Action, Ownership and Movements

Sorry for the delay. I am back. Surgery went well.

Action is so important. Action is not simply a reflection of you, but a contribution to the world and society we live in. Talking is action and I encourage talking and communication as an important form of action to strive towards diversity in a peaceful world. Please talk to everyone you know about the world we live in and are experiencing. It is important for us to share our understanding of the world with each other.

I have spoken with many people lately about the Zeitgeist movement. I am not a member or officially affiliated with the movement. I have seen three movies by the ‘founder’ of the movement, Peter Joseph, and there is certainly, at the very least, food for thought in these movies and movement. One thing that I like particularly about this movement is that it appears to be working very hard to not be hypocritical. For example, the movement rejects the use of money and doesn’t have an open donation system which accepts money. Indeed it is clear that the movement has thought very carefully about the issue of money and I am impressed by its approach. I have sympathy for the movement.

The Zeitgeist movement is against ownership. I struggle with this notion in part because my living is based on the notion of ownership. On some level I absolutely agree with the notion of non-ownership. However, when it comes to somewhat more limited things, like for example the Hope Diamond, I think ownership, or at least some nuanced version of ownership, such as responsibility for, has to come into being. It is easy to have non-ownership of things that can be distributed sufficiently so that everyone on the planet has a ‘fair share’ (whatever that might mean). It is not so easy to ignore ownership when the resource is finite in a manner that truly precludes the effective use of it by all of those who want to use it. Further, it might be that one person’s use of the Hope diamond would smash it up, thereby preventing another person’s use of the Hope diamond, which use needed the whole diamond intact - can’t just get another one. Ultimately, I think that there needs to be a hybrid system in which some things are owned and others are public. I at least agree that too many things are privately owned in this part of the universe.

I’d like to bring up diversity again. I believe that many movements, such as Zeitgeist, believe in a way that is somehow knowable and predictable. I fundamentally disagree that the future is knowable and predictable. I do believe that our experience of it is malleable. I also believe that the key to our successes as a species is that we have been able to adapt to our changing environment and surroundings. In order to best achieve this I think that we need, the selfless, ‘life is better when we co-operate’ type of person as well as the ‘bu***r you I want this’ type of person in which some people own lots of stuff and others own almost nothing. Who gets what and why – that is too detailed to be worthy of plan – that comes down to trusting the plan making of the underlying universe (Aka "que sera sera") The diversity is important – lets make sure to keep it alive.