The Illusions of Life

Introduction

After living only a relatively few years on this Earth, it has become clear that a lot of people prefer not to face the truth. Whether it is supposedly too harsh or a barrage of other silly excuses, people have a tendency to hide from honesty.

But why? Why would anybody want to run away from what is true? Ah, because it is comfortable being ignorant, it is just ‘good’ not to know…however, this statement itself could not be any further from holding true.

What is true, is that the more we know, the greater our potential becomes for creating a satisfying existence. When we learn more, we have the capability to make less mistakes, to improve, and free ourselves from the detriments of ignorance.

In order to progress, we need to let go of all the preconceived notions that have been driving us and further educate ourselves by expanding and refining our perception of reality. Granted, I know this will not be easy, but rather, more so excruciating – however, our suffering through effort will be far less than what is bound to be produced by allowing our problems to accumulate.

Or, in more simple terms:

Knowledge is the only defense we have against ourselves,

“…and if you don’t question what has been,

does it mean that you don’t care what’s coming next?”

-Tina Dico “No Time To Sleep”

*DISCLAIMER*

I DO NOT claim that the following topics are not real. Please do not become defensive and attempt to argue that everything I have written about is real so there is no denying its existence. That is not what I am after, at all.

What I will press upon you is that these are all ill fated illusions, deceptive mind traps haphazardly passed down through generations. Be aware that a lot of what I have

written is most likely going to go against what you were born, taught and brought up to be. That is fine. It is time to grow.

Geography

For example, we have all been taught through Geography about locations; continents, countries, states, counties, cities, towns, streets. We are taught to follow lines on a map, to label outlined chunks with a fancy name and then routinely list them off as a test of our supposed intellect.

Now, I want you to picture yourself where you are. Zoom out as if you are rising in a hot air balloon. Take yourself farther and farther up: over the buildings, the trees, the marshmallow clouds, out of Earth’s atmosphere, into the position of an orbiting satellite, and then fix your gaze on our planet.

Tell me, what do you see? A rugged landscape surrounded by vast expanses of ocean, correct? There are not any lines, there are not any names, there is not anything labeling anything at all. These places we previously thought we were are simply land formations on an orbiting sphere that is held together by gravity.

None of our supposed countries/cities/towns exist; they are all a makeshift idea, a figment of the human imagination. These ‘places’ are only thumb tacks on a map, thumb tacks piercing a piece of paper, but containing nothing in reality.

There are no ‘places,’ there are no ‘borders;’ there is only a piece of paper overlaid upon a sphere of terrain. These ‘places’ are merely arbitrary reference points with artificial labels, for ease of human traveling and congregation.

Understanding this, we realize there is nothing separating us from each other, aside from the boundaries we make for ourselves. This includes not only the walls we touch, but also – and primarily – the walls in our minds. And once we rid ourselves of these walls, or at least stop patrolling them, something extraordinary happens: everything connects together and becomes one; one civilization, one world, one universe.

And so, if you can,

“Remind me if you will exactly what we’re fighting for…”

-Anthony Kiedis “Easily”

The Calendar

How disappointing it is to see all these people living each day like it already happened! They act like it is the same day from the previous year, as though we somehow ‘repeat’ our days.

And what’s worse is that these people have chosen to group their days into things called ‘weeks,’ then labeled certain days as ‘weekdays and weekends’ and further demeaned themselves by associating certain activities with ‘holidays’ – As if the universe cares what we do on each day!

But oh…how I wish that everyone would wake up to a new, different day, and understand the grand scheme that is right in front of their eyes, that our calendar system is only one extravagant illusion.

How I wish people would awake from this slumber and open their eyes to the fact:

Every moment is a Once in a Lifetime experience.

Labeling every day is just not right, especially when there are only seven absent minded labels to choose from. This is why I say to hell with all this MTuWThFSaSu jargon and insist on declaring each day its own special one-of-a-kind event.

What has happened is that many years ago, a man called Pope Gregory XIII came up with our Gregorian calendar. A man, just like you and I, came up with a calendar (which was actually a revision from another man’s calendar, mind you) and then spread it all around Europe with the wonderful influence of prominent churches, infecting country sides and towns with a new way for people to keep track of their dismal days. [1]

And now we have all these people caught up in this tumultuous rubbish of Gregorian years, believing what any sort of reasoning deems unbelievable. So, my dear Gregoriarites, let us reason.

What precisely is a year?

What is a month? What is a day? An hour? A minute? A second? A millisecond? Well, let’s see here…they are all just measurements of time! We are all precariously measuring this extremely ambiguous and abstract idea called time, and yet investing so much effort in constricting ourselves to it.

But, may I ask, what sense does it make in attempting to conform to something that does not conform to anything? We think that time conforms to our solar rhythms, our clocks, the beat of our drums, the decay of cesium atoms; we think that all these are valid ways of telling time, but they are only conforming – in time – to themselves, while time continues laughing away at its own accord.

In order to get a better perspective on the idea of time, pretend we are traveling to the center of our solar system with Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson as a transparent eyeball...and then let us rest in front of the blazing sun. Take in the silence, the light, the warmth. Be still and listen to your thoughts…

Eventually, we will find that no matter how long we sit in this burning intensity, there will not be any coherent sense of day or night – for day and night no longer take place. There exists only an implausible sense of continuum.

A similar thought experiment can be done if we place ourselves in a far reaching region of the universe where we are only surrounded by the ravenous pitch black vacuum of space.

As we sit in the same spot for what seems to be a few minutes, half an hour, maybe a few hours – it is getting hard to tell now – the idea of a day flies away and we are left only with this sense of time passing incoherently. And then we realize it is only this time which exists.

As you can see, I am not dismissing the fact that there are Earthly ‘days’ of light and darkness or the occurrence of Earth’s cosmological orbit around the star we call the Sun. No, no, that is not what I am getting at. What I am denouncing here is this strict idea of a year made up of 365 ¼ individually recurring days. As I mentioned in the beginning, the idea that we repeat the day we have already gone through last year, the same day that supposedly already happened before; this is absolutely bogus.

Though I am sure you are wondering, “How can this be a bogus idea when it is in fact based on an actual event?” Well, it is quite simple, really: Because you are peering at reality from a limited perspective. This Earthly-only observance is what blinds our mind from what really surrounds us.

Just think about it for a moment: Earth is not the only planet in our solar system. Our solar system is not the only solar system in our galaxy. Our galaxy is not the only galaxy in our universe. And with all this talk about parallel universes and multi-verses, we do not even know if our universe is indeed universal! So, to get a real grip on reality, we must understand that this Earth is not the only place that exists. In fact, it is more so a kagillionth of a zillionth percent of what is really out there.

When time goes by on Earth, time does indeed go by everywhere else. And it is this time that we should primarily associate ourselves with; not the numbers on our watch or the days on our calendar.

Though let me warn you, ‘this time’ is much more elusive than the time our culture has made us familiar with. It is something that must be grasped with the whole of our mind and felt in each nerve of our body, because it is something that cannot be observed. We must feel it through perspective, through contemplation. And so, let us contemplate some more.

Here we all are, caught up in days of the week, when all we have is but one life. One life to live, one life passing us by. And as we know, it does not take very long to count to one, unless we happen to needlessly subdivide it into a bunch of sophisticated segments. Our time on Earth can be counted in milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades, or whatever made up unit of measurement we so choose – however, I suggest looking at your life for what it is: a life, in the self evident singular sense.

Going a step further, no one is entirely sure where we go when our

so-called ‘time’ in this realm is expired. Yet, as creatures generally striving towards purpose, we are accustomed to basing all of our actions on our perceived destination. So, it makes one wonder – does our time here really matter at all? Could our lifetime just be another insignificant tick-tock in nature’s clock? Or does our individual life really matter, that is, is it of cosmological significance?

No matter the answer though, there is one question we must also consider:

Is there more to life than what happens after death?

Hmm... Yes, yes I say, because our life is all that we truly know we have, and there is one undeniable fact:

Aside from making the most of our time here,

there really is nothing better we can do.

Property

BREAKING NEWS, BREAKING NEWS: Nothing belongs to us, except ourselves! That’s right, our houses, cars, cats/dogs, trinkets and gadgets; nothing! We do not own a single thing in this world, not even the clothes on our backs.

For thoroughness, I am going to divide this section into three parts:

Earthen, Material, and Intellectual. And since it is not very wise to build on anything aside from a firm base, we are going to go at this from the ground on up.

