"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."
Mark Twain
Hi,
Freedom is frightening and perhaps the scariest gift the Gods gave us.
Your freedom is based on your tacit permission for others to say things and to engage in activities that you may perceive as offensive. Other people's desire for freedom expresses their willingness to live with you even if you appear to be thoroughly disagreeable to them. As long as people don't hurt each other, that is.
Individual freedom is based on potential extremes of mutual disapproval and friction. By definition, there is nothing romantic about freedom. Freedom can be frustrating and aesthetically displeasing. Freedom will always be imperfect, loved but potentially disliked at least as much as liked.
Give yourself permission to be who others don't want you to be.
Allow yourself to do what others don't want you to do.
Be free to ask and negotiate for money no matter what others think.
Do all of the above gracefully and playfully, with a sense of humor
Parents like to see peace and quiet in the sandlot. "Be nice!" is an authoritarian decree. Helpful perhaps but neither real nor free. A nice looking adult world ought to raise eyebrows and suspicion. What's boiling underneath and when will it blow up?
How much longer will our society survive while a good portion of its members suppress their individuality, enabled to do so by increasing dosages of legal and illegal drugs?
Isabel Paterson (1886-1961) wrote in her book, 'The God of the Machine', "All the inventions of man have individualism as their end, because they spring from the individual function of intelligence, which is the creative and productive source..." Ms. Paterson's book was published 1943.
'Rise of the Hipster Capitalist' is the title of an article by Elizabeth Nolan Brown in the October 2014 issue of REASON Magazine (reason.com): "As we enter the post-crisis period, the business and economic contexts we knew pre-recession are increasingly unlikely to re-materialize. In their willingness to embrace new ideas and new work models, millennials [formerly known as Generation Y] may turn out to be revolutionary in ways altogether different from generations past."
And "A 2011 poll from the Kauffman Foundation found that 54 percent of millennials had entrepreneurial ambitions, with higher levels among Latinos (64 percent) and blacks (63 percent). Sixty-five percent said that making it easier to start a business should be a priority for Congress."
Freedom is frightening and perhaps the scariest gift the Gods gave us.
Your freedom is based on your tacit permission for others to say things and to engage in activities that you may perceive as offensive. Other people's desire for freedom expresses their willingness to live with you even if you appear to be thoroughly disagreeable to them. As long as people don't hurt each other, that is.
Individual freedom is based on potential extremes of mutual disapproval and friction. By definition, there is nothing romantic about freedom. Freedom can be frustrating and aesthetically displeasing. Freedom will always be imperfect, loved but potentially disliked at least as much as liked.
Give yourself permission to be who others don't want you to be.
Allow yourself to do what others don't want you to do.
Be free to ask and negotiate for money no matter what others think.
Do all of the above gracefully and playfully, with a sense of humor
Parents like to see peace and quiet in the sandlot. "Be nice!" is an authoritarian decree. Helpful perhaps but neither real nor free. A nice looking adult world ought to raise eyebrows and suspicion. What's boiling underneath and when will it blow up?
How much longer will our society survive while a good portion of its members suppress their individuality, enabled to do so by increasing dosages of legal and illegal drugs?
Isabel Paterson (1886-1961) wrote in her book, 'The God of the Machine', "All the inventions of man have individualism as their end, because they spring from the individual function of intelligence, which is the creative and productive source..." Ms. Paterson's book was published 1943.
'Rise of the Hipster Capitalist' is the title of an article by Elizabeth Nolan Brown in the October 2014 issue of REASON Magazine (reason.com): "As we enter the post-crisis period, the business and economic contexts we knew pre-recession are increasingly unlikely to re-materialize. In their willingness to embrace new ideas and new work models, millennials [formerly known as Generation Y] may turn out to be revolutionary in ways altogether different from generations past."
And "A 2011 poll from the Kauffman Foundation found that 54 percent of millennials had entrepreneurial ambitions, with higher levels among Latinos (64 percent) and blacks (63 percent). Sixty-five percent said that making it easier to start a business should be a priority for Congress."
Good luck bothering your owners in Congress with anything they "should" be adopting as priority but otherwise, 70 years after Ms. Paterson's book was published, the creative and productive potential of individuals is alive and kicking. The value of each individual is more important than ever. Yet the pitiful cloverleaf of cronies--politicians, corporate head honchos, and media parrots--act as if the individual were a liability that ought to be disposed of. Dead end jobs, created out of thin air for the sole purpose of shutting these people up, bury individualism alive and suffocate further development.
