“But explain to me how it is that a people who in their separate lives are driven only by material self-interest are somehow in their collective capacity driven by altruistic impulses? How do you reconcile the one or the other? See, the basic situation, as it appears to me, is almost the opposite. Most people are selfish in a narrow material sense.” -Milton Friedman
“The only way in which you can have non-material values become effective is by having a society in which a minority can express itself.” -Milton Friedman
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If we live in a free-market society with the inherent belief that we are under no obligation to contribute to the community. Due to the nature of the mobility of freedom that operates from our selfish motives and intentions.
How will future generations sustain themselves when our free-market mobility is operated through such a selfish lens? For it is understood that most of us operate from a selfish lens. With that being said, if selfishness fuels our greed and gives breath to our desire to hoard wealth and resources. What will be left of the planet when there is no water to drink? No food to buy. No cars to drive. No gasoline to fuel our tanks. No electricity to operate. No internet. No money to spend. No shoes to wear. No clothes to buy. For if we operate under the current selfish motives to accumulate wealth and hoard it to our own disadvantage as a human species and a human civilization under Planet Earth. What will we do when the gap between the wealthy and the poor is so far apart that complete anarchy takes over? We saw this during the 2021 insurrection.
We claim or believe or think that we must operate in a free market society. But freedom in itself means that anarchy might or has the notion thereof to exist. For if we are free to do whatever we desire, that means that there was nothing wrong with those who stormed the Capitol. But how many of us believe that those who stormed the Capitol Building are innocent? Do we believe in freedom so much to the point we believe that this act was an expression of that freedom? For what purpose do we need law enforcement agencies? Freedom in itself is with grace, and those that have grace are free. For grace is the peace of mind in which freedom operates.
But when are we going to see this again? Although we desire our government to change its mode of operation, whether that be for more social welfare, less government spending, or more tax incentives for the higher echelons of society. We still wage war against other nations, overspend, overcalculate, and do not budget, do not save, and overindulge both as a government and as a people.
Yet we as a human species still argue over whose football team is the greatest, whose raps may cause brothers to hate each other, and who is carrying the bigger stick.
While at the same time believing ourselves to follow Christ while simultaneously hating our brothers and denying our sisters the same freedoms of mobility experienced by men. For men who sleep around with multiple women are never demoralized or demonized in the same way a woman is for doing the same thing. Our ideology is still primal, and if we each believe and say to ourselves that most people are selfish, no one will understand the collective obligation that is needed to sustain all life, not just sustain life for the few.
Our government and our own individual consciousness are far away from the shared identities we all suffer from. This shared identity still believes it hates whoever is different from us in language, music, sports teams, gender, and whatever word or box the divide-and-conquer construction is able to conjure to operate from, which is broad and easily accessible within milliseconds of thought.
We operate in tribalism, but deep down we are all filled with light. We want others to do for us, but we ourselves do not do unto others. This is why change comes from within. If there is something we see in the world that we do not like, we should not use this as an excuse to commit anarchy but instead become the catalyst for the change we desire to see, all of which must come from within.
We start companies or grassroots organizations. We invent new ideas and new modes of thought. We pray. We hope. We dream. We forgive. We give back with a cheerful heart, not out of expectation. For even Jesus said, when you invite, don’t invite those who may invite you back. In the same notion, when you give, don’t give to others whom you expect to be given back. For you gain nothing in an equal or reciprocal exchange.
Yet all of this requires nearly impossible amounts of resilience and selflessness. But what is impossible with man is possible with the higher power of our understanding.
For without resilience, we become the monster we supposedly oppose. Without resilience, we become the imposter we are supposedly against. For the human way is constantly under attack. The human species is constantly under attack.
In movies, on the road in our vehicles, when we wait in line for our coffee, when our order is wrong, when our package is late, in anime, in cartoons, and in the way we individually speak against our own species.
Yet a crow or a dolphin does not say to itself “crows are a disgusting bird” or “dolphins are the antithesis of the ocean.” In other words, how can we as a human species survive if we are against each other in our minds and in our mode of consciousness? The human species itself is under attack every single day. Yet we constantly look on the outside for help, when the help that we need comes from within. We, at times, get so stuck in the past that we cannot let go of it. We cling to the pain of our ancestors. When it was the very pain that our ancestors wanted to be healed from. We cling so far into the future that we hate the present moment or hate the process it will take in the present moment to get us where we need to be.
When I decided to pull my head out of my rear end. It was because I knew I could have done better. I knew the kind of life that I wanted to live. Not because I deserved it. We all think we deserve better. Some of us feel completely robbed by the world. But when we look at the world, we hate it. We despise it. We say to ourselves, “This world is changing.”
We cause ourselves to be in a depression because of the way and the manner in which we speak on the world. But in this world, there are butterflies, daughters, sons, mothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, sunshine, moonlight, trees, water, rivers, mountains, oceans, blades of grass, airplanes, music, concerts, flowers, diamonds, and video games.
We cause ourselves to be in a depressed state of mind because we despise the couple or the person next door to us. We despise people who do not look like us. We carry hatred for our government and for each other. Some of us feel so much hatred in this world that we believe love doesn’t exist in this world. Some of us believe the world is a void. Yet when we see a sunset, when we hear the rain, when we visit an ocean, when we climb a mountain, when we listen to music, when we kiss our spouse, when we cuddle with our pets, where is the hatred for the world then?
It is up to each and every one of us to be the change we desire to see in the world. How many of us desire to see a change in the world but individually do nothing to make the world better? Instead, do we not become the very thing we are supposedly against? The grief and pain of our ancestors is not for us to carry alone. The wrongdoings done to us are not for us to become broken by. But instead we must push forward, not out of hatred but out of grace. Out of a pure love for ourselves without conceit and without pride.
But are we ready for this change? How many of us say we are open-minded, but we do not let another speak? We interrupt; we are always ready for a rebuttal, always wanting to be right and never wrong. It is up to each of us, every day, to be better, to do better, to become what we desire others to be.
Yet we keep pointing the finger and blaming someone else for the wrong done to us. While forgetting the very wrongs we have committed, knowingly or unknowingly, to others.
Although I admit that I do not possess the answer to everything. I do believe that each of us is capable of making the world a better place IF we choose or desire such endeavors.
-ASG 33