So here we go.

Earthen

Way back when, before everything was ‘settled,’ the Earth was in a state where what existed was yet to be ‘discovered.’ What existed had yet to be ‘claimed.’ What existed simply existed. Keep in mind that this is still how it is today, but with an added catch on top of it all.

Now we have human beings laying ‘claim’ to plots of land ranging from a thousand square ‘feet’ to thousands of ‘acres.’ But at what point were these people able to say “I own this land, and precisely this much?”

Perhaps this sounds silly, I know, because the answer is obviously “When they bought it, of course!” Okay hold up though, who did they buy it from? Another person, another human being, yes? All right, we’re getting somewhere, but we still need to take it back a little further.

Precisely who did that person buy the land from? Another person…and who bought it from them? Another person…who bought it from another person…who…well, eventually we get to someone who ‘inherited’ the land. But who did this person inherit the land from?

Someone who went and decided to say “Aha! This land is what I call mine, this land is what I call America! And since it is I that decides this is mine, so I shall build a fence and draw some lines on a map to prove it!”

Now if you would please excuse myself, I hope I am not the only one hearing the outrageous audacity in that statement. To just up and say something belongs to you, because you decided it so – how is that valid?

Well, let us break it down a little more. This is exactly what we are doing to this very day, only now we are under a different sort of impression where everyone thinks they are buying land from their local real estate agent like it is a commodity. But where do you think that real estate agent ultimately got the land from? The government? And where do you think the government got the land from? Christopher Columbus? George Washington? The Queen of England? The Native Americans?

No, none of the above!

Even the Native Americans I’m sure were not so naïve as to believe that they ‘owned’ the land they were on. But all of a sudden, the ‘Americans’ decided they were going to ‘take it away’ from them – and what kind of impression does that have on you?

To take something away that does not belong to anyone?

How can anyone take away what is not theirs? Worse yet, how can anyone wage war over ‘territory’ in an attempt to ‘make it their own’? You know, I don’t really know…but today's silly real estate process is not any better.

You see, back in the day, people fought and killed for a ‘plot’ of land. Now we all just work the majority of our lives to pay off a hefty mortgage, or continue shelling out rent until infinity.

But however far apart and different these two ways of ‘acquiring’ a home may be, they share one striking characteristic: they both have the element of human embedded in their situation. And it is this whole idea of humans fighting / paying for ‘territory’ that makes and breaks the validity of Earthen property.

What I am getting at is that the fatal flaw in the idea of Earthen property is that we have an extraordinarily small human being deciding what flies and what does not. Though wait a second Dear Little Human, who is in charge of this Earth? Who makes the wind blow? Who keeps this planet going around the sun at 66,000 miles per hour?

Let me give you a hint: NOT US!

Ponder this for a bit and let it sink in. And while you are doing so, here is the idea in poetic form:

So you say

this land is yours?

Well sir,

Mother Nature

is telling me

it is hers.

In case you missed it, we do not own the land we think we do. We do not even own a single grain of sand. Everything belongs to the Earth, while we only pretend to take possession of it. Our ‘land ownership’ is only a self-centered illusion in which we forget our origins. We forget that we belong to the Earth, that the Earth does not belong to us.

Material

Now that we have taken care of the ground we build upon, let us continue on to

all the stuff that is built up from it. And keep this in mind, that every item we have is a direct descendant of the Earth.

At first glance, we do not see the real ingredients of which everything is made. We take for granted that these things are available to us, as if they are somehow products that magically appeared out of nowhere.

Take for example the nearest window(s) to you. We do not see that the glass for our windows was manufactured out of sand, limestone, and soda ash melted together inside of a blazing furnace. [2] But when we investigate manufacturing processes such as this, we realize a very striking characteristic about each ingredient: they all come from the Earth!

In the end, or shall I say at the beginning,

Everything comes from the Earth.

Think about that for a while. Everything comes from the Earth. Or at least, almost everything. Obviously, the stuff from space did not come from the Earth, and we are not particularly sure where all these atoms came from in our universe, but

at least we know that the things we create come from the Earth.

By now, I think you can probably see where this is going. Just like the concept of Earthen Property, what we have does not belong to us – it belongs to the Earth. Just because the store sells us something that we pay for does not mean that we own it. Especially when we ask ourselves what ‘owning something’ really means.

And so, what does it mean to ‘own’ something? What does it mean to possess a possession? Well, let’s think about it. Owning an item would mean that it belongs to someone, that it is one person’s, or perhaps, even a few persons in the case of ‘group ownership.’ But if something truly belongs to someone, this must mean it is an inseparable part of them, something that cannot be taken away without taking something from them.

With that said, now ask yourself what happens when someone just walks into your house and takes your shoes just before they are on your feet. You get pissed off, run after them, and beat them into submission while unleashing all curse words from the gates of hell, right? …NO, NO, NO!! Stop right there, that is not how to go about things here.

What really happened is that ‘your’ shoes just got transported to another location, with no direct effect on your individual being. When your shoes were taken, nothing was taken from you. It would be a little different if someone just came up and amputated your feet, but these are shoes we are talking about. They do not have any physical connection to you, whatsoever. You may have your receipt showing you paid $120 from Footlocker on May 7th, 2008 at exactly 11:54:29AM but of course, that is all just more man made material bullshit. Let’s elaborate.

Ask yourself, where exactly did you ‘acquire’ those shoes? Footlocker. And where did Footlocker ‘acquire’ the shoes? From the supplier who shipped them in. But where did the supplier get them from? From the company that manufactured them. And when that company made them, how did they get all the materials to create the shoe? From other material suppliers, correct? Okay, and those suppliers made their products out of various other raw materials, which of course came from the Earth. And so, all in all, what is happening here?

If we look closely at this chain of events, every stage has one thing in common, and that is Repositioning. When an item is ‘acquired,’ it is simply repositioned and secured for convenient use.

With that said, it is clear that nothing can be ‘bought,’ ‘sold,’ or ‘stolen.’ What really happens in a ‘transaction’ is the provisioning of what is necessary for the accomplishment of a certain task. And when something is ‘stolen’ so to say, it is actually the inhibition of one man’s ability to accomplish something.

Once this is understood, it is also clear that there are two ways of conducting oneself:

1) There are those who Promote the abilities of another, and

2) those who Inhibit the abilities of another.

And obviously, one should not inhibit another, and such conduct is ‘wrong.’

Of course, a person should not take a pair of shoes that another person uses to get from place to place, but rather, they should take them from a store (supplier's) shelf to promote the abilities of the people that produced them. However, they should also not take more than the one or two pairs they need because their over-consumption would

then proceed to inhibit our natural resources.

And this is the only time we should inhibit another, is when a person’s ambitions are reaching into harmful superfluity and degrading our environment – thus, by inhibiting them, we would be inhibiting inhibition. Or, shall we say, Promoting ability through Inhibiting inhibition itself.

For the rest of the time, we should be directly promoting the development of ability in one another. We should be helping each other improve themselves, always allowing for the betterment of civilization by providing the means to do so.

And of course, the means to do so involves Education and from it, the demonstration of moderation and self control. But more on that in the following chapter.

Hopefully by now you have realized that although our shoes insulate our feet from the pavement, they do not belong to us. If you got it and got it good, then let us extrapolate on this beautifully simple principle. If not, reread above, think, and repeat.

Nothing belongs to us besides our consciousness and the body we are in, and even this is arguable in the long term, as we do not really know if we hold onto ourselves once we pass on. But we will keep this statement at an immediate worldly perspective for a second.

Nothing belongs to us. Not our house, not our car, not our television, not our computer, not our bed, not our clothes, not our toothpaste, and not even the piece of crap we poop; nothing belongs to us. It is all an illusion that people create for themselves.

Everything is rooted in the Earth, not our existence – for our existence is also indeed rooted in the Earth. And again, we belong to the Earth; it does not belong to us.

Imagine yourself a few years down the road on that deathbed, slowly fading away. What are you going to be taking with you to the grave? What is going to follow you down, into the soil, into the Earth from which you were born?

Or for those crematoria types, what will follow and be of use to your ashes – wherever they are placed?

Better yet, if you are of the prospective type, what is going to be following you to wherever you may go? Well, I don’t know about you, but even though I do not know where my mind is going to go, I know for sure it does not involve what I have here!

In other words, I know our consciousness has nothing to lose

besides itself.

