The monster

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by GhostX, Oct 7, 2016.


  1. GhostX

    GhostX Monkey

    I've seen it in the shadows for as long as I can remember but like everyone else, I've had a hard time focusing in on it. I can make out the vague outline of what it looks like now but the image of this monster is still pretty blurry. I think the image of what America has become is out of focus and distorted for many people around the world but especially for the citizens that live here. A lot of people seem to see something slightly different while most think it's nothing and choose to ignore it completely because their lives are too busy to care about anything else. The circles I see people running in, day in day out, is more and more beginning to resemble a hamster wheel that was put here for us. I've begun to recognize the wheel I run on and the invisible cage we all live in. But seeing the face of the monster who keep us locked in has been difficult. All you really see are the hands that feed us, pat us on the head and scratch our ears and the fists that punish, oppress and knock us down if we try to bite. You never really see a head or a face to the monster. You only see the pet who acts like a mask, chosen by the other pets, being held up by yet another arm. You have to wonder what it really looks like behind that mask. That force which drives the direction of the monster and has the most control over the arms. It's "consciousness" and "awareness" making it move and making it to keep adding more invisible walls to our cage as we run like mad on our wheels.

    As comfortable as this cage may be, it's still a cage. It's still a mechanism of my enslavement and the enslavement of my future family. I do not wish for my children to be slaves and I do not wish to live in fear of the day that one of those hands find me and proceed to drag me back into the cage...

    Because you know what the cage is made of?

    Money.

    Only when an alternative to money is found can the monster be killed because every other weapon will shatter on its scales. An arm can be cut off but two will grow back and come at you even harder until you are again repressed. I'm afraid that the only way the monster can be killed, as far as I can see, is by starving it.
     
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  2. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    Money is just a convenient means of value exchange to trade for goods and services that one needs or wants.....the actual monster is consumerism, and the conflating of wants with needs. Nobody needs to buy into the consumerist prison of ever wanting more of whatever others have persuaded you to believe are the absolutely indispensable necessities of life. It is a prison of one's own creation...not one that others are compelling one to occupy....Big bad government and greedy evil corporations weren't forcing Mr Creosote to eat more...neither does anyone have a gun to our head, compelling us to eat the Gucci deluxe thin mint.....we do that entirely on our own.

    Warning: occasional coarse language and mildly disgusting gluttony! :eek:
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
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  3. oldman11

    oldman11 Monkey+++

    I'm 73 and can remember the good times but this is crazy,the way people act. Let the good times roll and don't worry about anything else.
     
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  4. GrayGhost

    GrayGhost Monkey+++

    I have absolutely no desire to keep up with the Jonses', so to speak. Live within your means and be content. To participate is to perpetuate the cycle.
     
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  5. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    I'm with Captain Fantastic....except for his supermarket shopping discount scheme. ;)

     
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  6. GhostX

    GhostX Monkey

    But it's getting to the point where we do have to buy into the consumerism. The monster has begun to force the tit on us and charge us for what we involuntarily suck out. America operates on a forced indentured servitude in this day and age which I classify as slavery... yet so many are just okay with it because that's 'vaguely' how it's always been as long as anyone can remember. "Let the good times roll" and ignore the rest, right? Well this monster moves slowly and deceptively. So much that most people haven't noticed the walls it has put up in the recent years. I suppose as long as you can't see an edge or a corner, it's easy to give in to the illusion. But for those who even mildly search or try to push the boundaries, they will find them and likely be pushed back because "freedom" as it is defined is unlawful. It's an elaborate dream. That's why when so many are confronted with the wall... if they could look right through the cracks, they find themselves afraid to see.

