Most
of this content comes from a blog post I wrote on Feb.1, 2019, then I put it away and
virtually forgot about it. Having it come up in my email by a commenter made me
curious to see what they found of interest.
That
post impacted me so much I had to write about it again.
Here
it is: What do you think? Any comments?
“We
should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a
living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a
technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of
today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We
keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be
employed at some kind of drudgery because according to Malthusian Darwinian
theory he must justify his right to exist.
"So, we have inspectors of inspectors
and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true
business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it
was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had
to earn a living.”
―
Buckminster Fuller
I
heard Buckminster Fuller speak in San Diego California, and my mouth dropped
open when he said he made $300,000 a year and spent every penny of it. He knew
he would make another $300,000 the following year.
How
cool is that!
That
was 30 years ago.
At the time of that blog post, I was taking
a course which begun in Portland Oregon, called The Right to Exist. Later
it moved to another location and to new writers named Dominika and Cedric.
Their course is The Trailblazer.
When I first began
following The Right to Exist site, I thought about how people work like
slaves, often hate their jobs, go home tired, grumbling, watch television and
fall into bed, only to repeat the same procedure the next day.
And working
mothers get their three-year-old child up at 7:30 to take her to day-care, drop
her off at day care, or later on at school, work for 8 hours, pick up the child, or
children, and go home to whatever happens in the evening. Only to begin it all
over again the following day. Some young children spend over 40
hours a week in day-care.
And our social
system, in giving any financial assistance, keeps the participant at the
poverty level, for we have the belief that if a person doesn’t work, they are
lazy, and the state/government/whatever social service doesn’t want to support laziness.
One must justify their right to exist.
“Overcoming
poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and
Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and
eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation
to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
—Nelson Mandela
On the other end
of the socioeconomic spectrum are individuals who rush to “jobs” they love so
much they say, they would do them even without pay. These individuals often
make an enormous amount of money, buy jets and such, send cars into space, and
are the envy of others sitting at home watching TV.
Of course, those
glorious ones got off their butts and worked for the thing they loved. As a
result, some received high financial rewards. However, some have a problem. In
their effort to reach the top, they forgot that inner work is required to
become a whole human being. They became despondent, couldn’t handle the
pressure, their relationships fell into the toilet, they used drugs to calm the
savage beast and some ended up killing themselves.
It’s
a dilemma.
And
crap, this will break your heart:
“If
there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it
is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.” –Nelson Mandela.
We care.
While working my way through The
Trailblazer processes, I hit a spot where I questioned what I wanted to do,
where my strengths lie and found, that while I thought I knew what I wanted—to
write, to blog and to write books. Another possibility came pecking at me.
I wanted to write
my own course, not to copy others those who have gone before me, but my own—to
work through it with my participants, for, you know, there is more than the
external trappings of life.
There is also the
inner work of how we relate to other human beings and to ourselves. Few of us
have escaped life unscathed, and most people feel they aren’t good enough.
If one’s
psychology is 80% of the battle in living the life we choose, then the place to
begin is with clearing the path to our greatness.
I have taken more
seminars, workshops, courses, and training programs than you can shake a stick
at. (Words of my mother. Although I still don’t know what that means.) It is
time to stop soaking up information and to pour some out.
Nelson Mandela said that while in prison, the rocks they were bashing glistened in the sun and hurt their eyes, so he asked the guard if they could have sunglasses. Well, you know the answer/ "No." Later Mandela asked if they could have books, and the guard said, "You are here to have sunglasses and books." So, Mandela and his fellow inmates decided to tell what they knew to one other person. (Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.)
Share what you know. We need to hear it.
Like
spaghetti thrown to the ceiling, I will throw out my information to see if it
sticks.
Thank
you for being here. You are awesome!
So,
how was your week?
Love,
Jo
P.S.
Panama has declared that nature
has ‘the right to exist’ in a groundbreaking new legislation.
After a year of debate, the country's National Assembly, President
Laurentino Cortizo signed off on the new ruling last week.
It grants nature the “right to exist, persist and regenerate its life
cycles” meaning Panama’s parliament will now have to consider the impact of its
laws and policies on the natural world.
The legislative text defines nature as “a
unique, indivisible and self-regulating community of living beings, elements
and ecosystems interrelated to each other that sustains, contains and reproduces
all beings.”
Panama now joins countries including Colombia, New Zealand,
Chile and Mexico which have granted nature legal protection, either through
their constitutions or the court system
.
