Quality of Life (Civilization)

The quality of life in modern society, is the value one can get in exchange for the money (credit) they have -- and not merely the money they have, if they cannot exchange it for anything of greater value. That's why it is possible to have a lot of money and be miserable, if all the people in their circle, are intent on getting more for less, or nothing at all -- while in another circle, people realize the intelligence of giving more for less, or nothing at all. The trouble begins when those of the former, infiltrate the game of the latter, and eventually make it the game of the former -- while the more intelligent become aware of that, and start an even better rate of exchange -- and leave the old game, to those who have nothing of value to offer -- to con and victimize each other.

That is the way of the world, and how civilization and society evolves -- from a culture of brute force, to increasing sophistication and discrimination -- that the former, try to make into a bad (banned) word. For nobody, they believe, should be able to tell the difference between good and bad, and nobody should get anything of value, and even everything of value, must be destroyed. That is the proverbial Sacking of Rome by the Vandals. The only expression such cultures enjoyed, was the wanton destruction of anything of beauty and intelligence. Those virtues, had to be destroyed, just as we now see in cities in decline and on the ropes -- becoming a virtual sea of graffiti and waste, in which their participants revel in -- smearing feces on themselves as warpaint, in preparation for their rallies and demonstrations against peace and order.

That impulse for self-destruction and degradation has been the other half of the ascent of man -- to ever higher orders of tools and organization, which the masses of brute force and destruction, instinctively and reflexively want to destroy -- upon seeing them and being sent into paroxysms of fury and rage. That is not the world that they were nurtured and conditioned by -- and to see, and manifest.

Not surprisingly then, there are two visions of power and strength as well -- one being the destruction of everything from cinder blocks to buildings, while the other obviously, was the design and construction of all those things in the first place. The latter may take years of evolution and thought to manifest, while it all can be destroyed in a second. But once the shock of such moments is absorbed, the slow, steady persistence to build even better, begins once again. That is the story of civilization.

Greed is not the antithesis and antidote of fear -- that order is. Order is the greater predictability of outcomes -- both good or bad, while fear is the belief that everything is random, so there is no rhyme or reason for anything that happens -- which naturally invokes fear and terror. But if one can create a greater understanding of the relationship between causes and effects -- then there is no mistaking one for the other. One does not think that the power to destroy, is the power to build.

In the daily conditioning we do, that is the difference between, the consumption of calories -- and the building up of reserves for the time at which it is absolutely necessary and vital to exhaust them -- but at all other times, to build up those margins (of reserve) as much as possible to handle as great a magnitude of challenge as might be possible (anticipated). That's how some people will live through greater shocks and stress than others will -- but it is fairly predictable, and not merely arbitrary and random. There are things people can do, to prevent the shit from hitting the fan -- in the first place. That is what we hope to do all the days of our lives -- until we are no longer there to see to it.