Jul

24

The Invisible Cages of Belief

Filed Under Making changes, Self Discovery, Sociology | Leave a Comment

I’ve just finished reading these two great articles that talk about the mentality of students attending elite schools, specifically Yale and Harvard. The crux of them both is that student education has taken a back seat to student entitlement and their impending success, post education but the articles also imply that many of the students can’t see the cage they, and the processes that got them there, have built around their world view. Largely that those who are here (at the institutions) have made it and now, with their unlimited credit of success, they just need to figure out where they should put all the booty. This is something that I have come across myself, the Invisible Cage of Belief. The set of ideas that limits the expectations and modifies the experience of our lives.

I always thought that the world was just how I saw it. That I was perpetually doomed to be a raiser of cats, doer of mundane work and payer of bills. Even though I could see that it was such a stupid idea to work five days, complain about work on the next two and repeat until I was 65 - I still signed up for it.

My life isn’t exactly ideal:

And I felt BAD because I was having those thoughts.

My Invisible Cage of Belief was too small to hold me, but as my own jailer I was trying very hard to keep me in there. How did I get out? I went on holiday. A long holiday. To Europe, somewhere I have always wanted to go, but always managed to never make it.

It took me a long time to get to that point. I had to have weekends off from work. Then weekends away from home. Then a short holiday overseas, somewhere close but definitely out of mobile range. Then another short holiday slightly further away, for slightly longer, in a slightly more “backpacker” mode. And slowly, with the iron will of someone else’s expectations that people are allowed to go on holiday and a solid but quickly eroding belief that this was not the case, I made it out of the cage.

The first one was the hardest. It seems there are larger ones around it, like a Matryoshka doll, but with the knowledge that they exist and experience of what they feel like, escaping them seems to get easier.

I don’t know what those elite leaders of tomorrow are going to be like. I hope there will be some real human beings in the crowd. Some people who spent a lot more time tinkering with their inner workings than the outer workings of the world they want to take control of.

It’s easy for me to say this now, I can see the Invisible Cages of Belief I have escaped from. I’m looking forward to finding more.

Mar

20

I’m sick of this crap

Filed Under Growing Up, Self Discovery, Sociology | Leave a Comment

After spending a reasonable amount of time trying to express how I feel about something I was unable to come up with The Right Sentence.  And while reading the response to the wrong sentence, it occurred to me that:

  1. It is difficult enough to make an I statement about myself, but it is impossible to make one about someone else.
  2. We are all at varying degrees of development the myriad of different facets of ourselves. Adulthood is a label conferred by others to allow them to treat you as they wish so that they might continue to believe that they themselves are adults.

In all of the challenges I face while continuing to remain alive - having to deal with other people is the hardest and most common point where I come unstuck. Why the hell do you people do those things and what’s wrong with doing it my way, really?

I admit that it would be better if we all just got along, but who really gets to decide what’s best for all of us? And until they can explain themselves in perfect Ben-language, how do I know that they know what they are asking? If communication is a two way street then not being understood means that I can’t possibly understand. Where do you go from there?

Jan

29

How the Money System works

Filed Under Self Discovery, Sociology | Leave a Comment

I’ve just finished watching this video about The Money System.

It’s jaw dropping.

We’re all on a giant pyramid scheme, hoping to find an extra layer of “members” to fill up our down lines. The horrible horrible thing is that the only people who can do that will be our children. And their children.

I understand that no one wants to deal with this problem unless they really really have to. Why remove the system that you know for one that you don’t, why remove a system that you might be winning in? Because you aren’t really winning. It will never stop. Paper isn’t very palatable and eventually there won’t be enough trees to pulp anyway. Digital bank balances are even more nutritionally deficient. What kind of revolution is going to be required to change the current system? Will the Peak Oil problem be the beginning of the purge?

It’s time. It’s time to cast a vote for ourselves.

What ARE we waiting for? I mean, seriously, when do you expect to actually stop working and live your life without owing more than you can possibly produce.

I need to get out of debt and then I need to start building The Bunker. Then, once I’m almost completely self sufficient, I’ll come visit the rest of you with $70 apples.