At some point in mankind’s history it was decided that the acquisition of wealth would be a driving factor in our lives. Over time, slowly but surely, this became THE driving factor in many of our lives as influenced by the very principal of capitalism. This doesn’t bother me so much. If climbing the corporate ladder is what makes one passionate, then go for it. Seems like a pretty empty existence to me, but to each their own.
What does bother me is the fact that they do this by standing on the shoulders of the middle class (us) by influencing us to keep, grow, stay in, and maintain our “personal bubble.” That is, they influence us to consume. To continue to constantly acquire material goods. To even expand the space in which we live so that way we can continue to grow our hoard. To influence a sense of “pride of ownership” so we intentionally keep others away from our hoard, our space, our bubble. They have us believing that expanding our personal bubble is what makes us successful, that this is what happiness is.
Not only is this NOT happiness, it is detracting us away from the riches life has to offer. By focusing on our property, our bubble, we are losing our sense of community; we are not establishing and maintaining strong connections with our neighbors. We are disconnected from actual people. As a result there is mass discontent in the world as the many small factions of people don’t understand each other. And how could they, as they were all too busy focusing on expanding their personal bubbles. Real connections were never made so real communication was never had; we know only what the media has influenced us to believe.
This is exactly what the upper class want. Because not only do the rich depend on our continuous consumption of things we don’t need for their profit, but they also depend on us not communicating with each other. Because if we DID communicate with each other, we would establish working relationships with each other, then we would learn that we do not need them.
I imagine a world of perfect communication with all people. This would lead to perfect kindness and care. Everyone is each others keeper. The idea of “private property” doesn’t exist. All resources are shared. We work only to do our part in contributing to our community, and to better ourselves. Don’t need a lock on the front door. Everyone is welcome everywhere. Since there is no such thing as personal property, “theft” has no meaning. If someone goes into my home and takes a 55″ TV, they are welcome to it; obviously they need it more than I do. Imagine this world I speak of. With shared resources there would be no rich fat cats making money off us. In fact, there would be no separation of the classes to even get to the existence of rich “fat cats.”
I think …… we should take a different approach toward this Holiday season this time around (and going forward for that matter).
It has come to my attention that there is a common misconception out there that being minimal is being frugal, being conservative. Nothing can be further from the truth.