The other day, someone told me I matter and am important. It felt nice to hear and so I thought you, too, would like to hear it. To that end, I’m recycling this post from December 2015. Enjoy.
Sometimes I get in a nihilistic mood and think it doesn’t really matter that I’m alive, that I exist. In the grand scheme of things, I’m a speck, a peon, a flash in the pan of life. Furthermore, I think of myself as expendable and exchangeable in the sense that if I wasn’t here, someone else would accomplish what is required of me; that the universe would work through someone else.
The other day, though, I read something in Richard Tarnas’ book Cosmos and Psyche that had me rethink my perspective. He posits two ways of grappling with the universe and uses the analogy of two suitors to explain them. In the first approach, the suitor treats the universe as if it has no intelligence and is something to be exploited for his own gain. In the second, the suitor seeks to know you (the universe):
“[N]ot that he might better exploit you, but rather to unite with you and thereby bring forth something new, a creative synthesis emerging from both of your depths. He desires to liberate that which has been hidden by the separation between knower and known. His ultimate goal of knowledge is not increased mastery, prediction, and control, but rather a more richly responsive and empowered participation in a co-creative unfolding of new realities. He seeks an intellectual fulfillment that is intimately linked with imaginative vision, moral transformation, empathic understanding, aesthetic delight. His act of knowledge is essentially an act of love and intelligence combined, of wonder as well as discernment, of opening to a process of mutual discovery.”
This photo will make sense later. Photo by Shannon Potter on Unsplash
Wow. That paragraph. Reading it, I realized it does matter that I’m here, that I’m alive at this moment in time. Not because I exist and therefore I matter – I can’t get behind that just yet – but rather because me being here, now, I am able to co-create something with the universe that otherwise would not have been birthed. Posted on my bathroom mirror is the question, “What does higher power want to work through me? And what part of self needs to step aside in order for that to happen?” God, higher power, the universe is working through me in a mutually fulfilling way whereby we both benefit. I, you, we have special gifts and talents that are not expendable, not exchangeable, and not unimportant.
My spiritual teacher says, “If one ant meets a premature death, it will disturb the balance of the entire cosmos. Therefore, nothing here is unimportant, not even an ant.” Later on, my spiritual teacher affirms that “Nobody is unimportant, nobody is insignificant. Each and every existence is valuable.”
I matter, you matter, we matter. We are here for a reason. If I remain stuck in an inferiority complex of sorts, I miss the opportunity for higher power to work through me, and I miss out on the creative synthesis Tarnas mentions. Part of that synthesis means valuing my part and not giving more significance to higher power’s because we are in a co-creative dance with the divine, and as they say, it takes two to tango.
I dream of a world where we recognize, yes, it’s true, we’re only here for a short time but that doesn’t mean we’re insignificant. A world where we understand our existence is important because through us, new things are being birthed that otherwise wouldn’t exist. A world where we realize our lives are more than a flash in the pan. A world where we understand that we matter, even when we think we don’t.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I have a funny story to share since my last post. I wrote that I have a juicer that’s been languishing on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for months. I did all the right things, included all the right keywords, posted the right pictures, and even published the ad at a time when I “should” have received the most traffic. People would message me about it and then disappear. I kept my hopes up, kept renewing the listing, but eventually I just gave up because it had been months and I still had the thing.
I completely wrote off the juicer, assuming I wouldn’t ever sell it, and then, out of the blue, someone wrote to me. I expected this to go the way of the others – initial interest and then no follow-through, but lo and behold, I sold it! Here’s what’s interesting: I didn’t renew the listing. I didn’t update the photos. I didn’t pray about it. I didn’t do anything.
You may write it off as dead but it’s not. Photo by sina drakhshani on Unsplash
I want to be very clear and precise here because some people might hear that story and say, “See! It’s when you give up that you get what you want!” You can take away from the story whatever you want, but for me, that kind of thinking is dangerous and implies a sort of certainty that life rarely provides. “Do nothing” isn’t a secret to manifestation. I’m not saying, “Just give up on fill in the blank, and then it will happen!” Because who knows? Maybe it will. Or maybe you’ll need to wait two months or two years or two lifetimes for the thing you want to happen to happen. Or maybe what you want will never happen, ever.