    But you can live in this illusion, you can choose to believe... but it does not change the reality of what we all amount to in reality... "And it's all... right where it belongs"

     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
  7. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    An interesting and depressing reality....clearly you haven't been maintaining your Soma input ;)Urban Dictionary: soma

    I try and live life as simply as I can.....we may not be able to change our societal environment much, but we can adapt to, and survive it; while avoiding the worst of its risks and hazards....I find little profit in bemoaning and bewailing it in dystopian terms...I just enjoy as much of my life on my own terms as I can, rather than hankering for Gucci $h!t bought on credit that I can't afford to repay.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
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  8. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    We have for the most part lost our ability to resist the money trap and it is no longer enough to simply withdraw from the consumer trap and avoid money. Now you must have medical care, pay land taxes on any land you own, must own or rent the land you live on, the "commons" are gone so everything is "owned" and anything not claimed belongs to the "state". If you are 200 miles from the nearest road in the Rocky Mountains, living in a cave, trapping animals with snares and using a sling and a bow, have a wild garden, and are bothering no one, "they" will arrive and force you out as you are "poaching", destroying the pristine wilderness, are not receiving proper medical care, etc, and if you insist on being left alone. they will detain you in either a mental institution or a prison. Welcome to the modern world. The only people I know that are beating the money trap are those that have given up their freedom. They have become some ones pet. They get married and become dependents, or draw social security disability benefits and jump through the required hoops, or join the military or a religious group and abide by the rules, or live on the streets and abide by the pan handling and shelter rules. All have in some sense achieved freedom from the money trap but at a cost I do not wish to bear.

    History has a habit of repeating itself, GhostX comments have been repeated over and over for at least the last 2 thousand years and we still have found no answers better than Buddha or St. Francis.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
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  9. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    I have to wonder what you propose to substitute for money that won't become the same monster, thus you contradict yourself in the same paragraph. Without a medium of exchange, anything approaching an economic "system" cannot exist.
    Finding a substitute for money that will function the same (or better) way is a pipe dream.
     
  10. GhostX

    GhostX Monkey

    Then civil disobedience it is. Every American has the right to protest. That is a guarantee of the first amendment. My protest will be to refuse the tit entirely and become sovereign in my own right. I do this myself though and I don't ask anyone else to join me. I know I'm doomed to fail. I have friends who believe as I do but I don't know if I could ask them to make such a sacrifice either... but it would be a start.

    I'm soon going to be selling the home I grew up on with my brother. We don't expect to make very much off it because of the mortgage that was taken out on it... what we make will just be the left overs after the bank gets its cut. I guess all that work my mother put on the land is worth just the miniscule sum to them... the ones who didn't feel obligated to forgive her debt when she died. Continuing to try and suck the life out of a dead woman and her children... my brother and I have no way to make the payment by the end of the year so the only way we can expect to make anything is by selling it before then... for 3 years we tried to hold it down but it drained both of us... everything went wrong... everything broke... everything fell apart and we couldn't pick up the pieces. Now this is the path that is most clear to me.

    If my life would amount to anything, I want it to be for something I believe in. Something I know in my soul to be right and worth fighting for. My protest will begin as soon as all my preparations are complete.
     
  11. GhostX

    GhostX Monkey

    You might be right but the world has changed quite a bit since anyone last attempted to think of an alternative. New elements have come into play that have not been considered yet. We also have the ability to see what money has become and how it presently affects our planet. The "alternative", though it might be a pipe dream, might end up being the very thing that saves this planet of it can be designed in the right way.

    ... but who am I kidding? No one talks about this kind of stuff because it's thought of like an element of nature. I want to remind everyone that money was merely invented. I do sincerely believe it could be reinvented to take a different shape than a pyramid on the ground, but instead become a large floating sphere.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
  12. GrayGhost

    GrayGhost Monkey+++

    You're going to "refuse the tit entirely", yet you want, or think, that debt should just be forgiven?

    Maybe it's just me, but this thought process is becoming hard to follow. I'm not sure what you are looking to accomplish, but I wish you well.

