Rediscovered essay

I found something I wrote for an essay some time ago. I think the prompt was to find something I found a problem with and thus, this is essay was pretty hastily produced. It has to do with this blog and since I just recently found it, why not, eh? I was writing something on another subject but this will take place of that for a while.



By the system of monetary exchange that we – the inhabitants of a modern world – have collectively created and let loose on society, there exists an inherit problem in the way one views the world and the relationship of oneself to that world. Specifically, this man-made exchange system forms in us the theory that everything can be had in the world and it can be won or bought and is therefore the right to us – whether that be to a country or an individual person – solely. The way in which we view religion through this method disillusions God, the figurehead of a religion, unstable, thus creating instability in its followers. By this system, the way in which we see the world and its capability in providing for us consequently destroys, working against rather than working for that same said provider. Because of what man made – by first not observing the world around him – man has effectively created an illusion of poverty in which there is supposedly the noble by nature and, in effect, the vulgar and low as well. This unnatural man-made trade system uses the rules made for the creation against its creator, and though there is an illusion of attainable pleasures, through control and disenchantment, there is a reality of the restlessness and depression of the masses.

In nature there exists a network of scales and balances that create harmony within and without the living things in nature's hold. This harmony can be shown by an interconnectedness in all living things that does not have to be recognized or analyzed or thought out in the process but, simply enough, just is. This unrecognized source and interconnectedness gives and takes but its inheritors of good fortune neither cheer, nor those who suffer groan because it – whatever it may be – just is, because gaining or losing is just the balancing of nature. Life takes from nature and life gives back to nature – the system we imitate – but, in nature, there need be no sense of recognition or acknowledgment – a system we do not imitate – because of that interconnection between life. For example, a man picks his food from what nature provides but there is no immediate sense that he needs to give back to the one who provided him by peeing on the ground or dying and decomposing to create more food. That connection that balances and harmonizes between life creates this system of exchange that releases no enmity, mistrust, or a constant need to pay back for the man or the provider. This connection creates a sense of cooperation rather than competition and there is no thought to whether one should or should not be cooperative because the act is instinct and natural.

In the man-made system of trade, where providing must be recognized, controlled and sought out, there exists chaos to all except those who are in control. This system, with so many rules, becomes so hard to keep track of and to learn all its inner workings, that it becomes an entity of its own. In its own becoming it sows discord between its followers and that interconnection transforms into distrust, anxiety, and greed. That system of nature becomes no longer observed or thought of except in fear and superstition, and balance is attempted to be made and reworked rather than be left alone and left to work. Those who benefit and those who don't begin to notice who benefits and who doesn't, all the while a rift rips the two apart and more begin to suffer. Classifications are made on what is “good” according to the system and what is “poor”, and the rift widens until it is almost impossible to close and mend.

From the man-made system of exchange, religion is made unstable and spirituality scarce because of the way in which that God or provider is seen. When such a power as a God is conformed to this system, this God is made not like nature but human-like – with all of man's failures and instability. This God becomes something that can be appeased and appealed to with gifts, money, or good deeds. In this way, that system of exchange is made prevalent in the religious one's prayers and actions. The religious ask for something in exchange for a good dead and is made mad with the sense that he has been rejected when he doesn't get what he asked. The religious one's actions are good only for that promise that they may be put in a good place when they die. In this way, through many, true camaraderie and compassion is made scarce.

When one brings back the example of nature, we can see that the connection that harmonizes and balances between life is also prevalent in death, and connects the two. For example, if that man who picked for his food from nature became sick and was going to die, there shouldn't be any anger to this same God or nature that provided for him because his death is natural to happen. There is not jealousy of the God or a feeling of hatred for the man; there is no “But, why me?” because that man can accept the circumstances, however horrible it may sound to us, because the circumstances simply are and can be no other way. There exists that connection between life and death because of that balance and harmony that is wont in nature and the already general belief that is prevalent in most religions: that all came from God, or the Tao, or Allah and that all must return to it. If this is the accepted nature of things, then what is there to be anxious about, and what is there to truly blame when something goes wrong? With this man-made system of exchange, the religious become depressed through an otherwise source of happiness and their leaders are made delirious, unstable, and fearful of the world around them. This is comparable to the life that so many of us know, that though we have all the means to obtain such mystifying pleasure, our lives, in this age more than ever, have become filled with depression, loneliness, and restlessness.

Trade is good and natural and gives a means for a group to support each other while also supporting one's own self. Flowers give bees food and energy while the bees carry with them the pollen that will produce more flowers. From this, there occurs no transaction, no measuring of terms and items, but the meeting simply is. Perhaps in bad taste or form (though I would argue otherwise), the Communist Manifesto states, “It [cash payment] has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible charted freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” Though this text has inspired fear in many, I think it makes an important point. The way in which we view the world destroys the connection between life – through spirituality and that interconnectedness – that is and must be prevalent in the singular right of freedom. Though the term is 'Free Trade', there exists a system of involuntary control where, when one purchases that item required for life, both the provider and the consumer are controlled by the variables of an indiscriminate and lifeless equation that undermines the connection of man and life.

Your friend,
Alex