Whales vs Minnows, Acceptance, Gratitude, Humility What Truly Matters in Life?
In the dance of life what truly matters? There is much conversation on this platform of supremacy of hierarchy. The 'whales' being at the top of the pile with more influence and money, standing on the backs of the many 'minnows'. This pyramid mirrors our current capitalist economic system which is piece by piece gobbling up our common resources for the benefit of a few. Is this equally beneficial? Obviously not, but ask yourself ' Why are you here at steemit?' I happened upon this platform and love how engaged and immediate our interactions are as a community. So love the experience. If you came to this platform to immediately profit then I am afraid you may be disappointed in the process. (Unless you are young female and photogenic, which is an immediate plus on the status matrix here.) I am not complaining just accepting what is so. In my world, engagement and sharing with other sentient beings is of high value, material trappings after your basic necessities are met are superfluous and transitory.
Pushing 6 decades of life I have come to accept that my choices in life to live simply and focus on gardening and local community affairs leaves me in the small fish category among the 'whales'. We all come in naked and go out the same way, material trappings and comforts are part of the illusion we have been sold by the capitalist society running the show. We made up the current social conditions and they are temporary..... life evolves, society evolves, NOW is and ever changing. Although I wish I could be an observer for a longer period of time, like a giant sequoia, a human experience is what I get, longer then a fruit fly, but not nearly long enough when you get to live on such a beautiful planet so full of life and complexities.
I am filled with love and gratitude, being part of life on Earth in the present moment. I see and feel this planet as my Mother, the source of all the nurturing which has been gifted to me by life. The real 'whales' of life, swim in our beloved oceans and sing songs of communion across legions of the seas. Those are the whales that stir my inner being to ecstasy. I accept the fact that I am but a fish in a infinite pond, enjoying existence with the other fish.
Dance in the life you find yourself in. oc
sometimes we can't sweat the small stuff and most of it is small. Persistence more than splash will pay off.
Thank you for sharing it with us
Welcome! You and I share many interests! Gardening, voluntary simplicity, chickens (don't have them anymore, tho) and you are the first person I've met living in an earth ship! I have three volumes of old earth ship books from the 70s. But I would disagree with you that our society operates under a capitalist economic system. First of all, I agree, our society's system is gobbling up resources at an unnecessarily high rate. But it's not capitalism's fault. Our economic system is a corporatist one, and economists have been advising government for decades to encourage consumption (thus the high rate of resource gobbling). That encouragement comes through legislation and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. I'm guessing that, like me, you're not fond of the corporations that rule and drain our economy and resources, but again, those corporations don't operate in any environment that would resemble capitalism. They lack meaningful competition because of government protections, and they remain entrenched with help from those same pro-consumption policies. Here on Steemit, although the platform is decentralized and we have dependable price signals, there is still an oligarch (whale) problem. But if true "capitalism" is allowed to flourish here, competition will solve that problem. Time will tell. I hope you enjoy it here! Love your house. :)
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Back when we were deciding what kind of house to build, 1990, tire houses were on the list and we decided to go down to New Mexico and take a week end class from the brains behind Earthships, Michael Reynolds. It was outrageously fun and we learned so much from him. Pounded dirt into tires, put mud on walls and laid some can and bottle walls too with 20 other open minded folks ready to build with tires and dirt for themselves. Reynolds is an amazing man, so devoted to building with trash and giving people the skills and knowledge needed to cut the umbilical cord with the energy and banking interests of today. 50 years he has been experimenting and teaching others, a truly feel honored that I had a little bit of time to learn from him and be encouraged to follow a path less taken, like we ultimately did. I never have regretted the decision to move to the sticks and build our home and tribe. We have had to live with less stuff and we are more likely to repair a 30 or 40 year old vehicle then buy something new, etc. But my goodness our life now in our 6th and 7th decades, is so fun and sweet and shared with people we love, care and laugh with, the only thing we lack is the illusion of financial security. There aren't to many pension plans for organic gardening, hen herding, mmj loving old hippies in the hills...... but the Mother and our luck and actions seems to always be providing what we need, so........ you live in the now, and trust in the universal energy flow.......
Take good care fellow cultural creative..... oc
So what you are saying is that you have to be really smart or a hot babe to make money on here?