(PS: In case you have the thought, we cannot just create secondary ownership, with the Earth being primary. That is again another invention of reality.)

Intellectual

What a relief, to have set free our hands and feet of the hopeless grasp they have on the world, isn’t it? If you have indeed made it thus far, then it is now time for the finale, to set free the thoughts of our minds.

I am now going to talk about so called intellectual ‘property,’ the idea that ideas belong to the person who came up with the idea

But first off, who invented that idea? Let me give you a hint: it was not me, but I can 100% guarantee it was some two legged mammal who believed they were from the species Humanus Maximus.

Especially in today’s digitized world, there is now an enormous effort being made to coerce everyone into believing in intellectual property. Specifically, just look at the major film and record executives – they would all like us to believe that their Money Making Ideas belong to them so that the consumers surrender all their earnings to who they ‘righteously belong.’

Take for example the music industry and the now rampant transmission of music in MP3 format. We have people claiming that it is wrong to share music without paying for it and that it is a Crime, such as the anti-piracy promotion that goes like this:

You wouldn’t steal a car.

You wouldn’t steal a handbag.

You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone.

You wouldn’t steal a DVD.

Stealing is against the law!

Piracy. It’s a crime.

Mmmkay... Stealing, eh? Let’s think about this for a little bit. A car, a handbag, a phone, a DVD... What do these four items have in common? Well, they are all tangible items! They can all be substantiated by physical means.

Not that this fact means much by now, but bear with me, it is the most tremendous difference possible when talking about ‘stealing.’ Remember, as previously defined, ‘stealing’ is really the inhibition of a person’s ability, though we will talk about stealing in the classical sense to get this point across.

When someone ‘steals’ from another, they are taking something that is tangible – for example, a car. If a person takes a car, they now have something they can touch and feel, while leaving the ‘previous owner’ grasping for air.

Stealing is when someone takes Some-Thing from Some-One. With digital media, that Some-Thing is still left with the original owner. In other words, No-Thing was taken from Some-One. The original owner never lost anything they did not have in the first place.

With downloading, there is not any loss on the original owner’s side. Digital media can be duplicated infinite times with barely any effort at all, while physical items, like a car, cannot. There is a limitation to how many cars can be produced, but there is not a limitation to how many times an MP3 can be replicated (that is, assuming an infinite continuation of time).

So, considering the intangible nature of digital content, it is clearly implausible to think of an MP3 or any other digital file as we do with a car or a handbag. There is nothing tying them together – quite literally in this case.

Though of course, the real argument is that downloading is the same as stealing because it does not compensate the artist for their work and does not provide them the means to live.

In other words, it inhibits the ability of the artist to survive.

But why can’t they survive if they do not sell anything? Because they don’t make any money, right?

Well, maybe without that, then perhaps they could live just fine…

and so begins the next chapter.

Money

With all due consideration, I now bring about the most widespread illusion of society. And again, please keep in mind that I am not denying its existence, but rather its supposed connection to the Earth and our existence.

However, before diving further into the depths of currency, let us take a break and contemplate some more. A good portion of these thoughts are based upon what has already been said by many inspiring individuals, and I would like to provide you with that same inspiration through this arrangement of quotes. Take your time, ponder over them at your own accord, and then go ahead when you are ready.

“Money often costs too much.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers.

This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly

by the Americans themselves.”

-Albert Einstein

“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”

“It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.”

-Henry David Thoreau

“A wise man should have his money in his head, but not in his heart.”

-Jonathan Swift

“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”

-Ken Hakuta

“Money: There’s nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.”

-Sophacles

In case you have not thought about it before, how much of your life do you dedicate to pursuing more and more money? Now ask yourself, how much time do you spend enjoying – and I mean really enjoying – the fruits of your labor?

If you have lived a typical life like myself, it is not very much. And even when the free time is available, it feels like going to take a bite out of an overripened peach swarming with ants – as if everything has turned rotten, been completely eaten away, and there is nothing left to savor.

Emerson explained this phenomenon very well with his quote above. We have a tendency to work for more than we get, that is, beyond the money that goes towards ‘living’ expenses. All of us can live (i.e. breathe, love, dream, wish and survive) very comfortably off the equivalent of $20,000 a year, and yet there are many, many people left unsatisfied making more than double, even five to ten times, more than that. Why? Because people piddle away all their extra earnings on all those extra expenses that arise from those extra goods, just as Thoreau succinctly put it with his previously mentioned passage out of Walden:

“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”

Thoreau also gnawed away all illusions of material rubbish with his other quote about life being sweetest near the bone. So what if we don’t have all that extra skin and fat on our life? What really matters, and is usually most beautiful, can be found in the (responsibly) thinnest body of our existence – not the fancy clothes we wear or the items we attempt to adorn our lives with.

All right...enough acquainting you with what we are talking about. Let’s get back to business. We are talking about the illusion of money, right? Well, then onward we go!

Let us now take a closer look at that dollar bill in your wallet. Take it out, take a nice long look at it, and then stop for a moment and think. Not about how we can’t seem to buy anything for a dollar (even at the dollar store), or how it’s only worth a tinkle of gas, but think about where it came from. Directly ask yourself:

“Where did this dollar come from?”

Where oh where did this green colored cotton paper rectangle with some funky dude's face on it actually come from?

Take for example an acorn. Imagine you are walking along a nice nature path with your adored loved one…or just alone…and then suddenly this acorn appears. Being a curious person, you pick it up, look at it and think “Where in the world did this acorn come from?” So, your eyes begin to wander and before long, a nearby oak tree comes into view. “Ahh yes, that is where this acorn came from!” you exclaim, and then proceed to throw it back into the woods as quickly as it was found, continuing along the path of nature with one mystery solved and many more to explore.

Though unlike acorns, money does not grow on trees! It is as much fact as it is an old adage, though haven’t you ever wondered where that money really does come from? It seems too many people stop thinking at the idea of money coming from hard work and perseverance, which happens to be much further from the truth than it is close to it. Let me tell you, though – money does not come from the blood, sweat and tears we put towards a mindless economy of consumerism. It does not come from working – simple as that!

So, where does this money come from? In order to find out, let us hop off that nature trail and follow the money trail for a while.

Imagine we are employees at a restaurant and we just got paid, so we rush to cash our checks at the local bank. The bank gives us our money and we are on our way, thinking that our employer just paid us for what we earned (completely overlooking the idea that the money actually came from the bank).

Now, we ask ourselves, where did our employer’s money come from? It came from the customers, right? Well, where did the customer’s money come from? The money they were paid from their employer. Shoot, that is a vicious circle, now isn’t it? But this is when we suddenly recall who gave us the money and realize our money actually did not come from our employer; it really came from the bank where we cashed our check!

And so, where did the bank get the money? The Federal Reserve? Well, how did the Federal Reserve get their money?

That is the question that is the answer: The Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve gets their money from the Federal Reserve. Since this is the case, we have the Federal Reserve pointing at the Federal Reserve. Essentially, our money comes from the Federal Reserve, where a fancy printing press prints all the money we use. A printing press, eh? Yes, a printing press.

Okay, so let us get this straight. Our money can be considered to have come directly from a printer, a fundamentally simple machine that transfers designs made of ink onto a substrate while it passes through various rollers. And while I am not advocating ‘counterfeiting,’ though to get this point across, this simple process can also be accomplished by the personal laser jet printers of today. Even that inkjet printer next to your computer right now is fully capable of printing money. (at least basic appearance wise, without those cute little watermarks and UV stripes laced into a proprietary substrate)

If this does not tell you something, then let me tell you some more. Some machine printed money for us, in some factory somewhere, and then someone drove it to our local bank in an armored truck. Granted, this money is printed on a super special paper that the average person does not have, though I myself could also make some special paper that no one else has, and start up my own currency business. But my money would not count for anything, now would it? And so what is the difference?

That is precisely it; there is no difference, other than people pretending there is. The only difference between the money I would potentially create and the money someone else creates is solely in its appearance. With that in mind, it is easy to see that our money is fundamentally the same as Monopoly Money, only the government is the Monopoly Man in control of it all, and our society is one big Monopoly game that has gotten so far out of control that it is almost not even funny anymore.

And regardless of how we wish to look at it, our money will never be the product of our lucky dice rolls or the laborious steps we take to acquire it; it will always merely be a product of someone else’s board game design.

