We live in a sick culture. Competing fervently, without rest, earning points to make us feel safe. Paying our country with a chunk of our income so wars can continue and suffering has a source. Our taxation system leverages our collective accountability. We know the majority of the money goes to private interests and war, but we still glare at people who choose not to pay. We have to justify our delusion, we all gotta pay our dues. It’s pitiful to think that our small contribution makes a difference. It’s more a toggle on inflation than a contribution to the greater good. The nation is in an unfathomable amount of debt, to the point that it has no meaning.
All the while we have an agency external to our government printing our money and adjusting interest rates. At this point though, the phrase “printing money” is too generous. In truth, zeros are just being added to the end of digital bank accounts.
Have you ever thought about what a dollar is truly worth? A dollar is a certificate of debt to the federal reserve. An entity external to our government, which has never been audited, making decisions without the influence of our elected officials. This setup is truly unbelievable.
After war, the next big chunk of our money goes to our healthcare system. The US pays more than any other country for healthcare. The system is artificially inflated to extract the most value possible from sick people, our most vulnerable. The corruption in our hospitals is flagrant, but we’re all too scared to stop it. If we don’t pay hundreds of dollars a month for insurance, we will be financially crippled for the rest of our lives if calamity strikes. Healthcare debt and student debt account for much of the financial burden hamstringing our people. I’d love to think that pouring more money into our healthcare system would fix it, but I don’t think that’s the case. This wasteful and extractive system will not be righted with more cash.
The US should be able to provide healthcare to our people, similar to other developed nations, but the corruption runs deep in this system. We attempted to douse this dumpster fire with Obamacare. This attempted solution extrapolated the problem. Insurance as a mechanism leverages individual responsibility. Participants put their money into a collective pot to pay for any of the participants unforeseen expense. For insurance to work, it must be exclusive. This exclusivity incentivizes people to live healthily to keep their risk, therefor premium low. Healthy people can band together and pay less given their low collective risk. In our culture of stressed out, overweight and highly medicated people, forced universal health insurance isn’t the way out. We definitely need to take care of our people, but insurance is more problem than solution. This system must be changed from the root. It starts with us, the people.
We have to take our health into our own hands. We know that chronic stress and obesity are primary killers in our culture. We must find freedom from the hamster wheel and learn to fuel our bodies intelligently.
Corporate greed teaches us to gluttonously consume. Pharmaceutical companies advertise pills to curb our anxiety, lower our blood pressure and overstimulate our minds. We must see these soul sucking advertising mechanisms for what they are and stop succumbing to them.
Let’s come together and help one another through this life, curb the ego and competition, and realize that we’re all on the same team. Our media preaches the opposite, stay divided, us versus them. I think this is partially what we crave. It’s a tribal mechanism being preyed upon. Divided we feel secure. “At least I’m not one of those idiots.” If we all could talk to one another we would see that we all want the same things, and fear similar boogie men.
This tribal mentality is hilariously evident in American football. We all have our team. Overusing the word “we” to communicate our allegiance to our squad. “If /we/ would have focused more in the fourth quarter we would have had them.” We watch this tribal warfare as we chug beers, furthering our ego filled nature. Eating meat off the bone in the form of “hot wings” as we yell for our gladiators to smash whoever “they” are this Sunday. We are on some caveman shit.
Our tribal nature is leveraged against us in politics. We’re forced to choose which puppet to vote against in a race carefully conjured by the puppet master. Once we choose which we believe to be the lesser evil, we attempt to defend their decisions and stance, because this is now our identity. We mustn’t admit the faults of our side. We all nod along, knowing we did our part and casted our vote. Because every vote counts. Though we know popular vote doesn’t win elections in this system. It’s hilarious that we still elect one person to be our arbiter in the age of the internet. Reliant on an electoral system designed when we were delivering votes via donkey.
We all have some sense of the corruption. This is likely why we self medicate. Opiates and antidepressants suppress our soulful fire. We suppress our angst in order to push through. We feel better when we don’t feel at all. If not opiates, it’s alcohol, dividing and helping us forget. All of this to counteract the drugs we took earlier in the day to help us compete. Coffee then booze, the yin and yang of our hyperactive and disillusioned culture.
We’re taught to be this way from a young age. If our children are caught in school acting like children, we dose them up with amphetamines. Ritalin and Adderall dupe the rewards centers in our brains, dumping dopamine when we finish a cell in our spreadsheets. Our education system is so artificial that we have to give kids meth to hold their interest.
On the other side, we have the illegal compounds. Psychedelics and entheogens. Compounds that induce a sense of oneness are strictly illegal and culturally stigmatized. Why might this be? These compounds bring us together and cause us to challenge assumption. They make us think, melt our egos and help us feel love. It’s difficult to control people who remember their eternal strength. It’s difficult to control people who challenge convention. It’s difficult to control people who remember the power in unity.
So what do we do? As this system of limitless arbitration attempts to crush our souls? I say we smile to the collective stupidity and see our way out of it to whatever extent makes sense. Let’s relinquish our reliance on complex externalities, remember how to take care of one another on a local and familial level. Be the change.