The global changes we have not noticed… October 17, 2011

Over the last 50 years the life on this planet has changed dramatically. I wonder if we can fully realize what has happened to us? Here are some observations on this topic, compared to what we know about the previous history.

• People got used to the idea of change, so used to change, that they are  expecting permanent change.

• Population control: sex has been separated from reproduction, contraception is universally available, Contraceptives are displayed prominently in drug stores, right up with the cigarettes and chewing gum.

• Abortion is no longer a crime.

• Homosexuality is “allowed”.

• Clothing styles became more stimulating and provocative. It is not just the amount of skin that is exposed that makes clothing sexually seductive, but other, more subtle things are often suggestive.

• Families are limited in size, divorce has become more easier and prevalent, the marriage relationship are less stable and, therefore, people are less willing to have babies.

• The old are no longer useful. They become a burden. After you have had enough of it and you’re no longer productive, working, and contributing, then you should be ready to step aside for the next generation.

• Medical care is closely connected to work. If you don’t work or can’t work, you hardly have access to medical care. Everybody is made dependent on insurance and if you don’t have insurance then you pay directly; the cost of your care is enormous.

• Children spend more time in schools, but in many schools they can’t learn much. They learn some things, but not as much as formerly. Better schools in better areas with better people, their kids can learn more.

• Students have to decide at a younger age what they would want to study and get onto their track early. It is harder to change to another field of study once you get started. Studies are concentrated in much greater depth, but narrowed.  People become very specialised in their own area of expertise. But they are not able to get a broad education and not be able to understand what is going on overall.

• Gambling changed from illegal to state monopoly: state lotteries are very popular.

The capitalism is about to collaps… what’s next? July 16, 2011

image by axinia

Today many, including economists and financial experts are talking about the end of the existing financial system due to a simple mathematical law: Compound interest follows the existing monetary system an exponentially growing curve (= off 1 is 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. – as opposed to linear growth from = 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), and unlimited growth exponentially is mathematically impossible. Any system with exponentially growing system is an ultimately self-destructive, the end is predictable. In nature, quality growth prevails: Humans, animals and plants grow quantitatively until they have reached their optimal size, then they only grow more qualitatively. Exponentially growth occurs naturally only in connection with illness and death, eg the disease like cancer behaves exponentially (from one cancer cell, 2, 4, 8, etc.). The interest from the mechanism resulted in permanent growth of the forced economy is in irresolvable conflict with the mathematical impossibility, with the known consequences of such an unbearable social imbalance and life-threatening environmental degradation.

This situation sounds hopeless (if interested to learn about truly shocking backgrounds, see Chris Martenson’s “The Crash Course Money”). Margrit Kennedy, however, offers in her book “Interest and Inflation Free Money”  1996 , a positive outlook, because it shows not only the problem but also offers a possible solution for me (as an economic layman) understandable, reasonable, sensible and feasible acts. Margrit Kennedy, was born in 1939 in Germany and has been working many years as an architect, town planner and ecologist in Germany, Nigeria, Scotland and the USA. Since her ecological projects have often been dismissed as uneconomical, she became aware that an environmental measure had to be measured with the money-creating power of money in the capital market. She began to compare the growth patterns in nature and in the monetary system and the causes of the pathological compulsion to understand economic growth, and the function of the monetary system and the dangers of an economic or ecological collapse. Margrit Kennedy assumes that very few people understand exactly how money works and how it affects their lives directly or indirectly. She holds four misunderstandings for the main obstacle to understanding the design flaw in the present monetary system:

A basic income guarantee – a dream or a future reality? August 18, 2010

The idea of a basic income guarantee is getting popular. In case you have not heard about it yet, a basic income guarantee (or basic income) is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. In contrast to income redistribution between nations themselves, the phrase basic income defines payments to individuals rather than households, groups, or nations, in order to provide for individual basic human needs. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional.

In Germany they speak about 500 or even 1000 € monthly unconditional income for everyone.

 What are the arguments?

One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:

The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact…

From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work…

Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: ‘the micro-chip revolution’. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis.

The silliness of gym-philosophy or why quit physical work? June 17, 2010

 

My attitude to sports of any kind has been always very suspicious. Any kind of mass obsession caused by a brainwash “it’s useful and healthy'”  causes some natural resistance  in me. Recently I found out what the reason for my sceptical attitude towards any kind of fitness and sports: why doing it while we can do something more useful with the same results?

Modern people in the “civilized societies”  have created an enormous level of physical comphort. They have learned to avoid any physical work and enjoy their laziness.  At the same time they realise that “the body needs to be shaken.” And that – regular! So, the clever modern mind has invented the need of fitness and sports.

Look at this amusing description:

“A man who spends his necessary, unenjoyed working life among papers and ideas will recreate his innate expectation of physical work through something like golf. Unmindful that its main virtue is uselessness, the golfer trudges about in the sun carrying a heavy load of clubs and every so often brings his attention to a sharp focus on the problem of persuading a ball to fall into a hole in the ground; this is done, very inefficiently, with the end of one of those clubs, not by carrying the ball and dropping it in. If he were made to do all this by force, he would feel sorely put upon, but as it is called recreation and is guaranteed to serve no purpose beyond exercising him, he is free to enjoy it. But there are now many golfers who have allowed the labour-saving impulse to spoil some of this pleasure as well, since it has been suggested by the relevant sector of the culture that carrying the clubs is not pleasant and, more recently, that the trudging between strokes ought also to be moved into the work category and little automotive carts are used instead. To re-create themselves after playing golf, they may soon have to resort to tennis.” (by Jean Liedloff)

Isn’t it hilarious?