Basically, people are attempting to take a product handed out from someone else and declaring it to be their own, and then using it, along with everyone else, in a universally accepted fashion. But just because everyone is doing it, does not mean it is true!

Another thing to consider is how the majority of our money is transferred now – it is all electronic. Now tell me, when we log onto WellsFargo.com and look at the balance in our checking/savings account, what do we see (other than a balance quickly converging to zero)? In case you are a little farsighted, let's just cut to it. All we are looking at is a number, for example: $9,753.10. Got it? Just like the number on a calculator screen, that number DOES NOT have any physical relevancy to our body or world, whatsoever. It does not restrain us, it does not hold us back, it does not tell us what we can and cannot do. And yet everyone lets it control them and the life they live; everyone is mutually accepting a hollow hearted illusion and defending it with banks, guns and violence.

These same deductions can be applied to an economy based around anything else our minds can conceive, whether it be pebbles/metal nuggets/acornss/etc., these principles do not change. What always remains is the fact that our ownership of these things is only what we pretend it to be. And with that little piece of poignant information, we can move mountains – faux as they may be.

You see, we are working for an illusion, and that is precisely why the acquisition of money does not make one happy, nor do the things it can buy, for our ‘ownership’ of these things is also an illusion, as we found out in the Property section. None of these things belong to us – they are only here now for us to use. And let us now restate that for good measure:

We do not own anything here; everything is only here for us to use.

A seemingly small distinction, I know, though it is also one of the grandest of all.

When we understand that nothing belongs to us, including this thing we call money, we see that material items are not our primary concern here; the progressive enjoyment of our life is, which is done by furthering our relations with each other and improving upon our creative abilities. And yes, while these activities usually do involve material items, they are of negligible secondary importance and are more so just an intermediary between our actions and the people we call ourselves.

So, instead of pretending to produce goods for monetary compensation and societal ‘status,’ these goods should be solely produced for the combined satisfaction of their producers and users. And this is indeed how it can be – is satisfied people helping other people be satisfied through improving their lives.

When we help other people live better lives, there is a satisfaction there that is so much more fulfilling than any ‘acquisition’ money can provide. And keep in mind, behind all the facades, this is how it truly is right now, and this is also why so many people find themselves unhappy – because MONEY DOES NOT PROVIDE HAPPINESS, and it does not provide the means for achieving it.

But what else is there to do? Have we no choice but to operate under an illusion, rather than allowing our economy to evaporate and leave our society stranded without direction? Is not money the only way to ‘compensate’ a man for his labor, to organize ourselves by what we do? What other options are there? While at first, a solution to this problem may seem potentially unthinkable, there is an answer, and that answer is:

Education. Our solution is Education; the elimination of money, and its ‘existence’ overwritten with Education. Of course, we are already operating in a world where money does not ‘exist’ and now the only thing we have to do is eliminate the illusion of it from our minds.

*Yes money exists, as stated in my Disclaimer, but not as we think it does. Remember, it exists as a product, yes, but it is a product connected with an idea, and these ideas have no true bearing on the reality of our world.

However, without money, would anybody still want to work? Wouldn’t everyone just quit their jobs and free-loaf it? Quite simply…No. All that happens is people no longer pretend to work for money, but instead, continue doing exactly what they are truly doing now – working for the sake of work and helping each other...only in a more efficient and effective fashion.

Regardless if we realize it or not, we are always working for the work itself – always have been, and always will. Precisely why and what we are working for in our universe's grand scheme of things is a whole other matter, but we are working.

And while disillusionment is a most crucial aspect, we also need to fully bolster that education by rigorously being taught Moderation and Self-Control in order to make the

elimination of money a success.

You see, we are currently prodded along towards constant desire, always being coerced into wanting more and more, as though our unrestrained production and consumption is the solution to all the world’s problems. But look around – this gluttonous system is the cause of all our problems.

And if we ever want to make any real progress, we need to reverse ourselves out of this blind greedy state and move on to the enlightened beings we can be. Granted, things may look pretty dim right now, but things can be different – that is, if only we try.

But unfortunately, barely anybody is trying. Almost nobody has faith in human nature, and it became this way because of exactly that – not having faith in human nature. Underneath it all, we secretly condescend upon others, expecting the worst out of them, and we take advantage of their ignorance. But just think if we actively expect the best out of everyone, including ourselves, if we help teach each other, if we constantly promote the best in everything we do; we could lure this progress out of everyone by providing the means to do so.

For example, we assume in some dark corner of our mind that people would endlessly take if no limits were imposed on them – but why would they? What would make a person want to take all the things they can get? The only reason would be because they think it benefits them. However, does it really benefit them? Does having a ton of goods really benefit a person? No, no, no – repeatedly, no. If we are taught moderation and prevent ourselves from excess, through knowledge that excess is of no benefit, then we only take what we need.

However, right now, people do not know this because they are taught to constantly strive for all they can get, so they also may very well never know this. That is, unless they are further educated and they contemplate the thought, realizing through deductive reasoning that yes, indeed, one is better off unhindered by the burden of vast multitudes of corporeal goods. And even if a person were to abandon the ideals of self control and moderation, they would soon realize the consequences after having drowned themselves in overindulgence.

After all, this is exactly what happens in our current reality anyway, and the illusion of money is not helping against any overindulgence whatsoever. Money is only further propagating a terribly sick and underachieving population of human beings that strives precisely for this overindulgence. And through this, people are constantly sacrificing the ultimate ideals of responsibility and quality for a recklessly achieved quantity, just so some people can live a more ‘prosperous’ life based illusion upon illusion.

Worse yet, this whole ideal of churning out more and more in the name of ‘profit’ is so backwards that we are still trying to adapt to it as if it were indeed forward! Yet, by nature, we can all feel this is wrong, much like how we can feel that walking backwards is not what our legs were designed for.

A prime example of this is with the whole unemployment dilemma. Currently, the question is “How do we create more jobs?” when it should be

“Why do we need to create more jobs?” You see, if we would actually consider it, we would find that we do not actually need to create more jobs because we already have more than enough people producing what we need and that we do not need to further the already out of control explosion of consumerism.

It is a false assumption that everyone needs to be working, at least in the traditional sense of the word. Our economy is still thriving, even with unemployment reaching record highs, because we are able to produce what we need by only using a fraction of our population.

In our modern world, we only need a fraction of our people providing us the means to live – that is the beauty of technology. This is what our intelligent minds have worked so hard to achieve, to release us from the burdens of work. And we should not be ashamed of this, but should be proud of our accomplishments and learn to fully enjoy it.

Technology has proven that what we reap is not actually always what we sow, but what a few of our fellows have sown with the help of some fantastic machinery designed and improved upon by many people that have come before. And keep in mind, this is not a bad thing – just imagine if we were all in charge of our own twenty acres of farm land, our own manufacturing plants, our own oil wells and fuel refineries – this would be extremely taxing on our environment, not to mention that cities like New York and Las Vegas would cease to exist!

Furthermore, even if every single person was required to work by some rigid societal expectation, we could easily redistribute the necessary workload across the entire population. Through this approach, the amount of hours each individual person is required to work could be tremendously minimized.

Instead of say, everybody working 40 hours a week for the express purpose of collecting an illusory paycheck, we could have people working roughly 20 hours a week to accomplish what really matters and simultaneously afford ourselves much more time to progress in all the other activities we enjoy.

When we acknowledge that we are already creating all we need, we realize the futility in creating more jobs. By nature, we do not have to create more jobs so people can make a living. Our existence is not dependent upon an economy revolving around the commerce of goods. We do not always need to be selling things and buying things just to live.

As we found out, life is even more straightforward than that. We are simply working to take care of ourselves, to keep ourselves and our lives improving. Our existence and the advancement of it does not rely upon us stuffing our pockets with money or shoving it into other peoples hands...no, this trivial exchange is completely unnecessary.

What happens in ‘transactions’ of material items is that two people merely agree that one has ‘worked enough’ to ‘acquire’ a good.

Though, what defines ‘working enough’ or better yet, ‘working enough to eat?’ I mean, some people manage to inherit thousands – even millions – of dollars for no other reason than having been born, while a lot of others who physically work themselves ragged each day are left nearly starving.

And why is it like this? It is because our society has instated a severely corrupt way of rewarding each other. We tell someone that they deserve something because of the amount of illustrated paper rectangles they have in their pocket, and we tell people their desires are not worthy of anything if they do not have any paper rectangles at all.