Though victimized they may feel, hourly employees volunteer in droves to work for pittances, accept food stamps as band aids, and sink into a permanent state of despondency. Nobody is at fault when consenting adults sacrifice their individuality and an hour of their life for a cheap lunch. "Evil" corporations aren't abducting the unemployed against their will. While they may be biting the hands that feed them, tens of millions of employees are grateful to have jobs, grateful for the roofs over their heads, grateful to feed their families. Nobody forces people to trade their life for a smartphone.
Obesity is considered an epidemic. Society finds suicide horrifying and disgusting, yet mass killings of individuality are taught in public school. Government and vapid media drones encourage and celebrate the absence of individual expression: if we have to put up with freedom of speech, let's please keep all that creative noise to a minimum, shan't we?
People are expected to trade their strengths, suppress weaknesses, and save their creativity for an awkward performance at the company's Christmas party. On average, jobs are hated or at least the majority of employees are "disengaged" according to Gallup. Why do people smoke pot and get drunk? Why does consumption of prescription drugs increase every year?
Geez, don't tell me you are surprised.
It's not only that people are unhappy because the economy hasn't recovered yet. The term 'recovery' is so utterly deceptive, by the way, it calls for a separate newsletter issue. The economy cannot improve much or faster because half the U.S. workforce parks creativity and productivity in jobs that were never meant to be creative and productive. America's economy is a slaughterhouse of creativity and productivity, financed by taxpayers. Half the country's creativity and productivity finance the other half's creativity and productivity being neutered, spayed, and declawed.
Individual answers are inappropriate, disagreeable, disruptive, and offensive. Individualism may not land you a job but if an 8-year old can open a lemonade stand and start a business, what would stop you from bursting on the market with your ideas?
Individuals are useless for most jobs, even a nuisance. People hate their jobs because they are not born to spend their lives in cubicles. People are made to be disruptive, obnoxious, unpredictable, and to express themselves creatively in a service they like to perform so they can make the lives of other human beings easier or more fun.
Instead they apply for an hourly job, supervised by worthless middle management types. They demand minimum wage like an infant who cries for her binky that fell into the dirt. Slightly embarrassing for a divine being, non?
Job dynamics are the institutionalized continuation of a child's resistance against parental disapproval. Only individuals who have developed an addiction to the pain of "I am not good enough" actively seek that environment. Frightened of freely expressing themselves and living loudly, they'll have a DUI sooner or later or they'll turn into gray mice eventually, waiting to be discarded as zombies. Sucked dry and spent, it seems "the system" exploits these poor people but there is a symbiosis.
The permanent infancy of millions of job seekers coincides with the bizarre belief that so-called freedom is based on corporate structures that thrive on authoritarian philosophy. Not surprisingly, the much decried corporate Moloch is not run by evil, greedy, filthy rich capitalist pigs. Not at all.
Other, "superior" employees create unpleasant work environments for "inferior" ones, and they pay back in kind, making the life of higher ups miserable. Jewish Kapos managed ghettos and concentration camps. The purpose was to turn victim against victim. Employees manage employees and enforce authoritarian rule in the world of work.
The often evoked term 'leadership' is a farce. Energetic cannibalism lubricates the inner controls of jobs. The companies are dying from it, as their employees more or less unconsciously sabotage each other's productivity. It may not be obvious yet but even giants like Walmart become ailing giants over time and die. Formerly great companies, like Verizon, deteriorate. U.S. Steel....yes, where is U.S. Steel now?
There is life after success, and ambitious business folks tend to ignore that fact, firmly believing they "could make it" and that's all it takes. The way up is not guaranteed to continue, as William "Billy" Durant, co-founder of General Motors, Chevrolet, and founder of Frigidaire had to find out the hard way. Mr. Durant started out as a cigar salesman in Flint, Michigan, and ended up managing a bowling alley slinging hamburgers in Flint, MI.
People are fully capable of sabotaging their lives' interests whether they choose employment or opt for entrepreneurial endeavors. But the life long employee practically retires from further development as an individual at the beginning of her career. The self-employed business person has a chance to unfold, to try and fail, to win and lose. The eternal employee dooms himself to remain in limbo, neither fully alive nor threatened by abject poverty.
If you had the choice, what would it be today?
You do have that option every day, you know? You are alive, you are breathing, and you are a creative human being, most likely brilliant in at least one area. You know what I am referring to, don't you?
Society and this economy depend on your joy to let the genie out of the bottle. Create, produce, and sell what's on your mind. It's fun. Don't quit your day job but add more fun and cash to your life while you add more color and choices to the lives of others.
Toss that binky, the dire need to have a job. Enjoy your job, keep it on the side for all its benefits and perks. Additionally explore your curiosity of all other fun things you are very capable of!
Shalom,
Egbert
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"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell (1903-1950)