The evolution of business: The PROFIT mode dies out, the PURPOSE mode comes in! May 18, 2010

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I think the most brilliant about this observation is that this is the NEW trend. I am sure that a couple of centuries or even decades away people have been indeed very well motivated by profit only. Now, as a clear advancement of mankind we can see the new motivation, the advanced motivation.

Let me back it up with one fo the most brilliant TED videos – “How great leaders inspire for action”, I guess it is nearly same idea, but from another view-point…

We live in a very interesting time when we can observe the transformation of the whole humanity at the highest speed!

LOVE, axinia

The magic of Materialism November 6, 2009

Materialism is our glittering Reality. Especially now, then the Christmas time is coming, the amount of that glitter increases, as if accumulating material riches was the message of Christ. The magic of Matter is powerful. The human/physical part of our being is longing for comfort and beauty, sensual satisfaction and delight…We dive into the fascination of matter and its hypnotizing charm.

But the Matter is not all we consist of. Another powerful part of us is the Spirit (I don’t mean the soul here though)

For a spiritual person is not easy to find the balance between the two.  While in a mediation I dwell in the Realm of a Spirit and realize the tremendous power and beauty of it, it is the magic of materialism that wants to take over in my daily life, for instance in a form of the pretty Vienna City with its imperial style and flavour of coffee…

Is it possible to have both, to enjoy the Materialism and Spirituality?

Since several years I am trying to play a game and make these two happily coexist. When you meet me first, you might say I am quite successful in that (I keep up a glamour look  and spend much time in restaurants and cafes). An yet it feels like a game, because all the time I am aware of the silent completion between the two. The famous dualism is always there…

Honestly, I am in owe of the black magical power of Materialism. Since last 2 decades I have been watching  Materialism taking over in two greatest spiritual nations like Indian and Russian. Within no time (historically seen) the value system crashed down and many people had to undergo a wired transformation of their attitudes to life and themselves. 

Never jobless: my “Whiskers, Paws and Tail” strategy October 28, 2009

This post is an outcome of my over 10 years work experience. The funny thing about it is that none of my employers have ever looked at my CV. And yet I was getting very good positions. The even funnier thing is that I ended up working as a Human Resources Manger myself. All that gives me the right to claim that there is a certain strategy that makes it work, and work successfully.

I call it “Whiskers,  Paws and Tail”  strategy. There is a popular Russian cartoon “Prostokvashino” with a cute cat Matroskin who, being asked about his documents replies: “Whiskers, paws and tail are my documents!”. And that is what I mean under no need of a CV presentation: you yourself at any moment of life should be the best CV to your personality, both inside and outside. Let me list some ideas on how I see it.

1. Reliability is the most precious and important quality for an employer, no matter in which sphere –  creative, business or industrial. You should not only look reliable but actually be that. Reliable people with determined attention emit this quality naturally, and this leads to trust which is so valuable for anyone.

2. Inner and Outer Beauty: It starts with the  inner work on oneself – the perpetual unfolding of your character is essential. Not getting “better” from day by day, no. You are already perfect. It is about discovering the true beauty of your personality. The most speedy method for it I found in my meditation practice. There are many other ways as well, but this one gives the fastest results. As soon as your true perfect being will be increasingly shining through, this will make you a desirable person. Many people will want to be with you, will seek your company for any thinkable reason. Among these people there will be also some potential job-givers!

3. Be The Best Product Yourself Having this full package of precious inner Qualities + their Manifestation + Reliability you become a  kind of a PRODUCT, a highly desirable  trade mark. How will you know it works? When any decision-maker/boss/HR Manager will want you to work for him/her after a couple of minutes you have talked. And  this is not a dream!

Plastic Planet -“after seeing this film you will never drink from a plastic bottle”. September 26, 2009

I usually visit cinema once in several months, and only for some really good films. My recent discovery is a brand new film “Plastic Planet”, the poster to which claims: “after seeing this film you will never drink from a plastic bottle”.

Generally we all know plastic is bad. But HOW bad? WHAT is actually so bad about it? The film comes up as an eye-opener.

 An invistigavie documentary in Michael Moore style by an Austrian film director Werner Boote presents an up-close and personal view of the controversial and fascinating material that has found its way into every facet of our daily lives: plastic. He takes us on a journey around the globe, following plastic through its 100 years of “glorious triumph” and showing us what an unexpected impact plastic has on our world.

Things in life I can never understand July 22, 2009

There are certain things in life my brain just strikes to understand.

Among the vast spectrum of human knowledge these things stay for me apart – as a clear invention of sophisticated brains, and not something natural.

These things are not representing the beautify of human nature, in fact they make life complicated.

These things are normally explained in an overblown, twisted manner for only a few to understand.

These things for me are:

Who wants money? July 18, 2009

“Me!” would be probably the first reaction of all most of the people.

Do you really want money? – if even now the answer is ” yes” then you are already a millionaire.

The truth is, only a tiny percent of mankind  really wants money and these are the same people who own great material riches. I talked to some people who know personally the so-called Russian oligarchs (people who became incredibly rich and influential  in a short time) – they say that it is the love for money as object that has driven them all to becoming so rich.

The truth is that an average citizen of any country is not really interested in money. Sure, no one would mind comforts and other benefits that money brings with. However it is a very seldom case that someone is interested in possessing huge sums of money as such. And the one who is obsessed with the idea usually gets it!

Why this?