Ninety Nine Cents
Universe doesn’t come with a manual. I oftentimes wonder, how should a person feed themselves? Sadly, our revered cultural heroes don’t make it exactly easy in their own way. After all, Krishna was an aristocratic tribal chief with tremendous political power due to the successful coup against his half-uncle which he led and which consolidated the kingdom under the previous king Ugrasena; Siddhartha was a literal prince even while he was walking around with a begging bowl; Jesus was an artisan who turned into a perpetual guest among his followers; and, if I remember correctly, for example Sikhs are encouraged to give a person without income a job.
So, we have: utilizing hierarchy even by force; non-participation in hierarchy, which inevitably leads to its bottom; bypassing hierarchy within segregated communes while eventually breeding freeloaders (and, ironically, introducing alternative form of hierarchy within the commune); or so-called pragmatic acceptance of hierarchy as the inescapable socioeconomic order, thus, making any systemic changes virtually impossible. What a set of options! There’s obviously more of them, but evidently, none leads beyond a caste society.
The less you give without expecting anything in return, the less you share just because you want to give that marvel you have, the more you force the rest of the universe to comply with transactional modus vivendi. That’s the plain nature of causality and also the very source of the problem as well as complicity. Hence, when you participate, you, essentially, do the thing in question too.
There’s only ever one reason why people twist themselves into pretzels and insist on collecting each and every penny — it’s lack of self-knowledge, in other words, ignorance. And that simply does not excuse because effects are already/always in play.
Own that.
