Day 4- The Game of Taxes

If you have any experience in playing computer games, where you have to construct and maintain a civilisation with taxes and food and so on, then you will easily be able to see what I am talking about, otherwise I will try to explain this as best as I can.

In the game I am currently playing (when I have free time) I have to build a small city with people and fulfil their needs and desire to keep them happy otherwise they go on riots and I lose the mission. For each level of civilisation I have to fulfil different needs, for example – the first level of civilisation requires food and community, the second level requires the same as the previous level plus cloth and a chapel, the third level requires the same as the previous level plus alcohol, tobacco and education, and so on – you get the idea.

Apart from keeping the people happy through fulfilling their needs and desires (which takes money), these are the responsibilities you have as the ‘ruler’ of the game:

• Building houses for the people (which takes money)
• Build ships (which takes money)
• Build harbours, shipyards (which takes money)
• Build roads (which takes money)
• Build lumberjack facilities (which takes money)
• Build warehouses (which takes money)
• Set up food supply infrastructure (which takes money)
• Set up mining facilities to supply you with resource (which takes money)
• Maintain infrastructure, ships and soldiers (which takes money)

The best way to get money is through raising taxes that people have to pay. The trick is to keep the tax rate high enough so that you have sufficient money to cover all your costs yet keeping it low enough to not anger the people and prevent a revolt. So – to get more money, get more people – but more people means higher costs. As the ‘ruler’ of the game you’re thus constantly having to find a balance in making sure everyone is happy and you have enough money to fulfil your responsibilities and complete your mission. 

The thing that is so interesting about this game and games like this (and there are many) is the fact that the people revolt if their needs are not met and the tax rate goes too high. If, as I assume, the game designers are trying to imitate the world as it is now, they failed, badly. If you look at the world today all the government does is raise taxes and ignore about 90% of the people in this world’s needs, meaning that most of the world is suffering from either starvation or just really disgusting living conditions where they are forced to work shit jobs for almost no money and the price of basic living goes ever higher while the wages stay low, or in some cases get lower or become non-existent. 

In a game the people would have revolted and slaughtered everyone that stands in a position of power that allowed this world to turn into the shithole that it currently exists as, but in the real world do people actually do anything at all? The answer for the most part is no, people talk about changing the world but almost nothing ever happens. The reasons why people don’t stand up and say no are out of fear, for example – the fear of failure, the fear of not getting paid or losing their job and therefore not being able to survive, the fear of losing whatever wealth they had accumulated in their lives, the fear of insubordination and so-on. Then you also have the idea of not being able to change anything anyway, the idea of being too insignificant and weak to change anything – and if people do overcome their fears and ideas and gather on the streets, the police/military would be waiting for them with guns and water-cannons.

If you really look at it – who turned the world into this? Who allowed the rich and the powerful to do whatever they want so as to maintain their power and wealth? Guess. Ask yourself how it is that the rich and the powerful consist of about 1% of the population and the ones who give them their power is us, the ones who suffer in the trenches or in the office cubicle or in the desert or in the barren fields that have been stripped clean. We give them the ability to do all this because we are scared of saying no.

Ask yourself if this is the world you would like to leave to your children.

Ask yourself if this is the world you want to live in.

If the answer is no then support the people pushing for an equal money system as that is the last and only true answer available to correct what we have allowed to be created around us.

There are billions of people in this world and when enough of them stand together and say no the world will change. There is nothing the minuscule 1% can do if the 99% stand together.

Standing together doesn’t mean that you have to gather on the streets and start a revolt by force, real change comes through re-education and a joint understanding. What we propose will take time but what you have to decide is whether or not you are willing to stand together and turn this world into a place we actually want to live in and are proud to leave to our children.

Make your choice.

Here are the links of the websites dedicated to an equal money system and where the people who have made a choice are busy working on how to implement it no matter how long it takes.

http://equalmoney.org/

Day 3 - Walking Through Resistance

I have been resisting writing about redefining words and as I look at why I realize that the reason I keep coming to a point of completely resisting writing, as Redefining words is what I want to focus on but I cannot find a word to redefine, the point that I realise is that I need to redefine resistance or resisting facing a point.

If I look at how I have been living or existing as my current definition of resistance what I see is:

A point that I see as a waste of my time, useless, pointless to do or face or write about as I do not want to see that whatever point I am looking at exists within and as me as it doesn’t fit into my perception of myself.

The dictionary definition of resistance is:

— n

1. the act or an instance of resisting

2. the capacity to withstand something, esp the body's natural capacity to withstand disease

3. a. Compare reactance R  the opposition to a flow of electric current through a circuit component, medium, or substance. It is the magnitude of the real part of the impedance and is measured in ohms  b. ( as modifier ): resistance coupling ; a resistance thermometer

4. any force that tends to retard or oppose motion: air resistance ; wind resistance

5. (in psychoanalytical theory) the tendency of a person to prevent the translation of repressed thoughts and ideas from the unconscious to the conscious and esp to resist the analyst's attempt to bring this about

6. physics  the magnitude of the real part of the acoustic or mechanical impedance

7. line of least resistance  the easiest, but not necessarily the best or most honourable, course of action

Through sounding out the word the other words that I can hear are:

Tense, stance, cyst, rest, ants

If I look at all the information that I have gathered in terms of the word resistance and how it affects me:

My perception of the word resistance and my relation to this word makes it look to me as a bad word. The reason for this is that me resisting doing something shows me that I need to do what it is that I am resisting as it is a point that I am afraid of or too lazy to do and as I also see myself as better than the point that I am resisting( at least some of the time).

The associations that I have made to the word resistance are:

That the word is bad and that it means that I am lazy and not good enough to walk through the resistance as I am consumed by fear of change and the point that I am resisting would change me if I face or do it

The experience I have in relation to resistance if that I am lazy and that I start feeling ashamed of myself when I avoid walking through the resistance as I am afraid, so whenever I have had the word or form of resistance come up I feel immediately worse and like a huge weight has been put on my shoulders that I did not want as I feel like I am doing enough even though I know it is not true. I also use the word resistance to hide from changing my idea of who I am as I enjoy who I am even though I know who I am at the moment is comprised of fear, shame, guilt and laziness.

Self-Forgiveness:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see the word resistance as something bad

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become angry at myself for going into resistance towards working through points or writing anything out

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to look at why I am resisting facing a point out of fear

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear resisting a point as it shows me that there points that I have not dealt with

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as someone who cannot work through points, as someone weak and as someone useless

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself to the point where I go into a complete shutdown instead of dealing with a point

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see what I am doing to myself as a point of distraction and entrapment

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enjoy the comfort of hiding behind my resistances and fear

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I am stuck in a point of resistance that people will see me as less than them

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as less than

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take it personally when the idea that someone is seeing me as less than me comes up

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become entirely consumed by resistance which is all fear based

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become entirely controlled by fear

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to let fear dictate my every move

If I look at what would best define the word resistance I come up with these possibilities:

A point that is being revealed as something to work on and requires direction as it is affecting myself as who I am as I am allowing myself to go into a reaction even if I do not realize it.

Definition:

Resistance is an experience from the mind that it uses to hold self back from facing whatever point is in front of me.

Resistance can be used as a tool to indicate when I am hiding from or using an excuse to not face a point and therefore an indication that I should push myself and walk through the resistance.

Checking the definition

a.   Is there a polarity in the definition that I have assigned to the word?

Answer: No

b.   Can I stand by this definition of the word eternally?

Answer: Yes

c.   Does the definition that I wrote represent what the word means?

Answer: Yes