My spiritual teacher speaks to this when he says, “whatever happens in this universe of ours is nothing but an expression of Cosmic desire or Cosmic will … when a human desire and His desire coincide, then only does the human desire become fruitful, otherwise it is a sure failure.”
Again, he’s not saying, “Give up! Surrender! Then you’ll get what you want!” He’s saying, “If the universe wants something to happen, it will; if not, no matter how hard you pray, it won’t come to fruition.” Sometimes hearing his quote brings me relief. Sometimes it spawns rage. Where I’m at now is recognizing the complete powerlessness I have. I don’t know when things will happen or if they’ll happen. It’s been made abundantly clear to me I have zero control over almost everything, including my own body. However, selling this juicer made me laugh, and it reminded me that maybe the things I’ve given up on are still viable. That what I wrote off as dead isn’t so dead and has some life in it.
I dream of a world where we remember when or how or if things happen is rarely up to us. A world where we understand that despite our best efforts, much of life is out of our control. A world where we recognize that even if we’ve written something off as being dead, it may not be dead after all.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
If you’re on social media, you may have noticed that “whimsy” is trending. It’s become a thing where people share videos of themselves wearing long, flowing dresses and fairy wings while shopping for groceries. Or they’ve begun sending postcards or scrapbooking. Some people are encouraging adults to build forts.
As a super serious lady, I love whimsy because it’s the counterbalance that I need. I could always use more play in my life. But what I appreciate even more than general whimsy is following my whims and noticing the delight when things work out with ease and flow. Here’s an example. I have a juicer that I literally never use, so I decided to sell it. AI helped me figure out the pricing, product description, heck, even the best time to post about it on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Has that juicer sold? No! It has not!
It’s been months at this point, and I still own that juicer. There was no “whim” involved with selling it. There was no strong impulse in me that said, “Do this.” Instead, it was more of a logical thing, a “should” thing to clear space in my cabinet, be practical, make money, etc.
Yes! Let’s splash in the ocean! Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
I also have a hat I don’t like anymore that has been sitting around my apartment for months. I haven’t known what to do with it. Sell it? Give it away? Recycle it? On Thursday, on a whim – and I do mean a whim – I decided to post it on eBay. I could have posted it on Poshmark or another online retailer, but my gut said, “Post it to eBay!” I didn’t do any research. I didn’t ask AI for help. I copied and tweaked the description from the company store where I purchased the hat new, and then I listed it.
Based on my experience with the juicer, I expected the hat to languish on eBay for weeks, if not months. Lo and behold, the hat sold the very next day. Is it because I priced it too low? Maybe, but I did use eBay’s suggested price, and given I thought about donating the hat, even receiving a few dollars feels like a win.
I could talk about spiritual philosophy here and how and why things happen in the material world, but I’m not. What I’m more interested in sharing is the reminder that there’s a place for whims. Those small, impulsive actions, the gut-knowings, can be incredibly powerful. They don’t always lead us in the places we want to go – I sent some query letters to literary agents on a whim, and it led nowhere, for instance – but it’s important to follow those actions nonetheless. There’s something liberating about pushing aside the mind and not thinking too hard about what we’re doing. For an overthinker like me, it’s exactly the medicine I need.
I dream of a world where we recognize we can do the rational, logical things and they may still not work out. A world where we engage our childlike sense of wonder and play. A world where we don’t take everything so seriously. A world where we follow our whims and see where they lead.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
You can’t throw a rock without hearing someone or something say, “Be present. Stay in the moment.” It’s one of the most frequent pieces of advice. There are books about it. Courses. Practices. I, myself, have written about it. I find it’s a lot easier for me to stay in the moment when I enjoy the present moment, but what about when I don’t? When my big toenail has been removed and it hurts to walk? When I haven’t slept well in three months? When instead of my dreams coming true, they’re stalling out? What then?
Yes, what then? My friend Ada Pembroke is an astrologer and she touched on this in a recent email. She wrote:
“We may say that we don’t believe that the body is the idiot step-sibling of mind anymore, but the story that embodiment kind of sucks is just part of the air we breathe. Personally, as a person living in a body with chronic pain, it’s especially easy for me to accept the story that the physical world is kind of a pain.
“I have good reasons for having this particular filter. It matches my experience of reality. It’s validating on mornings when I wish that I could roll over in bed and return to my dreams. It gives me a pass on days when I can’t remember a single thing I physically did because I allowed myself to escape into the life of the mind.
