On the Wisdom of 'Commons' Sense. . . by Maireid Sullivan
2012
For Love’s Caress (1996) Maireid Sullivan
Recorded in 1998: listen on Bandcamp
I gave my heart and I gave my soul, to the children
I drew all my love, drew all my time, for the children
Still I can hear the yearning cries of all the children in this world
This world, feel it’s greatness
The weight of the past bears down on my thoughts
We are daughters of history, mothers of a new world that’s dawning
And this great old world can be renewed in the name of love’s caress
Voices everywhere calling
This world, feel it’s greatness
The world, feel this endless vastness
Once-upon-a-time I thought that hindsight was all I had in this world
But we are willing slaves to only ourselves today
From seekers to finders, our souls can tremble for love’s caress
Voices everywhere calling
This world, feel it’s greatness
The world, feel this endless vastness
All of the angst we hear, it’s just well disguised imperfection - sophistication
When we can feel it all, we can reach out for it all forever
Through our eyes we can make souls tremble for love’s caress
“It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too.”
— Aristotle, Metaphysics
In many ways, the methods and goals of scientific and contemplative inquiry are complementary, with each enriching the other, while the latest innovations in 'communication' technology are a boon for interdisciplinary 'investigators'.
ReVisioning History –
group-think to peer pressure,
peer review to corroborator,
changemaker to collaborator
inspiring, enlightening, empowering collaborative independence,
empowering "personal sovereignty"
We can feel enlivened by 'independent' interdisciplinary study:
Access to 'debates' across economics, politics, psychology, world history, "Basic" health science, and the condition of the natural world (water, air, soil, ecosystems), encourages us to embrace our civic duty with enthusiasm.
Compassionate people continue to contribute to a vast array of essential
social, scientific, civic, and economic 'actions' – alternative health movement, environment movement, "Single Tax" movement, - each leading to ground-breaking insights that contribute to cutting-edge principles of Best Practice.
Meditation (disambiguation),
aka mindfully detached awareness practice is a TOOL: How we use that tool matters. Many use it to avoid having to feel the emotional pain associated with dealing with dysfunctional relationships or financial struggles.
E.g.
- I'm trying to be more in touch with my true nature.
- It helps me de-stress and overcome negative feelings.
- It makes me feel happy.
Frustration and exasperation are justified emotional responses to circumstances beyond our control: unwanted insights, thoughts and emotions that arise from unhappy financial/ social/ political predicaments we find ourselves in. Those feelings alert us to pay more attention- to seek out solutions that empower us in 'managing' conflicts of interest while developing 'good citizenship' skills: Preventing un-democratic suppression of 'factual' history is a duty of citizenship!
On the roots of economist wisdom: When philosophy of economic theory follows the belief that everyone owns what they create, then everything supplied by nature, including the land, will not be privatised, supported and defined by a well-engineered taxation system.
Once we understand the evolution of the visionary thinking behind "The Law of Rent Theorem" we can see how all of our societal ills are a direct result of faulty thinking - the direct cause of economic injustice - from the 3rd world to the 1st world.
In short, a well-engineered tax system refers to collection of Economic Rent via a "Single Tax" designed to replace taxes on productivity: In other words, instead of collecting income tax, pay roll tax, sales taxes, and taxing business profits, the onus falls on land and resource 'owners' to pay an annual "Single Tax" into consolidated revenue, whether it be for the value of the land on which their (untaxed) houses stand, or, for any other privatized use associated with the resources of the Commons–
e.g. forestry, minerals, electromagnetic spectrum, licenses, etc.
(See Economic Rent explained.)
Australian Tax Office Land Valuer (Ret) Bryan Kavanagh's 2007 report "Unlocking The Riches of Oz" demonstrated how all public services and public infrastructure can be funded via collection of Economic Rent, including provision of an equal share of annual consolidated revenue surpluses, aka a UBI or "Citizen Dividend" for all citizens with flow-on benefits in personal security and personal freedom of choice in the quality of life —including an end to tax office oversight on legitimate enterprise 'productivity'.
For example:
Imagine the manifestaton of wisdom in replacing collection of 'productivity' taxes with collection of economic / resource rent -
Ample public funding for infrastructure and public services.
An end to poverty and the 'welfare state' via equal distribution of annual surpluses via a "Citizen Dividend" aka UBI to each citizen/shareholder.
No tax on productivity, including income, sales, pay-roll, —no business taxes.
No need to worry about 'investing' for retirement because annual surpluses, which would be much higher than all current pensions, would be distributed over each citizen’s entire life.
Affordable housing: access to land by 'taking over' the payment of the Land / Site Value Tax (as we do with local council rates) on the value of the land (no bank mortgage on the land value required), and either building your own home or only taking a bank mortgage on the value of the house you wish to purchase.
When basic personal needs are taken care of with the "Citizen Dividend" people can choose to 'produce' whatever they wish with their time:
From poetry to invention, with freedom to develop talents via a variety of career choices.
A generally healthier lifestyle, without the current socio-economic 'causes' of anxiety: inflammatory symptoms, drug addiction, depression, suicide, domestic violence, anti-social behaviour, crime, black markets, under-world corruption, etc.
An end to all territorial conquests and resource wars as ‘users and beneficiaries pay’ the Economic Rent for 'private' access to lands and resources.
and so much more.
Economic wisdom via a well-engineered "resource tax" policy can lead to positive impacts on health, wealth, gratitude and happiness – for everyone.
