So I wanted to see just how I would be able to source other forms of wealth. I researched, I learned about how energy and technology could provide the means for me and others like me to get some Euros or dollars or whatever currency into my account when I had my 'eureka!' moment.
A 'eureka!' moment is that moment some people have when they manage to visualize or find the words to accurately describe a problem leading to a search for its solution. In the classic Ancient Greek example of 'eureka!' moments, the philosopher Archimedes noticed that the level of water in his bath rose as his body displaced it as he climbed in. Visualizing this in his mind's eye, he saw a
means to make water rise up above its level by use of a spiral which trapped the water in cells and physically carried it safely to be released higher up. This led to improved irrigation, water storage and hydro-motive engines. In a city state as arid as Athens, this enabled the society to expand into deeper Attica leading to the coast and to think of having a navy and founding a Hellenistic world; all from one 'eureka!' moment.
A vision changes everything, even something as banal as the Archimedian Screw.
So what was my 'eureka!' moment?
The vision both accurately defined the problem and provided the solution at the same moment. Since it was a vision it happened in mental images but I have managed to write about it's meaning on this blog so here is the abridged version:
Problem: Money isn't actual wealth. Solution: People are.
Problem: Profit doesn't actually exist. Solution: Abundance does.
Problem: Scarcity based economy doesn't nurture. Solution: Participatory economy does.
This is a statement which cut so deeply across our culture and our education it was akin to declaring an unholy trinity of blasphemies in a theocracy. Having said it aloud, I was in the very lonely place of having to argue for against a global culture designed and dedicated to the worship of money, profit and economic control.
I started out hating the system of money and profiteering, and wondering just how deeply ingrained and evil the 'illumati' were: IMF, ECB, Federal Reserve and Bilderberg Groups.
Like many other people I witnessed a shocking and ruthless series of calculations being made by secretive people who had already factored in nightmare scenarios such as peak oil and water, the polarization of peoples, the wasting of the natural world, constant warfare and the culling of billions of human beings to retain control over the world's resources and people.
It got me thinking "How can they possibly agree with these things?" which lead me to wonder "What alternatives do these people have?"
Like a judge forced into making an unjust ruling based upon legal precedent, I saw that they didn't have any alternatives. The science they were employing, the science that employ them didn't allow for alternatives. The concept of letting go of the synthetic scarcity of currency and the profound need for economic control horrified them more than W.W.III.
The problem is in modern politics: It is an expensive business getting elected into office at all levels. The power to decide how a civilization moves no longer rests with western government but with a cadre of 'interests' who have invested in politics for their own purposes. These 'interests' may as well be six foot tall, shape-shifting extraterrestrial lizards because the decisions they have imposed are just as ruthless and anti-future. So, I wondered, "Why are they so hell bent on this hopeless dystopia?"
The answer also came to me in a flash. It was because they had not received a vision of how the world could be. It wasn't that my vision disagreed with their vision, it was that they had no vision.
There is no ultimate goal to these frankly megalomaniac actions, it is simply the logical continuation of what has happened before. In short, the supposed secret masters of the world have become imprisoned in the same trap that seeks to contain humanity. They obey a system of belief which has no interest in nurturing life but in generating profit.
My three-point vision is a powerful threat to the established tradition. So, given their immense power, wealth and influence, I don't stand a chance, being just one guy who is threading water financially and professionally.
Then something astonishing happened.
Other people started speaking out like me. I wrote my first Open Letter (Q&A) back in September 2011 just as Occupy began their sit-in in Zuccotti park. I wondered how come so many people could rapidly come together from such disparate backgrounds and situations to speak with one voice.
But Occupy didn't speak with one voice. It was a group of people who did not elect. There was no leadership, there were no elite group of experts guiding the protesters; they each had their general grievances which all coalesced around one central idea:
"We are the 99%"
So, was this a true revolution?
According to Aristotle a revolution results in one of two outcomes:
1) Complete change from one constitution to another
2) Modification of an existing constitution
Neither happened.
We are not living in a post-capitalist society and capitalism is just as recognizable to Gordon Gekko today as it was back in 1987.
So, what did happen?
If the protest in Zuccotti park and all over the western world didn't effect change to capitalism did it effect any other kind of change?
In a way it effected a change far greater than overturning how our world is ruled; the change is profound and it is gradual. The Occupy Movement as well as the other protest to revolt movements of the twenty first century brought to mind the period at the end of the 18th Century in Europe. Then as now, people's central protest was their anger at being ruled badly by a small group of plutocrats.
In some countries this anger has overturned tyrants but in others it has handed power to tyrants. Yet, something happened in each one of these places; the very same expression occurred.
"We are.... the 99%"
"We are.... all Khaled Said"
"We are.... anonymous"
"We are.... all made of stars"
"We are.... one"
The seed of an idea had been given to many, many people experiencing many, many different lives and struggles. They each embraced the idea into their own identity. They didn't say "We are like" they didn't say "We want", they said "We are...".
Where once revolutionaries said "I am", protesters are saying "We are" - "I" has become "We"
Slowly, organically these people have incorporated a genuinely new state of mind into the self. They had given up their finite selves and felt inspired to coalesce without unifying behind one ideology or political movement. I have seen them organize themselves, using the most important tool available to them, their own ideas and knowledge. They are participating without being told to, without being shown how to, they are just sharing their own stories.
Over the last two years I have witnessed the revolution in education access to children all over the world, the revolution of people improving their own lives using shared resources, exploring alternative energy in their own potting sheds; I have witnessed the birth of "We".
When I thought of my vision I saw again that vortex spinning and expanding out into an astonishing open-ended reality. There is no capstone to this reality. There is no end. "We" is the expression of humanity learning to think not like 'selves' but thinking as a species.
The pediment is gone, the columns are gone. There is just the vortex of billions of lights.
My vision is already a reality. The bomb has gone off but it expands so slowly that what it is destroying cannot even notice it.
Victor Hugo said it best:
An idea simply exists. Many people can have the same general idea at the same time. Ideas have been shown to manifest at certain times in our history to people without physical contact to one another. The term 'inspiration' is most commonly used in connection with finding an idea. Brought by 'the spirit'.
This is something that I want to explore further but I sense that ideas and, more importantly, visions seem too have a life of their own independently of the human race. We may be the only species capable of inspiration, we may not be; our communication with other species is sadly lacking (I will write on this further later) but I am convinced that ideas that have been found by humans are shared and grow through the sharing into becoming coherent political or social visions.
People who have received a vision, tend to be changed by it. I have been changed by this vision. I can see a world very close which expands into space and communicates with other sentient beings and sentiences that are not beings. We have already shown our sensitivity to this kind of energy, vibration, muse of fire, call it what you will.
The vision is here.
Mankind is waking up and will not be put back into the harness. There is nobody who doesn't matter, we all matter. We are all forming a neural network not just over the internet but in our actions and our need to 'share'.
If I may, I would like to add another "We" statement to the ones you have already heard.
We are Zodi.