“And yet, the story the Chaldeans told about idols refuses to give me a pass.”
The story she’s referring to is one where spirits desperately want the chance to participate in the physical world. It’s so desirable that gods will willingly possess a carved block of wood just to experience a small snippet of the physical world. They would give anything to be on the rollercoaster of what it means to be physical.
The gods would love to blow dandelion seeds. Photo by Herbert Goetsch on Unsplash
It boggles my mind to contemplate that. To think the hardship, the pain, too, is something the gods would envy. And while I could tell you that by slowing down and noticing the breeze ruffling my jasmine plant, or hearing a bird chirp in a faraway tree branch that life doesn’t seem so bad and is maybe even enjoyable, I won’t. Instead, I’m going to quote Kierkegaard, who said, “Be with what is so that what is to be may become.”
I know it’s not the most present-moment quote I could choose from, but it’s the one that feels most true for me right now. When I’m complaining about the present moment, I decidedly do not want to be with it. I would like to run away from it as quickly as possible, thanks. And that may work for a little bit. I may find some temporary relief, but it won’t last. A saying I hear frequently in 12-step communities is, “What you resist, persists.” That means whatever I’m resisting doesn’t go away just because I want it to. It only changes when I stay, allow, and be with it. Only then does it become something else, even if that “something else” is just a fraction more tolerable than the moment before.
I dream of a world where we recognize being present isn’t always enjoyable. A world where we understand that despite the hardship, there’s value in widening our lens and taking in everything. A world where we realize even the hard things, gods may envy. A world where instead of wishing things were different, we stay with them until they become transformed.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I am charmed by an article I read in the Guardian recently about a fascinating discovery. Scientists detected a natural sugar found in raspberries in an enormous cloud of dust and gas that’s near the heart of the Milky Way. I know I’m the one making this leap and this isn’t how chemistry works, but I imagine that if I were in space, and presuming I wouldn’t freeze to death, I could stick out my tongue and the air would taste faintly like raspberries.
Per the article:
“The simple sugar erythrulose appears to be produced through chemical reactions on tiny interstellar dust grains, which then rain down on nearby worlds or reach them after being incorporated into comets that eventually clatter into planets.
‘This is the very first sugar to be detected in interstellar space and it is important because it tells us that these sugars are more common than we previously thought,’ said Dr. Izaskun Jiménez-Serra at Spain’s Centre for Astrobiology near Madrid. ‘It opens the possibility for life to develop on other worlds in a similar fashion to what it did on Earth.’”
And further down:
I do love a raspberry. Photo by Anto Meneghini on Unsplash
“The scientists estimate that millions of tonnes of erythrulose could have rained down on Earth when a surge of asteroids and comets battered the planet during what is called the Late Heavy Bombardment. ‘To have suffered this kind of rain of organics, I think that seems to have been a key step,’ Jiménez-Serra said. ‘That material could have contributed to prebiotic soups where the first biomolecules were synthesised.’”
I’m not going to touch the part about there being other planets and other life forms on those planets because to me, that just makes sense. Instead, what I keep coming back to is how interconnected everything is. More than a year ago, I wrote a post called “We are Nature” about how we aren’t separate from nature – we are nature. Most of the elements in the human body, like carbon, oxygen, calcium, and iron, were created in stars.
What didn’t occur to me until this article is that long before anything was created on Earth – forests or oceans or raspberry bushes – the universe was already creating not just elements of the periodic table, but chemical compounds. The kinds of molecules that living things on Earth would later use. Somehow, that makes the distance between “out there” and “down here” feel much smaller.
I’m not sure I have anything profound to say, no wisdom to share. I’m just noticing that instead of cold, deadly, hostile, space is nothing like that. Instead, some of the building blocks of life may not have originated on Earth at all, but arrived here on comets and meteorites, helping to nurture our young planet.
Yes, there are black holes, and meteors that destroy life, and planets that are just giant balls of gas, but that’s what balances out the good stuff. You can’t have constant creation and expansion. Destruction makes room for something else. Like raspberries.
I dream of a world where we understand some of the essential building blocks of life were already being assembled in outer space long before Earth existed. A world where we recognize we aren’t separate from nature, we are deeply connected, intertwined, and embedded into it. A world where we realize rather than being cold and hostile, space could literally be raspberry-flavored.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
A member of my spiritual community just died, and so it seemed appropriate to recycle this post from March 2023.
