Something For Nothing

Many people, especially in Hawaii, think that "the truth" is anything they can get away with -- and rely on the local media to repeat it as the "conventional wisdom," because they don't know, and are too lazy to check.

When times are good, it doesn't matter -- but when times get a little more difficult, wishful, partisan thinking gives way to the harsh realities, and what is "nice to have" when the monies are unlimited and paid for by somebody else, becomes a tremendous drag on daily living, so that paradise becomes a purgatory. At times like this we need "real" leaders rather than just those who manage to fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time -- especially around elections, and at the newspapers.

Hopefully, they will not betray us again by writing their pompous editorials about the need for integrity, vision, and change and then as usual, proclaim the status quo and the way it's always been done before, as the only choice one can/should make.

I guess the handwriting is pretty much on the wall right now -- that we’re seeing the end of affluence as we have known it during most of the last century and for the last hurrah of the first years of this century. But all the admonitions for a more enduring, sustainable daily living of meaning and purpose rather than endless diversion and entertainment is now upon us as the choice we make that determines our fate in this unfolding century -- which very obviously, will not just be the continuation of how it “always” was before.

Such conditions require the skills of adapting to change, and not as our education and conditioning has been, to perpetuate the status quo -- if now only in their minds. The props that would have allowed further delusions and fantasies are now gone -- revealing the new realities of our time.

And that is, that there is no “money to waste,” or simply consume because one has an excess of it -- only requiring the demand for “More,” to turn on the spigots. The “cost of living,” is not so much a concern as the “quality of life,” obtainable anywhere. That is the resourcefulness of individuals, as well as the larger culture and environment they live in.

If everyone is just a consumer but not a producer, then it doesn’t matter how much one has to spend, because nobody is producing anything of value. The only exchange, is to get something for nothing, and everyone operating in that manner and intention, ensures that nothing of value can be acquired, no matter how much they demand.

Any economy must be based on values more than just getting money from somebody else. One first has to be able to create value -- and then one can exchange value for value, instead of just endlessly worthless dollars, with somebody hoping to get something for nothing.