But what actually makes a person’s work worth anything? What makes anyone’s work more or less important than another’s? Much less, how does worth itself become expressed through valueless paper rectangles? As we can see, ‘working enough’ is innately ambiguous and cannot ever really be defined. We try to define it, we try to reward those we think we ought to reward, but we truly do not have the capability to do so. And how can we adhere to something like that? Well, quite honestly, we cannot...at least, while still staying true to ourselves.

Money does not resemble work or a person’s worth at all. Our work cannot be converted into money, our products and craftsmanship cannot be transformed into paper rectangles with pictures of men and numbers printed on them, and these paper rectangles cannot be reconverted into our livelihood, much less serve as the answer to the mystery of our existence.

This is only more reason why we must rely solely on Education, because it provides us with a reference base of what we know for certain. We know what needs to

get done, we know what we can do, and we know what we need. And through our Education, we can prove our need for something based upon our ability and discerned motivations. The rest will naturally work itself out from there.

Authority

Have you ever pondered what gives someone the right to do something? Chances are if we ask anyone this question, they will answer back with something simple along the lines of “They just have the power to do so.” Well, how did they get that power? Where did that power come from? What is this thing called power?

Take for example, our friendly Mr. Police-Man Dan. He’s got the uniform, he’s got the nightstick, he’s got the gun, and he’s got the car with the blinking cotton candy lights – He’s got the power!

Or wait, what? You cannot tell me that special concoction of material items gives someone power. So then, where does this elusive power come from?

Oh yes, Mr. Police-Man Dan is affiliated with the government! How could we forget? The government gives him the power, remember? He is part of the prestigious police force; he graduated from the police academy and is now officially designated a police person by our government.

But we cannot stop there with the government being the answer, the government being the almighty power giver/taker. If Mr. Police-Man Dan got his power from the government, then where did the government get its power from? See where this is going? Most people are too naïve to continue on any further after the government steps in, though we are going to rise above that naiveté here for reality’s sake.

Ask yourself, who is in charge of the court rooms that decide the laws? Who is in charge of the prisons that enforce the laws? Who is sitting in the presidential chair? Just look at them, it is someone just like you and me, just another human being!

And because of this, the government is not all powerful. Why not? Because Nature rules our Earth – people do not.

So the real question is not where, how, or what gives someone power, but rather who gives who power. This is the question that in itself shines the searing light of truth on the illusion of authority.

What we have is a system where power is designated by the people themselves. This is the same principle as if I were to be designated a policeman by a homeless person on the street. Granted, a government official may have an extensive educated background and the homeless person may not know the difference between twenty

bucks and a fifth, but they both have the same capacity for giving someone power.

And by now it should be clear that capacity is…Zero. Nobody has any real capacity to give anyone any kind of power, whatsoever. It is all a make pretend idea that we are all brainwashed to follow along with from the day we are born. First by our parents, then our schoolteachers, then our fellows calling themselves policemen, the military, presidents and dictators. They all want us to believe that a collective group of human beings with the same views conjures up this magic force called authority. But…it does not.

What actually exists in this world is people who are knowledgeable and those with demonstrable ability. There are people who can help each other, and those who have to work on doing so.

The legal system, for example, does very well in containing people and accumulating numbered paper rectangles in retribution for poor decision making, although it also leaves much room for improvement in helping people progress beyond themselves. But hey, even if authority does not set the stage for a higher caliber society, at least it helps unite two people who love each other, right?

Marriage

When someone says they are married to someone, what does that really mean? And I don't mean what everybody would typically say when asked this question, what I am really asking is: Aside from all the sentiments one may have, what does it really mean?

We could claim marriage is what binds one together with another person, but how many times have we witnessed marriages fall apart? How many families have become fragmented by two people who did not particularly understand the meaning of a life commitment?

This problem with the idea of marriage can be traced back to the ever recurring blunder of human to human given power, a.k.a. what we just covered – Authority.

Once again, we have certain people designating themselves as priests, when all they are is truly who they are. Then, these people who consider themselves priests claim to wed two people through some supernatural blessing that ties them together until Mr. Death will inevitably part them. However, it would be worth asking ourselves: Exactly how many people have parted each other before death?

Reality Check: Priests don’t do anything for bringing two people closer together. But how could they? What did we think somebody just like us could do for our relationship anyhow?

So, this is where the government steps up to the plate, right? Unfortunately, no – this is where the government only further distorts the whole scenario. As if the priest’s hocus-pocus was not enough, the people who consider themselves ‘government’ claim to marry two people with an elaborate paper document.

Then, when these two people wish to be ‘divorced,’ they are handed not one more, but mountains of these paper documents and drudged through court rooms filled with people claiming to be attorneys; syphoning from them not only their pretend money, but also their time that could have been better spent doing something much more constructive with their lives. In other words, other people drag each other through human hell consisting of verbal expositions laden with ink splashed souveniers just so they may attempt to live a little better.

Now, before we complete this full circuit of marriage, what exactly is this thing we just called divorce? It is the confirmed separation of two people, correct? It is two people parting each other, going separate ways, living the life they choose without that person they had previously ‘married.’

Or, in other words, divorce is merely two people saying good-bye (perhaps a bit forcefully, and on occasion mixed in with an encore of expletives mind you, but a good-bye nonetheless).

...“Ohhh... but it is much more complicated,” you say. So much more complicated than just saying good-bye. That is, in fact, why we have that crazy government sponsored divorce process, isn’t it?

Well, reality check #five: Divorce is only an ‘officialized’ situation of needlessly complex hoopla created by our fellow human beings that has somehow become customary in our questionably structured society.

So, let us pose the question one more time: What does it really mean to be married to someone? And now let me tell you: in the most beneficial and liberating sense of the words: Absolutely nothing. The auditory ramblings of someone in a cloak and a few well formed splashes of ink on paper do not do anything for binding two human

creatures together.

On the contrary, our relationships are much more than they are perceived to be. They do not exist as a label or static entity as our culture would like us to believe. The connections we make with each other have so much more depth and dynamics than that. It's just up to us to make the most of them.

It's up to us to create more than what has already been created for us. Instead of limiting ourselves with ‘dating,’ ‘engagements,’ and ‘weddings,’ we should use our full potential to celebrate our dedication to each other in each moment and in as many authentic ways possible. No more worthless paperwork, no more gatherings of hocus-pocus. We're better than that. We can arrange our own celebrations and live on our own terms without anybody officializing and providing documentation.

In summary, we dedicate ourselves to who we choose, where we choose, and for how long we choose. If two people find it agreeable, then they should very well put forth the effort to choose the same person over and over again in a mutually chosen location, regardless of all difficulties imposed upon the relationship.

However, reality is a little more complex than our good intentions, so this does not always work out for everyone. In cases as such, the situation may require some revision so as to allow for future growth of all parties involved. Should that happen, and surely it will, what takes place afterward should only be mutual encouragement to find that which makes their lives better. No need for any labels like ‘divorce’ here, just pure genuine encouragement.

And speaking of unnecessary labels, that leads into our next topic...

Religion

How do people come to know what they know? Through other people, thoughts, and books – correct? And precisely how are these thoughts thought of and how are they written? By human beings, after thinking the thoughts in their mind.

So in other words,

People cannot talk to god,

and those that do – well,

those are the people

who hear their own thoughts.

Let us clarify: People cannot talk to god. Nobody has ever been able to talk to god. (And if anything, god itself has only been an idea of ours, a concept brought about in the mind of human beings grasping for understanding of our universe.)

If a person, say, named Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, or Joseph Smith, Jr., for example, had thoughts about how things should be practiced, these thoughts would have originated through their own evaluation of the world, otherwise known as: their own thought process.

Or in other words, these people’s thoughts were not divinely inspired and did not originate from some imaginary being called ‘god.’ Keep in mind, these are just ordinary people we are talking about here, arbitrary beings with arbitrary names. Their name may as well have been Bill or Cliff for our purposes, but the ones previously mentioned have taken on a more, oh, example worthy connotation over the years.

So, with that said, any way of life that descends from these people is only an illusion, and any system that arises from it is also an illusion, such as ‘church hierarchy.’

Where do you think these people labeled as Popes, Bishops, Cardinals, Priests and the like get their titles and their power? I am sure you can probably guess by now, so let us say it together: from their imaginations.

This hierarchal ‘power’ is the same exact rubbish as mentioned in the Authority section. For further explanation, please reference “Police-Man Dan” and substitute him with “Pope/Priest/Cardinal/etc.” You will see it all works out the same.

