Doesn't it strike you as primitive that we exchange coin for labor?
Doesn’t it strike you as primitive that we exchange coin for labor? Doesn’t it?
I will give you a coin if you bend down and pick up something for me. I will give you a pellet of value for every hour you bend down and pick up something for me. And you will continue doing that until I tell you to stop and then you will come back tomorrow to do it again.
This is something monkeys would do in a zoo. In order to level up our spiritual, mental and emotional evolution, we really must leave this kind of behavior behind.
What if what I wanted you to pick up were the bones of the people I have killed? What if it were the toxic waste that I’ve produced? Chances are, even if you are working a white collar job, this is, in fact, what you are doing to “pay the bills.” What if what I wanted you to do was to open your body to the body fluids of anyone who wanted to use you as a tool of their own (very temporary) relief? Chances are, if you are working a blue collar job, your obedient industry is not that different than this. You do what you are told and take what he will give you. That’s it. That’s all you are, what you are good for. And you can easily be exchanged for another one. And when you are used up, you will be discarded and a new one obtained.
But this is the “real world” you say? This is the world we have created so far. We can uncreate it, friend, and build something better. Is this world—in which people use each other like a tool you can buy (cheaply) in a shop, and a few live in splendor while every one else is expected to claw at each other over the scraps—the world you want to create? Is it?
This world, where people are expected to sell themselves in the corporate auction house—teeth exposed for examination—in order to live on the surface of this world we share: Is this a worthy world, worth everything you sacrifice every day to create it? Is this world worthy of a human spirit that has created so many transcendent works of art, poetry, architecture, music, literature? Is it worthy of the individual human spirit that—in the presence of this transcendent art, poetry, architecture, music, and literature—is transfixed with awe, tears slipping down her cheeks? Is it worthy of the human spirit who (routinely, every day) braves death to protect the life of a stranger? Is it worthy of a human spirit who braves death merely for the opportunity to be shattered and emptied out by nature’s beauty? Is it worthy of the person who prays, who meditates, who throws himself into the void desperate to become just a little more worthy? Is it worthy of you?
But what’s the alternative? you ask, rhetorically, expecting no answer. I have a lot of ideas. But perhaps if you pause your deadly and obedient industry for just a moment, you can think of ideas that are even better.
We do have a choice. We choose every day. Let’s continue this conversation.
#America’sSharecroppers #PostFinancialFuture