Friday, January 04, 2008

Spread The Love

Most of my writing has concerned actions that INDIVIDUALS can take to liberate themselves.

But now that I have attained a degree of (physical, financial, temporal, emotional..) liberation, I find that my attention is turning towards helping others do the same thing. At one level, that involves sharing my ideas on this blog.

But Im taking other steps too-- which are more personal. I have decided to help two friends who have always shared my disgust with wage slavery. Like me, these friends have tried a number of experiments to loosen the grip of bosses. Both are working less than full-time, but both are still caught in the wage slave system and are very unhappy about it.

So I made a proposal to both- I would teach them my teaching system and work with them to make lessons. Then I'd help them build their own internet business.

When I tell people about what Im doing, the first reaction is always "aren't you afraid they'll compete with you?"

That knee-jerk reaction sums up the state of America quite nicely- no one is willing to help anyone else succeed, for fear they will lose something. Everyone is looking out for themselves, and only themselves. And when someone actually succeeds--- does well economically, for example... their first reaction is not to share, or teach, or help others. No, the first reaction is to horde their goodies and keep everything to themselves.

Next, these people tell themselves lies to justify their stingy greed and small hearts. They grumble about how "lazy" everyone else is. They create a mythology in which their own success is the result of their own genius and effort (with no help from anyone else and no luck involved).

This attitude eventually makes its way to the political level-- where we have rich people constantly insulting and degrading the poor for being "stupid", "uneducated", "lazy", etc.

What a dreadful country this is. How utterly uninspiring are Americans.

Here's how I see my own situation: After many many years of struggling, experimenting, researching, learning, etc... I have finally achieved a degree of liberation. I certainly contributed my share of thought and effort to this achievement. But I also learned a great deal from other people (living and dead). Likewise, throughout my life I have received help from many people.

Now that I'm doing fairly well, my instinct is to help others do the same. Im not afraid and I dont see my friends as competition. Rather, I know that their micro-businesses will enhance my own. The three of us will refer people to each other, we will share ideas, and we will help each other learn and improve.

We have also decided to create a "liberation work group"-- a small collection of people who are working towards financial liberation. It will include me, my two friends, a guy who just opened a small English school, and a woman who just started her own Chinese medicine practice.

We have agreed that one important topic for the group is: how to help other people with our micro-businesses and how to create ecological economics that are in harmony with nature and humanity.

All of this is quite interesting and fun.. and I just can't figure out why everyone else is so damned scared, greedy, and ignorant.