Day 243: Humanity as Interest Groups – Part 4

Continuing from the previous posts:

Day 240: Humanity as Interest Groups – Part 1

http://www.matterfreeman.com/2013/12/day-240-humanity-as-interest-groups.html

Day 241: Humanity as Interest Groups – Part 2

http://www.matterfreeman.com/2014/01/day-241-humanity-as-interest-groups.html

Day 242: Humanity as Interest Groups – Part 3

http://www.matterfreeman.com/2014/01/day-242-humanity-as-interest-groups.html

“The most powerful Interest Groups in the world are our immediate relationships because within our mutual acceptance and allowance of the world / system as it exists – while accepting the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as our sole purpose on this PLANet – we are enabling the system to continue and thus the Profit machine to stay alive – feeding off our willingness / acceptance and allowance of the way of life that benefits the Profit Motive – thus enabling those with all the Money and Power to continue within their current status / power.

We as ‘the majority’ are simultaneously the most powerful and the most disempowered because through our pursuit of happiness / self interest we stand as the Sole Source of Power for those who Profit from our pursuit of Happiness / Self Interest and thus if we STOPPED — Profit could not exist which goes to show that we as the majority are in fact the ones with the Power — and yet in continuing to Empower / Fuel Self Interest as a way of life through our daily acceptance and allowance of thoughts, beliefs, wants, desires, self definitions that do not include the consideration of what is Best for All Life on Earth — we continue to give our power away and create our own circumstances of Lack and Limitation and Debt and Fear for our Survival in Empowering and Perpetuating the Profit Interests of this world which also in turn Empowers and Perpetuates all the Harmful Consequences, Abuses, Restrictions, Inequalities, Wars and Laws associated with the Protection of Profit Interests of the current Corporate / Governmental institutions / interest groups throughout the World.”

Simplistically, the fact that every day the current economic system / world system continues – shows that the Interests that Drive the Majority within our immediate Relationships – are what Drives the System and thus what Drives Profit — and that within this for instance things like ‘corporate greed’ — are simply the outflow of corporations being able to capitalize on OUR interests as Consumers / Individuals.

So the problem really isn’t the big Corporate interest groups or their greed or their disregard for the environment or for human and animal life – it’s our individual interest groups / relationships within our immediate world / lives.

I mean it’s interesting how we’ll point our fingers at Corporations and Governments and scrutinize the minute workings of their business relationships and behavior and motivations and will call for greater transparency and ‘honesty’ from ‘THEM’ — but again, THEIR motivations of Profit as the wealthy minority are based on the Profitability of OUR interests as the majority — so in fact it’s really OURSELVES that we should be looking at / scrutinizing – in terms of our own motivations, behavior, and starting points within our relationships to investigate and understand what makes our interests as our wants, desires, dreams, preferences, self definitions and thoughts so Profitable — and yet we are rather insistent about ‘protecting our privacy’ and protecting our own ‘secrets’ and being able to ‘keep to ourselves’ and become outraged at the idea of governments or corporations gathering data about our behavior and lives.

Here I urge everyone to study the Century of the Self documentary, in particular the part called Happiness Machines http://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/ which shows the process of how modern consumerism was shaped around the manipulation of the psychology / self definitions of the human being.

I mean we all know that the majority of products that we see in stores, and that we buy, are marketed to us Emotionally — meaning, words and phrases and images are used that trigger a WANT to have that product, associated with the IDEA behind the product. And if we look at the Ideas behind most products, we’ll see that these Ideas are all aligned with the things that define our individual Interests / Relationships such as —

Wanting Love,
Wanting Acceptance,
Wanting Success,
Wanting Popularity,
Being seen as / feeling like a ‘good person’,
Wanting to be ‘creative’,
Wanting to be ‘original and unique’,
Wanting to be ‘beautiful / attractive’,
Wanting to have a comfortable retirement for ourselves,
Wanting to be entertained,
Wanting a particular style / appearance of lifestyle,
Wanting to have a family,
Wanting to party / drink alcohol,
Wanting to feel healthy,
Wanting to feel like we’re helping someone / that we’re a caring person, (for example charity, causes, donations, etc)
Wanting to feel like we’re making a difference, (for example recycling / buying organic / local products, etc)

If we really look at the interests that define our selves and our immediate relationships / interest groups, for example within looking at the above list, there is an obvious pattern which is that of Wants.
It’s like, we have these ideas / things that we ‘want’ to be part of our lives, and once we ‘feel’ that these things are part of our lives, then we’re ‘happy’ / ‘content’. The people that make the products obviously understand this, and thus USE our interests to PROFIT from us. But – in fact we’re really allowing ourselves to be used / profited from because — we are the ones who day in, day our – are participating in our interests – in the Ideas and Feelings and Wants that we are constantly chasing after.

And, the thing that we don’t seem to notice or want to see, is that even the things that we perceive / believe to be aligned with ‘making a difference / change’ in the world — all still fit within a category of product / lifestyle / service that exists within the context of the current Profit driven economic system and is not actually stopping things like pollution, poverty, animal abuse, inequality, war. This is plain to see in simply looking daily at the reality of what is going on around the world.

To continue in the next post.

Image by Matti Freeman

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