No one has power over anyone else, much less any more ‘spiritual prowess’ than another which gives them dominion over their ‘followers.’

But the problem is, these religions will not have you think as so. They obfuscate our foundation of reasoning so that we cannot think as so, even when it is directly presented to us. Religions want us to think people can talk to god because they do not want us to know that we can think for ourselves.

Bare with me as we parse it out,

Religions teach us to believe

to only accept

what we are taught to believe,

so that we cannot possibly

understand anything else

than what we are taught to believe,

because anything other than

what we were taught to believe

goes against our beliefs,

and so it cannot be true

because it goes against

what we were taught to believe.

This process is terribly genius, I must admit, but in the end, it falls victim to the same problem Authority does – that is, its ‘power,’ or should we say lack of it, is in the audacity of its self-designated proclamation.

Religions cleverly take control of a man’s mind through the dismissal of it, and so the followers also learn to dismiss themselves, their rationale, and their reality. Once that happens, most anything can happen.

Virgin births take place, H O phase changes into fermented grape juice, loaves₂ of bread rejuvenate like starfish, human beings stroll on water, lepers and the blind are cured with a touch of a hand – a hand interacting and curing on a cellular level – people rise from the dead, and heaven with eternal bliss opens up – Oh, what magic! What wonder! What imagination!

But, “What…magic and imagination?” Exactly. These things cannot happen in reality, by any means, so how do we make them happen? The imagination is the only way. Further yet, how do we conceal this fact? Ah, now that could be a problem…but again, religion has yet another terribly genius answer for us: they have not attempted to merge imaginary thoughts with reality, they have simply made imaginary thoughts the equivalent of reality.

What has happened is this: Religions have attempted to take reign over reality by making reality itself the same as imaginative thoughts.

Do you see how clever that is? To render a man incapable of differentiating the impossible from the possible; unable to define fiction from nonfiction; for how can they reason if their reason does not stand the test against what ‘god has proven’?

Of course, they cannot, their mind can only be sent into turmoil, and so religion emerges the victor – the obvious, only choice for those who are confronted by it, simply because it provides a way out of being an ‘irrational’ mess. Yet again, pure cleverness by religion. It makes the rational people feel illogical, and supports the irrational people with rewards of potential splendor.

However, keep in mind that it was religion itself that initiated this mess, so of course it can only be itself that provides a way out of its own trap.

Another problem arises in that people are too afraid to call these religions out because the religion itself is telling us we are going to ‘hell’ unless we believe in ‘Jesus’ and become ‘saved,’ for example. Instead of calling the bluff right here, most people become frightened for fear of being sent into *prepare spooky voice* ‘Eternal Torment’ and ruining themselves after they die. [?]

Again and again, pure cleverness! By inventing an After-Death Conspiracy, religions have created a potential punishment for being rational, and have then in turn created a reward for the people who choose ignorance – since after all, how else would a smart person follow what otherwise cannot be true?

Religion has also attempted to give itself credibility through numbers of ‘witnesses,’ which is also a dastardly little trick set up for those who do try to reason, because, again – one simply cannot. But think about it, even if just one – thousands – even millions – of people agree that an impossible act happened, does that change the fact that it cannot happen?

And even if something considered impossible did appear to happen, it could only happen due to other, fully possible, means. Otherwise, the impossible act voids itself of being impossible since it just occurred – need I say more?

So, for example, should some dude named Jesus actually have walked on water or popped out of a virgin vagina, it should come as no surprise since apparently, these things would be fully possible. But I digress, and as we know, these things are not possible due to the fundamental way our universe operates, and to claim otherwise – now that is pure heresy.

However, still trying to escape chemistry, biology, and physics, religion has attempted to define possibilities as exclusive to a ‘chosen being,’ insisting that one man labeled ‘god’s son’ was exempt from reality and transcended beyond it, even though he existed in this reality where such transcendence would probably have ripped the fabric of space-time and created a black hole of sorts. (Just a guess…I am not really an expert on consequences of the impossible.)

Unfortunately though, however cool that would have been, this ability to transcend reality could not be exclusive, much less even potentially possible, in this universe; the same natural laws hold true for us all – even for ‘god’s son’ if he could have existed.

Also, consider the method of proof here. If god wanted to prove his existence and wanted everyone to obey his ‘word,’ why would he mess around and pretend to be a magician?

While I am not sure if there are any reliable ways of perceiving credibility, the last thing on the list would be a performance of sly magic tricks as proof that all they say is true. “Yes, so I made the rabbit pop out of the hat, and that means I am in charge of everything.” [Where is the correlation here?!]

For the record, these magic tricks termed ‘miracles’ are only imaginary happenings that people confronted with religion are convinced into believing, as though this reality and the natural occurrence of things is not good enough for them.

If anything happens, including something termed a ‘miracle,’ it can only be caused by the natural way of things, even if it is extraordinary.

So, for example, let us say a person recovered from a terrible accident or cancer. Does this mean a miracle just occurred? No…it simply means the person’s cells figured things out. Woohoo, nature apparently knows what it is doing – imagine that!

See, there is no reason to attribute nature to some deity, when nature is simply the extraordinary force that is itself. And personally, I think this explains a bit better why this world and its creatures can be so ruthless and unforgiving, because obviously an all loving god would have planned out the environment, the creatures, and their predispositions a little better – making it so that animals at least did not have to eat each

other and making the planet so that it would not rage as severely as it does. Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes anybody?

But of course, these things are due to Satan, god’s adversary, yesss…the reason things are not all utopian, lovey-dovey and perfect is because god has a rival, and it is game on! […]

Oh dear, when will all this nonsense end? How many more inventions of thought do we have to make in order to comprehend that we cannot comprehend? How long will it take for us to finally realize that We can only understand this world so far as it is?

And yet for those who still think Jesus/Tim/Tom is savior, let us continue.

But before we go on, another thing about this guy; how exactly was this man born? Popped out of a vagina, right? Or maybe it was through a C-section – but for practical purposes, let us say he lived in a time when C-sections meant the imminent death of the mother, and we somehow know she did not die immediately after his birth. So, he was popped out of a vagina.

And what had to happen before this particular popping out? He had to grow in his mother’s womb, slowly growing; a little mass of cells rapidly reproducing. But wait, before these cells could begin reproducing, how did they begin to reproduce? Wouldn’t there need to be an egg and a sperm present?

However, say there was not, that there was just an egg – what then? What happens to a woman’s egg if it is not fertilized? They just get washed out each month, right? So, if we want this guy to exist, and for our purposes, he did exist, then there had to have been the sperm-egg combination before he popped out of his mother.

But where did that sperm originate from? Is there such a thing as a phantom sperm, a complex arrangement of DNA and genetic programming that randomly assembles itself out of oxygen molecules and human skin? Ooo, interesting…I think there could very well be!

So, what happened, was that this phantom sperm suddenly appeared and traversed through the soon to be mother, burst through the egg’s wall, and got down to multiplication business. Yes! That’s it! Brilliant, bloody brilliant! How wonderful such a

process it is! Yes, yes! [/end sarcasm]

For some reason (or lack of it), most people (particularly ones who call themselves ‘apologists’) seem to get caught up with all these complex answers to questions about how stuff happens in regards to certain things. But of course, it is all actually quite simple. The problem is not that these questions are ‘Mysteries of Faith’ or are too difficult to answer and explain, but that these questions are invalid in the first place.

Asking “How does a virgin give birth to ‘god’s son’?” is as good as asking “How do cars poop out elephants?” See what I am saying? Virgins do not give birth, much less do they give birth to ‘god’s son,’ for reasons previously mentioned, just as cars do not poop, much less do they poop out elephants, as elephants usually do not find their way into gas tanks, much less fit through fuel lines, and although an elephant’s mischievous trunk could find its way through the air intake, the elephant’s trunk would then partake in the process of internal combustion, being burnt to a crisp and decomposed into various unrecognizable chemical compounds before the rest of it could even think of making it through.

So of course, to put it straight: Cars cannot poop out elephants just as virgins cannot give birth to ‘god’s son.’ That is how it goes, and it can never go any different, even if god wants to ‘work in mysterious ways.’

So as we can see, the problem with people arguing for any religion is that its power lies in its ambiguity – that is, only if we choose to give it the power. But when we consider the laws of our universe and think about all the prerequisites behind every process, we find irrefutable clear-cut answers (at least for such basic inquiries as made here regarding the validity of man-made superstitions). And this is the reasoning that voids every so called ‘holy book’ while serving as our buffer between truth and fiction.