Members of my spiritual community are at the age where they’re starting to die. It seems like every three months or so, someone passes away. Some people I’m closer to than others, but regardless, each death leaves an impact.
Have you ever played that game where you stand in a circle and hold a piece of yarn while also throwing it to someone else in the circle? In the end, you wind up with a giant web that connects every person to everyone else. That’s what I think life is like. When someone dies, the metaphorical yarn is tugged and creates a ripple effect so everyone feels it, some more deeply than others. As for me, there are layers of grief. There’s the grief I feel from the person’s death, but there’s also the grief I feel for their family members, their friends, their colleagues. There’s up-close-and-personal grief, and there’s also more removed grief.
In my spiritual community, we have a ceremony to honor the passing of people. It’s purely for the mourners, meaning we don’t believe the ceremony has any effect on the recently deceased person. One of the things we say in tandem is, “You have freed us today from all the social responsibility we bore toward our dearest so-and-so.” At one point, we all pour water into our palms from the same pot and take a sip from our cupped hands. It’s the bookend to a baby naming ceremony.
Eventually, we all become this. Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
With the baby naming ceremony, we are pledging responsibility to the baby symbolically by adding water into a tub, and with the mourning ceremony, we are taking it away. While the responsibilities are gone, the impact is not. There are people gone from my life that I think about regularly. I may not have been close, but every reminder of them hurts my heart.
I don’t have anything profound to say other than every person who is gone is not forgotten. We carry them with us in our hearts, and they’re with us in another form. I’ll close here with an edited excerpt from writer and performer Aaron Freeman, who in 2005 explained on NPR why you want a physicist to speak at your funeral:
“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral because they’ll explain 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 them about the first law of thermodynamics: that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. All your energy, every vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was you remains in this world. The physicist will tell your mourners 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.
The physicist will tell them 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. The physicist will explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. The physicist will 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. 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 dream of a world where we remember every person’s death creates a ripple on the spider web of life. A world where we understand a person may be gone, but they aren’t forgotten. A world where we remember when a person dies, their energy is still around us. A world where we take a physicist’s view of death.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I know I should probably write about freedom, independence, liberty, and that sort of thing because the U.S. just celebrated its 250th Independence Day, but I think plenty of people have already done that in better ways than I can. Instead, what’s on my mind is luck. I was out of town, and we definitely ran into what I would categorize as “bad luck,” but was it really? Who can say? What follows is a blog post about that from October 2022. Enjoy!
I keep thinking about the cycle of luck. If you take a snapshot of an event, it might initially seem like bad luck. But if you widen your lens, so to speak, that unlucky event can become lucky.
There’s a story about a Chinese farmer who used a stallion to till his fields. One day, the stallion escaped into the hills. The farmer’s neighbors lamented his bad luck, but he replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?” A week later, the stallion returned with a herd of horses from the hills. The neighbors rejoiced, congratulating the farmer on his good luck. He replied, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” The farmer’s son attempted to ride one of the wild horses, but he fell off and broke his leg. Everyone exclaimed, “Oh no! What bad luck!” The farmer said, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”
Some weeks later, an army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied young man they found. Seeing the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they exempted him. Was it good luck or bad luck? Who knows!
Lucky, maybe. Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash
I’m experiencing a bit of this bad luck-good luck cycle myself. About a year ago, I was in a car accident. I didn’t need to go to the hospital, so it wasn’t major in that sense, but I was in acute pain for months, and then when the swelling in my neck, back, and shoulders subsided, I needed physical therapy to regain range of motion and help build strength. I wouldn’t call being in a car accident “lucky.” I don’t think anyone would. But as a result of the car accident, I reached a personal injury settlement with the driver’s insurance company for thousands of dollars. Using that money, I was able to wipe out some of my debt, so was the car accident a good thing?
At this snapshot in time, something good came from the bad, but what will I say another year from now? Unclear, but that’s my point. Life is filled with ceaseless ups and downs. We want to freeze time, to only experience “good” things, but “good” things can turn into “bad” things. That dream job you landed? It’s so stressful that it starts to affect your health and your relationships. The beautiful home you purchased? Infested with termites. Nothing is static; nothing stays the same, including luck.
