to label these four ideas… are they factors, forces,themes? Wells funny little wizard (Jedi) informs me that “force it is we will choose young Skywalker….
So the first Force we will ponder is INDUSTRIALIZATION
Now since “industrialization” is a long word we’re going to use a couple of shortcuts for it. Moving forward it will be known as “the BIG I”. Or IA for “the Industrial Age and of course IR will be the code for the Industrial Revolution. Now we might not use the short forms all the time—you know it depends upon how tired these fingers get.
Which came first …the industrial age or the industrial revolution? Was it mentality of standardizing everything so that we could build more faster and with more similarities than ever before? Bottom line—-who cares? You can read all about some of the first inventions that heralded in the Industrial Age. For the purposes we are pondering the only thing that matters is not how much cotton we could pick, how many yards of wool we could weave, or how many Model T’S we could roll out as long as you wanted black—We are talking “industrial philosophy or the philosophy of industrialization. You see at some point we started to value standardized things and standardized people to make these standardized things. Thing because the prizes we sold to tell people how “good” or rich they were and boy did things sell—and they still do. However, in order to make these standardized things in standardized ways we had to create humans that were standardized too. So… we had to start putting all the square , triangular, and polygonal people and their beautifully diverse talents and spirits into a machine to achieve the uniformity required. How did we do it? We did it with schools… When did all students go out into the world? Well when they completed 8 or 12 grades for the most part unless our machine needed specially shaped parts to crank out products and then we used colleges and specialized programs to add apiece in here Ann’s there and had special ceremonies to tell people that they are now just the way we want them to be. One of the challenges in seeking peace and joy these days is that the human robots we create in schools no longer fit the systems we use to produce most goods in a way that pushes the productivity curve. So schools are failing but they sure worked well for a good long time.
What else did we standardize?
The success Narative or put most simply…. If you work hard and find the right job match you wil succeed and if you try harder you will succeed even more and the more you succeed the better your life will be and the better person you are. Holy crap did this story work very well … in fact we decided that capitalism would be the economic game we adopted in America because it so well fits the industrial call to produce more and to try hard to succeeed more. We are so tied.into this that even in our creative social media experiences we seem to be rewarded when we have more “friends” Followers, or links in our networks. More is better…
In the industrial era you could (notice it is past tense sort of). You can be secure (or you could) and always find someone you were out performing so you could feel good. You could almost always have more things than the generation before you and more than some of. Your neighbors depending on how you decided to define “neighbors.” Oh and this is/was a sweet system of thought and actions until very recently… While some would argue that we have moved beyond the Industrial Age… I’d say not so fast…. Companies and their owners or the people who profit from them are still valuing unified narratives and robotic workforce mentalities and in fact so much some are pretty much just going with actual robots.
We hear a lot about how some kids today don’t want to work. Or work hard and that back in the day we worked hard etc… There is always a little truth in these types of statements…. However, are companies the same as they were? Are paths to “success” the same I’m not so sure… Even more worth pointing out is … now pay attention we’re about to use an odd metaphor an analogy so to speak… some symbolism…
Have you ever been drinking or watched someone who was and it became evident that you or someone let’s say your goofy uncle herb was obviously blasted and drinking more let’s say that 9th Jack and Coke wasn’t going to make him one bit funnier? Well maybe we are getting to the point where humans can’t get any more “industrial”. After all in the U. S. We are now producing as much in one month as we produced in a whole year in 1950. The average person (or someone in their family) carries a computer that is far more powerful than the one used to send a rocket to the moon) and does that in their pocket. We eat more, we travel further either in person or via remote experiences, and we have access to more information input every day than all the generations that came before us had combined. Maybe,,,, just maybe… as a spiritual and living being… we’ve reached the end of of our rainbow when it comes to this industrial path?
Okay… the SEEKING PEACE AND JOY. Perspective
The Big I was are bridge to all kinds of experiences and the canvas upon which we drew the pictures that symbolized what it all means. Now however, the bridge that the big I was going from the start of our lives all the way through to the end is falling out from beneath our feet…. We don’t understand the nature of the change and we can’t build a parachute with the tools we have…. So many of us keep falling thinking… when will things be “normal” again.. So what if…
Falling is the new human experience? Can we as individuals and as collections and groups of people “normalize more ambiguity? I believe we can… however we are going to have to adopt three mantras…. These are
Uncertainty does not equal or have to signal fear. Uncertainty can be an invitation to adventure and new colors in your crayon box.
Second —Not all people NEED to believe in the same overarching concept of success or “productivity” We don’t need too many more ways to watch video or get around the world or foods to eat or goodness knows weapons to kill stuff with. We don’t need to be right we only need to be authentic.