Placebo effect: We can 'shelter' each other.
Given the enormous mainstream power and momentum of the current economic system, with land speculation as the most popular means for survival of the fittest,
it is easy to believe that significant change isn't politically possible– that there is no hope for the vast majority of 'other people' who must live without justice and equity when our own survival
- our 'comfort-zone' - is secure, but there's no wisdom in that ...
A modern parable:
An anthropologist proposed a game to the children in a South African tribe: He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the children that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?'' The word 'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa language, spoken by over 7 million people, means:
"I am because we are."
Visionary public service: Bryan Kavanagh's sublime vision for the future.
As one of the world’s leading analysts on the
inter-relationship between land and the economy, Australian Tax Office Land Valuer (Ret), Bryan Kavanagh had this to say in a filmed interview which I conducted on 18 April 2008:
Excerpt:
When it comes to economics, the reintegration of the theory of land valuation is essential. It’s the new frontier—just as we sent Voyager out to explore space.
We're at a turning point where the economy is not working for us. There is a big discovery to be made, and this lies in an epochal change—the rediscovery of Resource Rent: Shifting—transferring taxes to Resource Rent is going to open the way for a whole new development for humanity.
The implications for humanity are greater freedom, more time for relaxation, for family, more time for the arts, and far less government control of our lives. These ideas might sound mystical, but they are the sorts of solutions that could be delivered to us, once we pass through this new frontier.
Its not just land rents we want to capture, we want to capture licenses for electromagnetic spectrum, aircraft slots, all forms of forestry and mineral licenses, all resources. These would supplement our charges on land values, and add to the enormous Resource Rent pot, that is now 285 billion—more than our current [Australia 2008] level of tax revenue.
We've witnessed the progressive loss of a sense of community, and land rents represent community. If we collected Resource Rent, we'd get rid of poverty.
We have a widening gap between wealthy and poor because the wealthy are capturing Resource Rent.
We've got to rediscover the land tax system.
This would open up enormous benefits. It would fund infrastructure, education, health, all of these areas that are crying out for funds, and this fund is sitting there, being grossly capitalized by individuals and causing us to ratchet up taxes to fund them. But if we decrease taxes, and capture more of the Resource Rent, we would be doing as nature intends us to do—using growing Resource Rent funds for public purposes.
Sacred Economics (2012) by Charles Eisenstein Sacred Economics, the book, traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme - but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being. Visit his website for more of his elegant work.
Partial video transcript: from 3:46 Economic growth means that you have to find something that was once nature and make it into a good or was once a gift relationship and make it into a service. You have to find something that people once got for free or did for themselves or for each other, and then take it away and sell it back to them somehow. By turning things into commodities we get cut off from nature in the same way we get cut off from community. We look at nature and say that it is just a bunch of stuff and that leaves us very lonely. And leaves us with many basic human needs that go un-met, and if you have money you might try to fill this hunger through purchasing -through buying things. Or through accumulating money itself. And of course now we're nearing the end of growth. The planet can't sustain much more growth, and that is why the crisis that we have today won't go away.
The Gift We didn't earn any of the things that really keep us alive, or that make life good. We didn't earn air. We didn't earn being born. We didn't earn our conception. We didn't earn being able to breath. We didn't earn having a planet that can provide food. We didn't earn the sun. So I think on some level we have this in-born gratitude, because we know that we didn't earn any of this.
We know that life is a gift. If you know that we've received a gift then the natural response is gratitude and the desire to give in turn. In a gift economy it is not true, in the way it is in our money economy, that everybody is in competition with everybody else. In a gift society, if you have more than you need, you give it to somebody who needs it. That's how you get status. And that is where security comes from. Because if you've built up all that gratitude, people are going to take care of you too.
If there are no gifts, then there are no communities. And we can see, as community has become more monetized, that society has disappeared. People long for it, but you can't just have community as an add-on to a monetized life. You have to actually need each other.
People desire to enact their gifts.
And if they were free from money they would do it. Money is so often a barrier—you know people think: oh! I'd love to do this. But can I afford to do it? Is it practical? Money stops them. – What beautiful thing would I do?
– What am I called to do?
– Would it be to set up big gardens for homeless people to take care of, and reconnect them to nature?
– Would it be to clean up a toxic waste site?
– What would you do?
– What beautiful thing would you do?
And why isn't it practical to do these things? Why isn't there money in those things?
7:30 The Shift... etc
The legendary interpreter of RUMI,
emeritus professor of poetry, University of Georgia,
Coleman Barks' slow southern US accent is deeply soothing.
In this 2013 TEDX Talk, he tell us of his connection with RUMI
and his "soul-growth practice"
— accompanied by the legendary cellist David Darling,
who sings so beautifully at the close of this talk.
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral
by Aaron Freeman
You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy,so they will understand that your energy has not died.
You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed.
You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world.
You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off
like children, their ways forever changed by you.
And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energywill go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it.
And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure,that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time.
You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around.
According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone;
you're just less orderly.
I am not old…she said
I am rare.
I am the standing ovation
At the end of the play.
I am the retrospective
Of my life as art
I am the hours
Connected like dots
Into good sense
I am the fullness
Of existing.
You think I am waiting to die…
But I am waiting to be found
I am a treasure.
I am a map.
And these wrinkles are
Imprints of my journey
Ask me anything.
- by Samantha Reynolds, BentLily.com
