After paying taxes I am in a bit of a manic rage mode, but that's ok. These days I'm practicing the art of allowing myself to be angry and channeling it towards positive things, not letting it ruin my day. That requires a full acknowledgement of the emotion and understanding exactly what causes it.
I'm not angry about paying for roads and I'm not angry about supporting sick or old people. I'm angry at how horrible this money is managed, and how horrible countries manage their money in general, and how the people who claim to be working for the citizens either just try to line their own pockets, or are so ideologically driven that they don't actually achieve anything.
I'm angry that so much human potential gets flushed down the drain into taxes...just imagine how much of a companies resources go towards making sure it's compliant and everything is documented properly. I'm angry that both sides of the political spectrum are more interested in giving subsidies to big companies then protecting us against malpractice and corruption.
I'm angry that I'm supposed to be thankful it's better in America and Japan than it is in Africa or the Middle East, rather than expecting it to be better.
But let's be productive here. Let's think about what we can do, and how to channel this anger towards good ideas.
"What if society was build on positive reinforcement, rather than negative reinforcement?"
This idea popped into my head a few minutes ago and I realized immediately just how powerful it is and how much I need to share it.
Of course subsidies are a form of positive reinforcement, but they usually aren't given based on the results they have. They are given based on connections and based on who knows how to game the system better (who is able to game the system better).
Forget about government for a second and let's think more basic. What about schools? What about jobs? What about parenting?
We all learn negative reinforcement from a young age. It's drilled into us..hard!
Think about it, how many students study hard to go to a good school? They may say that's what they are doing, but in reality, they are studying hard to avoid being rejecting from a good school. You may think this is the same thing, but it's a fundamental difference in how we see the world. We don't see it based on how to maximize our blessings. We see it in terms of how to minimize our pain. This leads to very different behavior and different ideas about the world.
It leads us to see the world as a cold harsh place, and yeah, it REALLY can be, but it doesn't HAVE to be. In nature we focus on the fact that there are predators out to kill us. We don't realize just how giving nature is, fruits growing from the trees, crops we can harvest, even animals we can kill for food if we need to. It's hard to be thankful when you are worried about a leopard or a bear eating you. It's hard to be thankful for the many many blessings we have when we are cold and dirty.
That is the history of humankind. A struggle to survive. At least that's the stories we've learned. But how many people do you know who have been eaten by wild animals? How many people do you know who died from the cold? I'm guessing it's far less than your ancestors.
Nature provides for us, we just need to know how to make use of what it provides. Once we are provided for we have a chance to change our outlook and we haven't. We continue passing on this lack mentality to younger generations, and so they continue to exhibit the same patterns that don't even make sense anymore.
That's why we are so unhappy. Our whole system is built upon the mindset of our ancestors who lived in caves, experienced slavery and war and atrocities far beyond what most of us could imagine.
Our education is built upon those ideas, but with lots of cognitive dissonance because we all know we aren't going to be eaten by bears or die from the cold in a cave, almost anyone who has access to the internet anyway.
We are scared instead of the landlord coming to kick us out of our house. We are scared of not finding a source of income to pay for food. We are scared of losing our way of life. It's the same fears our ancestors had in the cave, but it no longer makes sense or feels natural.
There are all these houses. Why can't we live in them without fear?
There is all this space to grow food? Why can't I use it? Why haven't I even learned how?
The situation in the cage has gotten much better, yes! But can we realy pretend its not a cage?
We pay people who have more than us just to survive. I'm not demonizing all landlords. The incentives are such that people who want to preserve their wealth or make money buy houses and rent them out to people.
Whether it's right or wrong, it's hard to feel ok about that. It's different from nature which simply just IS. In nature if you don’t grow food, there’s no food.
It's part of a system created by humans and their collective behaviors. Human systems are more complex and don’t always follow logic, they follow incentives. We should be able to change it, although whether we want to or not, is a different story.
Personally, I think we can do a lot better. I’m excited to do better.
I'm not saying we should end private property. I'm not even saying we force rent control (although I'm willing to listen to the arguments for or against that). I'm saying what if we focus on teaching kids that doing good things will lead to good results, rather than focusing on scaring them about all the bad things that will happen if they don't work hard? What if we just changed the way we worded it, and change what we emphasize when teaching them about the world? What if we tried to change the framing in our own minds?
A whole lot would change.
We could strive to create a world where people feel that at least their basic needs will be met, so long as they are not destructive and hurtful towards others... not provided necessarily by government, but somehow provided. In an abundance mindset, this becomes possible, easy even. If people aren't scared of negative consequences, they behave more generously, and there is more to go around. New possibilities unlock.
What if we taught kids to look at the positive rather than the negative, and helped them channel everything into what excited them, rather than just trying to steer them away from what we are afraid of and what they are afraid of?
I don't know if this would work at every age and in all situations, but we could definitely do a LOT more to change the overall mentality and atmosphere.
I know that I studied hard in school because I was terrified of being homeless or earning minimum wage which I knew wasn't enough for a comfortable life. Later when it actually became a possibility, I realized my parents were supportive enough and would act as a safety net, that I could always go stay with them, but I knew very well that they'd want me to pay them back for that someday, and I was scared of being indebted to them and letting them have too much influence over my life.
I wonder how my life would have been different if the ability to travel and eat good food and help other people had been on my mind as my reason for working hard?
I am absolutely certain I would have done much better work, and achieved a lot more. In fact, the only way I was able to come to Japan and travel around Asia was the excitement I had about learning language and being able to connect with the culture. If I hadn't been excited about it, I probably would have been living a much less exciting, and probably more uncomfortable life.
Excitement goes so much further than fear when it's channeled well.
And actually my anger about taxes is merely my desire to feel thankful for the wonderful things in life without feeling like there is always this negative reinforcement, a punishment for not paying a powerful mafia that demands it. They may be a relatively friendly mafia but they are still a mafia.
I wonder if this mafia would exist if we were raised to value our own excitement as fuel to create our own lives the way we envision them. And so while I feel anger, even more strongly, I feel excited to channel this anger into something useful, or fun, or healing, or exciting.
This is what healing looks like.
Lastly, I'll share this song that fits my mood this week and this month. A really nice example of letting the anger flow into something beautiful. His voice is a bit difficult to get used to but I still love this:
some of my old podcasts episodes :
And join me on twitch to talk about deep shit while playing RPG games in Japanese :-D