According to my spiritual philosophy, the Sanskrit word for the universe is jagat, and jagat comes from the root verb meaning “to move.” My spiritual teacher says, “Here in the universe, nothing is stationary, nothing is fixed. Everything moves; that’s why this universe is called jagat. Movement is its dharma; movement is its innate characteristic.”
Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Not good luck. Not bad luck. When I remember that, bad luck becomes easier to bear and good luck becomes more precious.
I dream of a world where we understand bad luck can turn into good luck and good luck can turn into bad luck. A world where we recognize nothing is stationary or fixed, including our circumstances. A world where we hold some perspective as the wheel of fortune keeps turning.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’m finally watching The Wolf of Wall Street because I’m doing research for my next book. It’s safe to say the movie is a study of excess. The characters want more, more, more. More money, more power, more prestige, more sex, more drugs. They are never satisfied. It’s easy to believe that’s only true for the likes of greedy capitalists, but not so.
My spiritual teacher says, “There is in the living being a thirst for limitlessness.” Elsewhere, he says, “No living being is content with a little, not to speak of human beings.” That means not just business people. Not just the wealthy. Everyone. Every living being. We all want an endless supply of everything. But what’s underneath the object or experience? What are we all actually reaching for? Happiness.
Everyone wants to be happy, and we all go about achieving it in various ways. And we don’t want a little bit of happiness. We want endless happiness. But here’s the thing – that’s not possible in the material world. As you’ve likely noticed, the material world is limited. There are only so many strawberries currently in season. Yes, we can grow more, but that takes time, and again, there is only so much land, water, and other resources available to grow them.
Talk about biting off more than you can chew. . .Photo by Georg Eiermann on Unsplash
The same is true with anything you can think of – there’s only so much cocaine available; there are only so many books you can read or time/desire to read them; there are only so many songs you can sing before your voice gets strained. The human body, our sensory organs, have built-in limits. That means our thirst for limitlessness will never be quenched by limited objects. Our desire for endlessness is only satisfied by something endless. In my spiritual tradition, we say that Brahma, or God, or Cosmic Consciousness, or Higher Power, or the Divine Beloved, or whatever name you want to use, is that endless entity. And by thinking about or meditating on that limitless entity, that’s the only way to put an end to the thirst of limitlessness and endless happiness.
This limitless happiness is the bliss we’re all chasing, which is known as “ananda” in Sanskrit. Some people call it nirvana, or Shangri-la, or even heaven, but unlimited happiness is what we all seek. As a lifelong meditator, I can’t say that I’ve reached limitless happiness, but I’ve experienced it in short stints. I can also say the biggest difference in how I think and behave lies in understanding the need beneath the need.
I understand that a trillion dollars won’t make me happy. I know that eating an entire box of crackers will feel good in the moment, but later I’ll be left with a stomachache. I’m aware that traveling to some exotic location will be fun for a while, but the high will eventually wear off. It doesn’t mean I don’t still seek happiness in the material world – I do – but I know what’s going on, and I understand how to satisfy my craving for more.
I dream of a world where we recognize there exists within all of us a thirst for limitlessness. A world where we understand that each of us seeks unlimited happiness. A world where we recognize the material world will never fully slake our thirst. A world where we realize there’s only one way to satisfy our craving for more, and that’s to focus on something infinite.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’m still entranced by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and am thinking about how animacy/animism dovetails with a concept from philosopher Martin Buber. He wrote a book called I and Thou, which I haven’t read, and I only conducted a cursory search on the internet about it, so my apologies to the philosophy nerds who know way more about this than I do.
Anyway, from what I understand, Buber says we engage with the world in one of two ways: I/it and I/thou. In the I/it relationship, we collect data, analyze it, classify it, and theorize about it. The object is viewed as a thing to be used or put to some purpose. This makes sense when we encounter something like a hammer: “What can I do with this? What do I need it for?” It also makes sense when we’re conducting research, or any time when detachment is necessary.
In the I/thou relationship, we engage with the encountered object in its entirety, not in pieces. The I/thou relationship asks us to make ourselves available to another, to understand them, to share with them, to have a dialogue. In essence, to see the other as a human rather than an object.
