We are raised up by the society to believe that we pay for things with money. You know: paper, coin, digits on the bank account. Whenever we want something that we don't have or is not ours, we pay for it in the store with money and then it's ours. Then we can do with it whatever we want, because WE payed for it with OUR MONEY. Then there is this division in our society where some believe that one should always work to earn one's money and that those who don't do 'real' work are bad people, lazy, selfish. Others like the capitalist idea where one invests one's money (earned, stolen, inherited or all of the above) so that the money 'works' for you and one just gets the benefits, the profits. But what all have in common is that all live in the illusion of money and payment, because everyone believes that we pay for things with money. I did too, but boy was I wrong.
We don't pay for things with money. Nothing is actually payed for with money. So, what is the real payment for a product or a service? Who does in fact, actually pay for it? If I walk into a store and buy some milk, who payed for it and with what? Me with my money? Nope, this is a complete illusion. Can you see it? Wake up - who really payed for the milk? The cow that produced it. The farmer who collected it, the people who packed it and moved it to the store. All these beings PAYED for it WITH their WORK. This is the only REAL payment that exists, ever. Everything is payed for with work, with effort, with movement. Giving some 'money' over the counter is not a payment, it is a joke. It is some 'kids' playing games, imagining things. This is what we are doing when we believe that we actually payed for something when we give our money or when we transfer some digits to another's bank account - we are imagining things. We aren't really doing a damn thing, we are only taking what is already there and shuffling some paper and digits around because we care so much about them - the digits and the paper we call money. But we only care about the amount of our digits and our paper, not about another's. Fuck no, we don't even dare to talk with anyone openly about our money, our digits and our paper, or their's, because it's a secret. If I have less money than you then I am ashamed and if I have more than you then fuck you, that's how life works. But it doesn't. This is how we created the system of money to work in our minds - big difference.
Money is just a tool, a mind tool in a game with rules that we create, and it can be very useful to help us disperse the goods in a more equal, reasonable, practical way. Money is not evil or bad. We are evil and bad, because of the way we use it to abuse each other - Life - with it. So, our society today does not use money to disperse goods in an equal, reasonable, practical way for all to live a Dignified Life. We use the money to enslave each other, we use the money to say who is worthy of life and who is not worthy of life. We use the money to define whose life is worth more and whose life is not worth a penny. And we take it dead serious. We do not give a shit when people suffer and die because we do not allow them to have enough money. We allow them to work to the bone though, of course, but we do not recognize the payment that they do, the REAL fucking PAYMENT, THE PAIN-MENT. All these abused workers do all the pain-ment for us while others mostly just shuffle the paper - 'money' - around and then we actually believe that the hardest PAIN-MENT that the 'lowest' workers do is worth the least amount of credit? We obviously do believe this, because we give the workers who work the most and the hardest, the least amount of credit for it. We came up with this rule that such people, who work the hardest and the longest, who do most of the ACTUAL HARD PAIN-MENT for all of us, should get the least amount of credit for it. Would we like to be in their shoes? Would we give ourselves the same amount of credit if we had to work in their shoes? No, be fucking serious and be self-honest. Oh fuck, did we get this whole payment thing wrong on all the fucking levels imaginable!
So, here we see that we have to redefine the word PAYMENT, which we dared to define and understand so selfishly and contrary to the actual reality of things, so that we can stop abusing and stop creating abuse of Life with it and actually come up with a definition that is supportive for all.
Current definition (from Wiki): A payment is the transfer of an item of value from one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for the provision of goods, services or both, or to fulfill a legal obligation.
Re-definition:
PAYMENT - the pain-ment of work, labor and effort that one gifts into an activity, product or service.
These people, who work to the bone in sweatshops all over the world and all people who work anywhere, are the ones who actually pay and make the PAIN-MENT for our shit that we then buy with money: our iPhoneys, our fancy plastic fantastic, our clothes etc. Workers are the ones who payed for it. So, the next time I see myself say or think: "Hey, I payed for that!", I'll stop, breathe and realize: Fuck, I did not really pay for that at all, I just gave my money for it, my credits, my imaginable value. And mostly not even to the being who ACTUALLY payed for it with their own physical labor. That being is probably suffering somewhere in a sweatshop, being abused by all who don't understand where the actual payment happens, who do not value the Life of all beings equally as their own and do not give all the equal credit for the work and the pain-ment they do. I will no longer allow the abuse of money and payment and I will speak up for all beings who do not get their equal credit in spite of all the PAIN-MENT they do. I will work to implement a new system, where Life, work and pain-ment of all the beings is valued equally and where all receive their equal credit for being alive and sharing their Life with me, so that we can all be alive together in a Life worth living.
So, taking this new definition of the word payment: how does it effect one's awareness of reality and how should the money system change according to it so that there is no more abuse?
Firstly, we become aware that no one is actually paying for anything with money, because the only form of real, actual payment is movement / labor / work / effort itself, towards a goal, product, service that is best for all, that supports all. When we are aware of this, we can see that we cannot really value work through money, because most of the work can be valuable and useful for the society in some way or another. Sure, some work is more urgent than another and so, some work must be done prior to some other work. For example; producing food for all is more urgent than painting a picture, but this does not change the value of work itself - it only changes the priority, the urgency of it, the order in which the work should be done. Very important to realize. So, what is the value of baking bread? What is the value of building houses, producing electricity, assembling iPhoneys, designing and planning new things? What is the value of singing, painting, making a sculpture? Can we really put a value in digits on any work? Sure, any random number will do... But it is still just and illusion of the mind, a thing that we made up. So, really, what is the real value of any work and effort that supports Life? It is the value of Life itself, because Life expresses self through work, effort, expression, art, movement... So, you see, the value of any work that supports Life equals to the value of Life itself, because Life does it. Can you see? Wake up - do you see it yet? So, in a system where this would be fully realized and implemented - like an Equal Money System - people would work firstly on things that are necessary to sustain a Dignified Life for all and then they would work on anything they like - and all would still get an equal amount of credit for it, based on the value of Life itself. So simple, yet so hard to grasp through a mind of selfishness.
So, back to where we are at the moment in our reality, of course we cannot just remove all money and say every work is priceless, because we have been living in the illusion of money and payment for so long. Thus we need to gradually realize the illusion, like I explained above, and step by step implement the necessary changes in the system that will - in the end - lead to a Dignified Life for All, where money as we know it today will no longer exist. We can start by implementing a solution that is described in the Living Income Guaranteed proposal. This proposal / goal is not an Utopian world. What I am talking about is a world of common sense, a world where Life is actually recognized and honored in all. What we have today and what we have been trying to live until now - this is the real Utopia, because we are trying to live according to illusions that we create in our minds. And whenever we try to live out illusions that are not in consideration with the actual reality - we create suffering. As long as we create suffering, we are doing it wrong and we are trying to live out the illusions of our minds that are not real, that are selfish. So simple, yet so hard to see through our minds, as long as we try so hard to avoid any self-responsibility.
I dare you to join me and see through the deception of money and payment that we have today.
The economic solution I suggest to read about: Living Income Guaranteed
Join us and work with the like minded people who can see through the deception of today's money abuse: Destonians
