Not Free But Happy

I know, it's not a popular thing to say that we're not free, but it's true on so many levels that it seems a waste, and maybe even a source of much pain and misunderstanding, to not acknowledge this simple fact of life.

If you had to choose, would you choose to be free, or would you choose to be happy? There's this strange popular opinion that one can't exist without the other but, like with most things, this isn't as obvious when you think about it; there are levels of freedom and levels of happyness, and complete freedom won't result in hapiness at all.

The reason why this isn't a popular opinion is because we've been raised with the idea, no, the certain knowledge that freedom is the ticket to happiness. And money is the ticket to freedom. And a career or a job is the ticket to money. These causal relationships, starting with the expenditure of your personal time and energy, already severely limit your freedom. The fact that you exist, dear reader, limits my freedom; with both of us existing, we have no choice but to at least acknowledge each other's existence, and in normal circumstances, we'll act accordingly. Gravity exists. We must eat, drink, sleep and reproduce. Thou shalt eat. Thou shalt not fly. Thou shalt multiply, for thou shalt not grow younger.

We need a place to stay, and since we're social creatures who like to share ideas, among other things, we prefer that place to not be too far removed from the next place where other people stay. We've discovered that as a community we need not spend so much time worrying about gathering food or building a house because we can organize and assign tasks, we can specialize and shave off huge amounts of time compared to doing everything by ourselves. We know that by ourself life's hard and cold, while together life is easy and warm. A place to stay for yourself and the ones you love, good food and drinks, someone to love and have kids with, and a community of people that has the same basic wishes and needs, that's all we truly need to be happy. Happiness is first and foremost not having to worry about having food or a place or a community tomorrow.

And none of that has freedom as a prerequisite. The opposite is true; a functional and organized community of people that efficiently caters to the needs of all individuals in that community requires organization and certain rules. Complete freedom is for the hermit or the nomad. I'm very glad to not be free, because I see how much happiness my unfreedom provides me. Maybe this is expressing it a bit crude, because there's still choices to be made within that framework of a functional society, but those choices will always be limited by our dependency on nature and especially on other people. Never make the mistake of thinking that you're independent; no one is. Rich people can fool themselves into thinking they're independent, but that's because they camouflage their dependencies with money. The fact that you can pay an expensive doctor doesn't mean you're not dependent on that doctor's knowledge and skills. The fact that you can buy an expensive car doesn't mean that you're not depending on the millions of people who were responsible for that car's existence.

What I've described so far can be seen as being a slave to reality. It's just a matter of fact that we need the basics to survive as individuals and as a species, and it's simple biology and evolution that says we're social animals who survive and thrive in communities. With this we can still feel free, because we can be happy in the knowledge that our basic needs are provided for now, and for our offspring. I only wish this was the end of it, but it's not. We've let our relative freedom been taken away to, and are now all slaves to money.

From the day you can think until after your death, your entire life is 100% controlled by money. Because, flat out contradicting the reality of us all being interdependent, we're being constantly told that you, and you alone, are responsible for everything you do and do not have in life. Just stop and think for a second about how money dictates everything in our lifes. Even when I die, my kid will have to deal with insurance companies, banks and the government to simply be allowed to bury me. This is sick. Corporations have more rights, more freedom than breathing, living persons. This is sick. When I travel and reach some imaginary line I have to deal with two governments before being allowed to proceed, when this is supposed to be our planet. This is sick. Almost 100% of the casual conversations we have in public are in some way about money. This is sick.

That's because money is what you need for happiness; for the basic needs of survival and the knowledge you won't have to fight for survival tomorrow, the reassurance that your kids will have a better life than you yourself had. Let that sink in: your kids should have a better life than you had. That's the natural evolution of progression, isn't it? How can this not be the case? Well, because of money and the few people that are allowed to make money. We've actually come to believe bullshit statements like "money makes the world go around" or "time is money" or "greed is good, greed works." It's the control over people through money that makes the world go 'round.

"None are more enslaved that those who falsely believe they are free." This quote by Wolfgang Goethe rings true to me. Money's power is absolute and so is the power of those who create it. The world's Central Banking system is nothing short of the world's largest organized crime organization. They're united and headquartered in the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, and they control the world's multinationals and governments with the money they print. And they do this by selling us a dreamed up understanding of "freedom", attainable by material possessions, money. Ultimately it's not money what we need, but the community of people that's responsible for the real stuff out there. That community is a world community now; we all need each other to maintain the level of technological and social progress we've made as a species. What we don't need is trade, bartering and money; a true community simply shares.

We don't need competition but collaboration. Because we need to understand that there is enough of everything for everyone; scarcity is manufactured in order for the economy to keep growing. This planet can feed at the very least 12 billion people with western consumer-habits, and we throw away almost one third of the food we produce. And we'll never reach that number of 12 billion, as long as we make everyone rich enough to be not depending on offspring for relative existential security, to have someone to rake care of us in the autumn and winter of our lifes. Wealthy nations don't produce enough offspring to even stabilize the population level; Europe and America and Japan are growing old...

We don't need money. In fact it is the one thing we could really do without, because it can be used for one thing only, and that is to exert power to enslave 99% of the world's population. In truth we don't need to own anything; I don't need to own a house, I just need a place to stay; I don't need to own a CD, I just want to listen to the music of my choosing at a time of my choosing. I don't need to own food, I'm going to eat it anyway. I don't need to own a car, I just want to get where I'm going when I need to go there. Now I own a car, but it stands in front of my door 98% of the time. I own a power drill, and I've used it twice in my life, both times I moved to another house. But why do I need to own any of it? Think about it. We're actually rich beyond measurement, we've got paradise right here, for all of us. But we need to share, not hoard. We need to understand freedom is shared, not individual.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!