Three and this all for todayWe need to throw out the idea that people’s lives always reflect cause and effect experiences that move “forward” in a linear manner….
Well … that’s enough for today.. we’ll come back to this in “some other rumblings’. At the end of this four part pogo sticking. Through philosophy.
Peace.
This podcast called “Akimbo” by Seth Godin strikes a chord this morning and the Seeking Peace and Joy Universe needs to use this chord over and over just like CCR uses the same three chords over and over why?… because it worked then and it works now.
So in the next four entries this blog will focus on concepts that have shaped our stories so much that we may not even realize they are coloring our world. But today is just the intro and it will be brief and hopefully a little whimsical. The four themes to be explored in coming muses are: (at the bottom so read on)
For now if you can think outside the box and get solutions, what happens when you do other things in proximation to other shapes?
For example what happens if you sing outside the triangle? What results when you write outside the octagon? Who will fall all over a painting when we paint just below the parallelogram? Who benefits if we scribble above the square? How lovely would life be if we dialogue inside the diamonds or verbalize adjacent to the ven diagram?Will we fail if we predict beneath parabolas? How many problems get simpler if we share hints amidst hexagons?
Okay don’t get all bent out of shape— the next four entries will look at seeking peace and joy in the. Context of
Okay… this has been enough rambling around the rhomboid for now… more soon
Just a few minutes ago aconcept came into my awareness. You have to learn to read before you can read to learn. In turn, that means someone has to learn how to teach you to read and maybe someone has to teach you how to read to learn. Now that means someone had to learn how to teach you to read to learn and someone had to read about learning to teach you how to read to learn and you could choose to learn how someone teaches. Others to learn or read in order read to learn. Confused yet? So which comes first?—the learning or the reading? Neither I suspect… maybe it’s the wanting to understand what others think and say and wanting people to say what they think so we all can think about what others say? Oh so.. does that mean we all learn more if we answer some questions and question some answers? …and
If we learn lessons do we pass them along? Do we do this often enough? It seems in the seeking peace and joy universe it’s important to do so… and there’s this song I wrote a few years back, however when I was thinking about all the ideas above, I couldn’t remember if I have really ever shared the lyrics to that song and somehow right now seemed like a good time to pass these lessons along. So Here we are
Lessons
I’ve learned great lessons from professors and books
Graceful half-drunken women and burned out fry cooks
I thought it was time that I passed them along
So I sat up one night and I wrote down this song….here it goes
The wiser i get the more that I’ve found
Your body just carries your spirit around
And there’s a new circus around every turn
The best thing to do is pay attention and learn
And pass all these lessons to the next passer by
Try to enjoy life and understand why
But if why eludes you don’t wallow in frets
Don’t let your butterfly wings get weighed dow with regrets
(Chorus so of)
And breathe and stretch and dance your own dance
And laugh and smile when life gives you the chance
V2
You’ll rarely finish but you’ll often restart
Take your brain with you but follow your heart
And don’t compromise on the things you might change
Understand.normal but celebrate strange
Don’t chase the chaos nor worship control
But run it full throttle when you’re on a roll
(Chorus)
V3
I’ve heard sermons in bar roooms and in churches learned shoulds
But some of the best prayers I’ve ever heard were whispered in woods
And don’t be afraid to believe in forever
But be careful with words like always and never
Don’t shake your fist in the mirror when your patience wears thin
Every dream has its time don’t let apathy win
(Chorus)
V4
You will try to help many but you can’t walk in their place
You can’t battle their demons especially ones they won’t faceThese are my lessons nearly all that I know
And if you learn half of these well you’ll find your glow
And Once you fink this well you will go far
To sum it all up…you’ll become who you are
And you will have learned how to chorus.. Anyway I’ve asked you read enough today and hope it was to learn… I’ve learned just buy thinking about it… Peace.
So in a few words I apologize for not writing much lately…. I literally wandered off the seeking peace and joy path and got wrapped up in my ego and greed to be recognized as hurt and right rather than figuring out how to let the tools I know flow and create different circumstances. Well because that wasn’t working so much it was time to twist some concepts around and realize that using words was how I personally bring meaning in the peace and joy universe. Like people assign the value of work and possessions by giving them a symbol which is money many of us symbolize our meanings and our emotions, and our ideas using or “with words”. So it is time for me to back to using these words starting right now. Having said this I believe I expressed this better in the spoken word in the podcast that really got this seeking peace and joy train rolling again so click on the link below to get the rest of the message and please come back soon there will be more to poke your intellect, your funny bone, and maybe your imagination… More soon and remember your thoughts and the words you use have great value and they are thus Money. Peace
https://peaceandjoy505.libsyn.com/are-words-your-moneyhttps://peaceandjoy505.libsyn.com/are-words-your-money please listen