This plant isn’t an “it.” Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash
Wall Kimmerer flips this object/human perspective on its head when she writes:
“Imagine seeing your grandmother standing at the stove in her apron and then saying of her, ‘Look, it is making soup. It has gray hair.’ We might snicker at such a mistake, but we also recoil from it. In English, we never refer to a member of our family or indeed to any person, as it. That would be a profound act of disrespect. It robs a person of selfhood and kinship, reducing a person to a mere thing. So it is that in Potawatomi and most other indigenous languages, we use the same words to address the living world as we use for our family. Because they are our family.”
They are our family. They are our siblings, even if we struggle to recognize them as such. We are in relationship with all of them, whether we want to admit that or not. My spiritual teacher says, “Why should the love and affection of developed human minds be restricted to human beings only? Why should it not include all living beings, including plant life?” Why indeed? Because there’s a sort of speciesism occurring where only certain species are deemed worthy and valuable to the detriment to all the rest.
Later, my teacher says, “[W]e never realized – and still do not – that this wanton destruction of the animal and plant worlds will be of no benefit to human beings. Rather, it will be a great loss for human society.”
He calls this philosophy neohumanism because it includes love, care, and respect not only for humanity but for every living being, whether animate or inanimate. Wall Kimmerer calls this philosophy indigenous wisdom, or perhaps animism. And Buber calls it the I/thou approach. Whatever you call it, I see the benefit. Humans are not separate, alone, or isolated from other species. We are not apart from nature; we are nature itself. Whatever we need to do to feel that is fine, just as long as we feel it.
I dream of a world where we recognize non-humans are not objects, even if the English language doesn’t recognize that. A world where we approach everything we interact with – whether animate or inanimate – as a being worthy of care, attention, respect, and consideration. A world where we embrace egalitarianism of all species rather than hierarchy.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I can’t not talk about how Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire. He’s a trillionaire, but in the U.S., 47.9 million people lived in food-insecure households in 2024, the highest since 2014, according to the Washington Times. He’s a trillionaire, but 181 million children will only eat one meal today, according to a UNICEF report. You and I are much closer to being homeless than we are to being a trillionaire. For context, someone earning $50,000 per year would need to work for 20 million years to become a trillionaire, and that’s assuming they don’t spend any of the money they earn.
I, personally, can’t conceive of a trillion, and I’m not alone in that. The Wall Street Journal created an article about this and says, “A million seconds ago was about two weeks ago. A billion seconds ago was in 1994, when Pulp Fiction was about to open in theaters. What about a trillion seconds? Whatever number is in your head, you might want to add some millennia—because a trillion seconds ago was back in the Ice Age.”
The article also has some neat visuals and a way to experience a million versus a billion versus a trillion by scrolling. So anyway, a trillion dollars is a lot of money, more money than any person can spend in multiple lifetimes, which brings me to my main point: There should be a wealth cap.
Wealth needs some limits. Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash
I could be wrong, but it seems like these days, many people would agree with that sentiment, based on all the “Eat the rich,” and “Get rid of the billionaire class,” posts I’ve seen floating around on social media. Sure, my algorithm is likely skewed, but I don’t see many people who hear the contrast of “People are literally dying of hunger while Elon Musk is a trillionaire,” not reacting with disgust.
In the socioeconomic theory I ascribe to, Prout, which stands for the progressive utilization theory, one of the principles is that there should be a collectively agreed upon ceiling on the amount of wealth which individuals are allowed to accumulate. That means no loopholes like, “Well, I don’t earn a salary,” while accumulating wealth via stocks and bonds. It means we as a society say, “No, one person should not be allowed to accumulate wealth unchecked.”
A wealth cap also stops the inequality problem before it starts, meaning none of this, “Let them accumulate all that wealth and then just tax them.” It’s much harder to tax someone due to the aforementioned loopholes than it is to say from the beginning, “You can’t have this much wealth to begin with.”
The fundamental reason behind a wealth cap is acknowledging that we are all connected. My spiritual teacher says, “The collectivity is not outside you – your future is inseparably connected with the collective fortune. You must take the entire collectivity with you and move toward the sweetest radiance of the new crimson dawn, beyond the veil of the darkest night.” To take the collectivity with us, we have to concern ourselves with what billionaires are doing and furthermore, not let people become billionaires (or trillionaires) in the first place.
I dream of a world where we recognize that wealth inequality affects us all. A world where instead of saying, “Eat the rich,” or “Tax the rich,” we keep people from becoming overly wealthy in the first place. A world where we create a wealth cap.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.