Redefining prosperity
I just watched this powerful video and it elicited the following response from me - see what you think.
"Trump is a corporation in human form"
The Cal Con Con Initiative is about change for longevity's sake. In other words, we want to live. A long time. We want other species - and the eco-systems that enable them to live - to also live. For a long time. In fact, the only thing we want to see die is this diametrically opposed belief that the fake is real and that the real is dispensable.
Consumerism ("an economic theory which states that a progressively greater level of consumption is beneficial to the consumers") started amidst the Industrial revolution (around mid 18th Century to early 19th Century), it really found its pace as part of the 'roaring twenties'. As we know, any idea that's going to get traction needs a salesperson. Consumerism was started by an unlikely social innovator; Edward Bernays - the nephew of influential psychologist, Freud. He saw the potential of manipulating people en masse and did so, by copying the wartime propaganda machine and introducing it in USA by renaming it 'Public Relations'. In this he managed to shift our entire socio-economic paradigm from needs-based-buying to wants-based-buying. We humans also got renamed; no longer civilians, or citizens, we were now consumers - because they needed us to consume things that they were about to put on the market, in order to manufacture demand (yes, fake demand!). All this while getting very rich and living in a government paid Penthouse in Manhattan.
Does this matter? Well, it wouldn't, unless you are lucky enough to have awareness of how life actually works!! Products actually come from somewhere and, when we're done using them, they have to 'go' somewhere. I know we all think there's a magic SANTA in the sky who comes down with his little elves when we're all asleep and tidies up after us but, you know, he's not that interested. So he doesn't. And what do we do instead? We litter. We discard. We use up. And we trash.
Here's a little known fact - the earth is one size. It doesn't expand to accommodate our manufactured cravings. It stays the same size. Think of a chair. No matter how many bums (bottoms) are trying to sit on it, it still stays as one chair. It doesn't suddenly blossom into 10 chairs to accommodate 20 urgent cheeks. The way we are taught to think (yes, it's not natural for us to be stupid), enables us to imagine magic where there is none, and ignore the magic that is, i.e. our imaginations. So, what's the value of an imagination? It is the one element within us that makes us capable of envisioning the future in myriad ways. In other words... we can change this.
We are not stupid. And yet, we have become indoctrinated into a lifestyle that demonstrates utter stupidity. Trump epitomises how that stupidity can actually take on human form.
We live on a single planet. Just the one. We have approximately 15 billion cheeks trying to sit on one chair that doesn't get any bigger and can only replace what gets taken away from it at a rate comparable to that of an ant pulling a monolith from A to B. This, by the way is no fault of the Earth, it is our mistake to choose to ignore the facts, her facts. It takes time to grow life. Which brings me back to the original character at the start of this train of thought. Trump. The master of the no-facts. Or, 'let's invert reality and call facts irrelevant and fiction mandatory and somehow worthy of a human brain.' And it's not just no-facts, it's the idea that consumerism, like ivy, has climbed up our own trunks, taking over our humanity, our freedom of thought and our potential. He might be the corporation in human form but what part are we playing within that emerging analogy? It's not flattering, is it.
Trump displays all that is despicable in humans. He is showing us the worst of which we are capable in our lust for the fake. We can choose to show a total lack of empathy, intelligence, consideration, creativity, ingenuity, uniqueness and compassion. AND YET. We are born naturally capable and able to experience and elicit all of those qualities in abundance. We are born capable. And yet we are allowing ourselves to become relics of our own consumerist/marketing nightmare. It's so clever, this machine, that it has us convinced that by buying into it, we are actually proving our freedom of choice - it's genius!
Earth will live. But we will die. We are stealing our children's future and, worse, the futures of all eco-systems. After us (yes, we are not invincible - gasp, sudden intake of breath!) the planet, our home, will restore herself over time. But we don't know if any form of human will remain in the conditions we are setting up for ourselves.
If we want to redefine prosperity we need to acknowledge that we have agreed (yes, we are complicit) to be sold an idea that makes other people rich and many more poor, an idea that kills to thrive and an idea that has a shelf life and a market price that is literally murderously high. True prosperity lies in our relationship to the idea the abundance of enough. When we can feel and recognize that we have enough, those of us that have more can reduce their compulsive over-usage and those who don't have enough, can rise to having more. If there is balance, there is enough. Much is wasted, both in textiles, products and food, that can be re-distributed. We can lift each other up by sharing our gifts, our skills and our resources. That is wealth. That is prosperity.
In thinking we don't have enough, we rush to grab more. We have economies based on grabbing and exploiting, stealing and trashing. And yet, if we slowed down, breathed and reflected, we'd realize that as communities we become stronger, and so much happier, by sharing what we have and asking people what they need. When we form relationships based on mutuality, including with the Earth (we are the earth, btw, the two-legged aspects of it), when we take a moment to step back and appreciate, we can see that consumerism WAS itself a manufactured fad that is now rusty and no longer useful. It has outlived its time and cannot see us into the future. Awareness and appreciation are the new commodities and the beauty of that is that they are free. They elicit the best in us too: respect, honor, generosity, kindness, civility and presence. With all that, my god, we are wealthy, we are prosperous and, better yet, we become wise.
Take a look at Cal Con Con's Initiative. We want change. We want it now. We want it for ourselves and we want it for you. Watch the video above, feel sick and then read our initiative and see the blueprint for the alternative. Subscribe to our page and, for god's sake, step out of the nightmare being sold to us as an American Dream. It's shit. It's fake. And it will kill us. It is, in fact, the ultimate product NOT to buy. Stop trading your happiness - it's worth far more than baubles. You are worth far more than baubles. Don't believe the consumerist policy that you are not enough and start to show how you value yourself, one decision at a time, away from fake prosperity to genuine belonging. It's a ladder, yes, to break these habits, but it's a ladder UP and OUT. And, to ironically borrow from the famous words of the ridiculous make up ad slogan 'you are most definitely worth it!' And, better yet, when you make new choices, you are saying to me that you value my life too. We are all tied to the same blessed eco-system of life. It's not a ride I want to give up without a fight. Do you?
I invite you to ask yourself 'Who owns me?' And see if you like the answer. If you don't, then congratulations - sincerely - because it might sting for a minute but, in truth, you just started to claim yourself back. And that's a mighty good feeling. We need you, in your full glory for this sea change. Let's represent what is amazing about us and show that off! We know you have skills and desires. Cal Con Con is working to protect life, our futures, your children's futures. They have a right to dream too. But with no future, there is no dreaming.
Join us. Here you are already valued and you will make a difference that will be appreciated for generations to come. Imagine.