One man’s writings can never hold any more truth than reality, regardless of what their claims to authority may be. Rather, the only thing that counts is the repeated verifiability of the content. If anything cannot be proven every time, by every person attempting to do so – then it is not true.

Especially if the event relied upon ‘god,’ because anyone can write anything and claim that ‘god’ was responsible for it, that it’s your fault for not witnessing it, and that you are a scoundrel if you don’t believe it – and so in that case, anything could be true.

Remember though, all of our conceptions of god have no actual existence whatsoever. Whatever our creator may be, this is beyond our comprehension. Nobody

knows, and so we should not pretend to know.

Yet that is what religions are doing, is pretending to know what they do not. They try to use a ‘chosen connection’ between this world and what they imagine is beyond. But nobody knows what is beyond. Maybe we will find out when we die, maybe we won’t – but while we are in this world, one thing is for sure: Nobody knows, nobody knows…

That is the wonderful mystery of it all. However, keep in mind that just because the fact we exist cannot be comprehended, this lack of an answer does not pave the way for more impossibly absurd happenings. We are here now, this uncertain-certainty is true – but now everything must obey the fundamental laws of our universe. We live in a reality that exerts itself the same upon us all, and there is no escaping it, even through imagining otherwise.

If one does indeed think otherwise and claim to believe in a ‘religion,’ it is all in their mind and that specific ‘religion’ does not actually exist. It is only an illusion, an imaginary line drawn between themselves and the rest of the world.

PS,

Sometimes, I almost feel bad for dismissing religion, since there are many people with a lot of love in their hearts involved with religion simply because that is what they think religion is attempting to spread – is this love, so they are drawn to it because it is an outlet for their natural predisposition; or if not natural, just how they crave to be.

These people mean no harm, they are trying their hardest to be the best people they can be, and that is wonderful, that is not the problem at all. The problem is these other people attempting to take advantage of them and allocate their love for furthering secondary causes founded upon bigotry and delusion.

However, there is no need for such division and our love should not be limited or exclusive to others who share the same ‘beliefs.’ We are all in this together, and there is no need to divide ourselves into groups fighting for convictions; it does not matter what one attributes their love to, so long as they are contributing it.

From this, I hope the genuinely good folks who think of themselves as ‘religious’ can free their minds and understand that this is what we need to do, that we need to

make our love available to all and not make our love exclusive to only those who we choose to surround ourselves with – much less strap bombs to our chests and blow ourselves up over the whole ordeal.

DISCLAIMER ADDENDUM

As previously mentioned, I do not claim that the presence of these ‘religions’ is nonexistent, but rather, that they are a deception of our reality. It has been my experience that followers of religion simply reiterate what they have been told, and let us be clear – this is not a valid form of reason.

For example, anyone can independently verify that 1 + 1 = 2, and though this world cannot be reduced to mathematics, it is with this same independently verifiable logic we need to conduct our thoughts.

Just as it is not valid to personally claim 1 + 1 = 3, it is also not valid to claim that 1 + 1 = 3 based on the ‘fact’ a book repeatedly says it is so. Obviously it is not true, and I would suggest more study time for those who still insist on claiming otherwise.

The only consolation I can offer from here on out to those who continue to think 1 + 1 = 3 would be automobiles missing a wheel or two, medicinal dosages that prove fatal, and bridges that collapse prior to being fully built – for if we cannot do something so basic as addition, we cannot successfully construct an endurable existence.

[Note: All calculations here are done using the base 10 numerical system. Of course, this is most usually assumed, though I am stating this for those extra-inquisitive people always looking for a technicality. And while, yes, it is true that this is the way to be, please remember that there is a big difference between being inquisitive and attempting to warp reality.]

Sports

Don’t get me wrong, exercise is very beneficial to our lives, but the attachment of numbers to it is not. Just like money, these numbers are all in our minds, from points to batting averages and even numbers for weights.

Nobody actually scores a ‘basket’ in basketball, though there is a sphere passing through a metal hoop. Nobody really has a ‘batting average,’ people just swing a bat and hit a ball through the air on occasion. Nobody ever bench presses 300 individual ‘pounds,’ they merely lift a carefully measured mass of metal up in the air. And nobody scores a six ‘point’ touchdown in American football, they only run with an oblong shaped ball across white paint adhering to blades of grass, or synthetic fibers of turf.

When we look closely at these situations, it becomes clear these things are not one and the same. Yes, the occurrence of each event does exist, though what is attributed to it does not. We have simplistic arbitrary actions being attributed much more meaning than what they are. In other words, there is a transcendence into imagination land when people think they are scoring points. However, all that happens is what happens, nothing more.

To put it into perspective, the Earth does not have a clicker that keeps track of how many ‘touchdowns’ or ‘baskets’ or ‘home runs’ were just scored by a group of humans dressed up in color matched clothing pretending to be on two different ‘teams.’ Once a game is over, the only relative measurement actually worth anything is the physical energy expended.

With modern sport culture and its obsessive emphasis on points, what we have is people taking a game other people made up and getting extremely carried away with it. Not just the players themselves, but also and almost more so the viewers of these games. And for that good ole obvious reminder, these games are indeed just games – games that originated from the imaginations of our fellow human beings.

Keeping these imaginary origins in mind, we can also discover that nobody can win or lose. Remember, these two teams are actually one group of humans, playing a game together.

They are not actually against each other, but merely pretending to be – just like how they pretend to score points and such. All people are really doing on separate ‘teams’ is exerting themselves in opposite directions, more or less.

But when they finally decide to end the game and go home, this going home is all that happens – people going from point A to point B…and so, at the end of the day, there are no winners and there are no losers. We are all just who we are, doing the best we can.

Enemies

When we realize we are all living together, that no one is our enemy, that we are only people helping other people, then it becomes clear we can only collaborate.

Of course, this is what we are doing now, only very poorly.

And if I have not made it obvious – Our next step can only be the active betterment of our collaboration.

If we take what was just said about sports, and apply these principles towards war, the connection is straightforward and self explanatory. After all, our wars are indeed sports, just with the incorporation of flesh destroying weapons.

The teams we think we are on are our ‘countries,’ and our ‘points,’ ‘victories,’ and ‘defeats’ are only immolation of ourselves as a whole. Nobody will ever win, nobody will ever lose – we will only prevail through battles of ignorance.

And so wouldn’t it be good if we wizened up and used Education to fight our battles rather than the bullets and bombs of naiveté? No, I didn’t think so. So let the nuclear wars begin, mobilize the infantry, and continue with the scapegoats of religion.

After all, we don’t need to survive.

Human Supremacy

Somewhere between building houses, running factories, making music, and slaughtering billions of animals, human beings seem to have proclaimed themselves ruler of the Earth.

While it may be true that yes, we are the dominant species and have the capability to kill most all of our opponents, we are still animals scurrying about on a foreign planet, in some mysterious universe.

Think about it, we are a tremendously small colony of biological beings in a mind-numbingly expanding universe. Nature will always continue to rule over us, decimating civilizations each year with natural ‘disasters’ while also providing us with the means to live, providing us the means to all we need.

And keep that fact in mind; it is nature creating our food and the resources for what we do. All too often, though, we take what we are provided with, and then pretend

we gave it to ourselves – but there is some force way beyond our comprehension that is responsible for us all, and it is this force that should always be kept in mind and respected.

In other words, we are not the controllers of the universe – we are only occurrences in it.

Our lives are not our own doing, at least not by the person we think we are. There is something else putting us in this place, and I can say with shameless certainty that I cannot fathom what that force could be, though I will do my best to embrace the limited understanding we have of it.

Packaging

Labels

Advertising

When we take away the fancy descriptions and all the pretty packaging of an item, what we are left with is what we actually get.

This principle holds true for everything, from automobiles to chocolate, but for the sake of time and space, we will only discuss one of the more noteworthy items: soda-pop.

Take a can of Mountain Dew for example. Here we have High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sodium Benzoate + Erythorbic Acid (To preserve freshness), Arabic Gum (oh yum), Brominated Vegetable Oil, Artificial Flavor (Yellow 5, High Five, No I don’t think so!), all entrenched in carbonated water and a good dose of Calcium Disodium EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic) acid just to protect that delicious flavor.

Now, after careful analysis, the question is this: who on Earth would want to drink such a noxious concoction? There is absolutely nothing in this beverage that holds much of any nutritional value worth digesting, much less ‘paying’ for.

But in the mean time, we have tons of man-power dedicated to advertising, designing new logos, transporting, and then finally consuming a liquefied mix of unhealthy chemicals passed off as a regular beverage.

Good old propaganda-advertising-America has dressed up this worthless liquid

by wrapping it in fancy designs laced with attention getting colors and catchy slogans. And unfortunately, these are the true ingredients that sell, as we can see – it does not matter to people what is actually in their drink; only that the container has a cool design and that it tastes good.

However, just because something pleases our taste buds does not mean it is even remotely good for us. This same principle, only reversed, also applies to things that ‘taste bad.’ There are many natural products of the Earth that may not always have the best taste, but they do hold the best nutrients for us.

Especially when we consider that every chemically engineered food is only an inferior incarnation of Earth’s natural produce – these are most dangerous of all because they purposely circumvent our body’s natural reasoning, making us think that it is okay to eat worthless items loaded with modified sugars, salt and preservatives.

And so, instead of trusting advertisements and the buds on our tongue, it is time to begin using the neurons up in our heads. It is time to distinguish trash from what is beneficial. Not only that, but we must be sure to act upon this knowledge. Because after all, what is the worth of a solution without implementation?

Makeup

Much like advertising, makeup conceals the truth by embellishing it. Mascara, eyeliner, lipstick – they all cover up what is really there, making one appear to be what they are not.

We are as beautiful as we are, there is no changing that. Cosmetics seem to have given people (women and second handedly, men) a false impression of reality. The companies producing these products lead us to believe that wearing these products makes us more beautiful, but do they really?

Makeup does not make anyone more beautiful, it only makes them appear more beautiful. Nothing more, nothing less. Makeup is only an optical illusion.

It does not matter if we spend hundreds of dollars on decorating ourselves with clothes and chemicals, we will never be any different from what we started with. The only true self is the self that has just stepped out of the shower, once everything has been taken off and washed away.

For thoroughness, even plastic surgery creates the illusion of a ‘better person.’ They may not look the same, but they still are the same.

Granted, some cosmetic surgeries are strictly for functionality’s sake, due to a birth defect or such, but in the meantime, even these happenings should not make people think less of themselves.

There is no reason for refusing to accept ourselves and others for the body we did not choose. Yes, I could understand good heartedly mocking someone if we all had the opportunity to design what we look like, but the womb ain’t no Build-A-Bear, you know?

Gender

Did you know that we all start out as females? That is correct, every single sperm/egg combo begins as a female, only mutating into a male if enough testosterone is provided to the embryo during development.

And yes, let us stress ‘mutate.’ Males are mutations of the original female design. Yet historically (and sadly to this day), men have acted as though they take precedence over women, as though women are some inferior creature they have no relation to. When of course, as we just found out, men ARE women, only MUTATED.

So, if anything, women are in a much more formidable position to argue precedence, since they are the default way of being. And imagine if humans had followed their typical reaction to the mutants of our world – we would have seen a female dominated society formed around the outcast of men!

However, instating a reversal of the gender roles would not have been at all beneficial to us then, much less now. Our generations have led us to where we are – this we cannot change – and instead of making further mistakes, our education should help unite us.

When we consider each other beyond our bodies, there is not any fundamental difference between a male and female person. We are all universal consciousnesses operating a physical body we had no choice in choosing. Yes, bodily we are all different, but the conscious mind operating these bodies is all the same – and so, let us treat each other as such.

Language

Each word is only what we designate it as,

so from now on, every word is only what it is.

Throughout this exposition, there have been a few ‘curse’ words laced in with all the other ‘pretty’ words. But why must they be there, why must these ‘curse’ words ‘dirty’ these pages? Well, the answer is quite simple, really: they are there because they are there.

Unfortunately, people are accustomed to taking offense to such words, as if a person’s utterance of ‘shit’ carries needles to their heart and ‘fuck’ sets off a bomb in their belly. Although, why should they? There is no need to get all flustered over a few well-coded rumblings of air waves.

True, the words we know are defined by the dictionary and modern society, though their ultimate definition resides in ourselves. Words mean whatever we want them to mean; the prefabricated definitions are only suggestions for ‘proper’ universal usage.

Language is merely an auditory description of our thoughts regarding various things in the world, related to ones consciousness through self-reference. When we hear something, an auditory picture of sorts forms in our mind, and then it is shaped into something we can ‘understand’ by relating it to what we already ‘know.’ But how we decide to react to it is a whole other matter.

To fully explain this, and for good measure, let us dissect one of the most ‘vile’ creatures of all, the infamous “Fuck You.” The first part, “Fuck” is a reference to sexual intercourse, and “You” is a direct implication of yourself, the person being spoken to.

Now with these two parts defined, we can accurately translate “Fuck You” into an auditory picture, which goes like “Sexual intercourse, yourself.” Yes yes, so what does this really mean? Well? Honestly, I’ll tell you…I don’t know.

Somehow, though, people misinterpret this nonsense as an attack on their own personal being. They think that “Fuck You” has some relation to them, but it is only a ripple of sound brought about by one person’s indignation. And while yes, words can stir up terrible anger in ourselves, this can only happen if we allow them the power to do so.

Further yet, why be angry with one another when the truth of the conversation will always be what it is? Truth is independent of our conversations; it is something that

will always be itself. Granted, sometimes it may in fact be this truth of the matter that ‘makes’ us angry, but why be angry at it? Better yet, why be angry with each other? Why can’t we just shake our heads, smile, get over it, and figure out what is going on?

Expectations

We have ratcheted our expectations so high

that life can only be one big disappointment.

But it does not have to be this way.

People’s expectations, including our own, are only contrived opinions that do not have any semblance to how things ‘should’ be.

The life you live is the life you live, and your ‘success’ is only what you make of it. There is no need to rely on other people for verification on how much you are enjoying life. That is up to you.

Somehow, it has become customary to press each other with demands like making a ton of ‘money,’ ‘owning’ a big house, getting ‘married,’ and ‘buying’ everything one wants – but as we have found out, all of these things are only illusions.

Understanding this, there is no reason to strive for such empty hearted goals such as these, because truly – they accomplish nothing. And with that said, what is the sense in expecting ourselves to strive for something that is not really there?

The only expectation we should have for each other is to become more educated and to conduct ourselves as such for the best life possible. And while that is indeed my own personal expectation, I cannot imagine any better reason for why we exist…though please let me know if you think of anything.

Remember: Money and material items are not integral, much less valid parts, to being happy, nor is fame and popularity. On the contrary, these things are most often hindrances because they introduce many more opportunities for stress into our life, and it is this stress that will always be the first to take any feelings of enjoyment away.

Conclusion

…and so, all that was left of the world, was to adventure.

On an optimistic and whole heartedly intended side, what lay before you are some of the most magnificent truths that can be presented in writing. When these ideas are taken beyond only being ideas, the implications are absolutely mind shattering and elegantly life changing.

Though much like everything else, there is a gloomy side when exploring a little deeper. These ideas can lead to quite a few unpleasant feelings when attempting to live differently in a society that is constantly demanding us to do otherwise. But contrary to popular belief, I think there are many benefits to be found in these depths of our mind.

All that is required of us is to effectively learn the art of submerging and resurfacing; once that is done, everything will be fine. For even in the darkest areas of thought, it has always been the glimmer provided by these ideas that have guided me towards better days, and so I know they can do the same for you.

As a final note, this collection of essays is meant to be adapted to the way we think and apply ourselves; nothing more, and nothing less. And while it would be nice to see these thoughts immediately applied throughout the world, I am fully aware that the enlightenment of our human race is going to take time and may even stretch until extinction. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are too caught up in their ways that they seem unable to step back from them, even when their ideas happen to be the source of all their problems. However, for the more ambitious individuals willing to fortify their foundations, I know this text will serve well.

In the end though, all I wanted was to provide us with a conglomeration of the most inspiring truths of pure reality for living an honest to goodness life.

That is all.

Well that’s my year spent in exile

second guessed and dressed up in tatters

My birth feet didn’t take this path

and I’m still looking for a life that matters

More than chit-chat

we listen to the streets

We’re all deadbeats

and these old habits are starting to show through

Sorry I didn’t get to know you

-Stephan Jenkins “My Time in Exile”