    In a passing thought, this "monster" that you speak of is in my opinion, in man's mind. Last I checked, I still had the free will to choose and do as I please.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2016
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  13. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    Whoa! This depressing topic certainly fits the gray, raining day we got here...but I am not sure where to start.

    I think we need a bit more perspective on this topic... Economic Slavery is alive and well, yes it's real but it is also a choice for the most part. Like @chelloveck stated "just enjoy as much of my life on my own terms as I can, rather than hankering for Gucci $h!t" We don't need most the crap that we buy. People can't understand why I don't have cable/satellite TV but I can't understand why they have it! Do they need it? No. Does the cost justify the betterment of their lives? In my opinion, no it does not. So, why do they sign a contact for 2 years agreeing to pay $100-$200 a month for this? Because they 'want' it - pure and simple. Call it greed or lack of discipline or weakness but they put the yoke around their own neck for 2 years.

    @duane is correct in that there are some things we don't have a choice and his comment on 'poaching' I found hit the mark for if we take an animal outside the rules and regulation (season, license, etc) we are fined for poaching but hundreds of years ago it was the same thing if one took animal outside of rules and regulations for instance on the King/Duke/Earl/etc land. Yet, with the increase of human population, this rules and regulations ensure that the animal population is maintained, not depleted to extinction. So, right or wrong, it's a trade off. Taxes? Some are totally against taxes but I for one am not. Taxes provide our schools, police, fire, roads, etc...which I am in favor of...sort of. Now, I am starting to question why we need so many police when if the 2nd amendment is enforced and allowed. Is this not a great deterrent to crime? Why must I pay taxes for 3 schools (according to my tax bill) but I have no children? So, while I think a society/community needs these services which taxes provide I think we have allowed them to go too far. The ask too much, give back too little, and in some regards are unfair, really unfair.

    And, as @ghrit pointed out, "Without a medium of exchange, anything approaching an economic "system" cannot exist. You can't pay your cable TV bill with a bushel of carrots...if so I might have signed up. LOL!

    @GhostX I am all for Civil Disobedience but what are you actually saying we disobey? Democracy is a messy, slow and clumsy, inefficient form of government but it's the best out there, at least for this country and the same can be said of Capitalism. The problem is when one starts to control the other like we have now where money is actually controlling our government which it has always done to a certain extent but it is much more severe now while government is severely over-regulating almost every aspect of commerce and over-taxing its citizens instead of managing correctly and certainly over-reaching itself turning from a Democracy into one of oppression.

    Furthermore, I believe that Americans truly don't know how rich their are or could be. We the people live off the scraps while the majority of our money is misappropriated and ill used, basically mismanage due to incompetence and personal agendas. I am always amazed that the Feds seem to have all this money they can give States for certain pet projects they think deserve it and I find myself asking why they have the money in the first place. Why they give $60-$70B a year to Foreign Aid when that is the States money, our money, yours and mine and could be used at home. If I am to disobey then this is where I would start.
     
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  14. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    That. my friend, is exactly what it is. The value of currency, of money in any of its many forms, varies according to the demand for that particular currency. Watch the money markets and currency equivalents, and pretty soon that will sink in. Floating might (or not) suit your fancy, but the odds of finding anything approaching a constant, immutable value or worth is exactly zero. Such things are controlled by supply and demand.
     
  15. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    I'm with ghrit, in relation to an understanding of the nature of money....however phrasing the problem and its nature in obscure, abstract, allegorical terms does not help much in coming to grips with the characteristics of money that need resolving/reforming....I have seen much more concrete descriptive narrative in the Book of Revelation describing the apocalypse.
     
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  16. Ganado

    Ganado Monkey+++

    Actually currency values change relative to who is in control of the on going manipulation. .. aka trade agreements, petro-dollar, and rule of law.

    No currency is 'free trade' it's all highly controlled and hidden.
     
  17. Ganado

    Ganado Monkey+++

    @GhostX sorry to hear of your troubles.

    Sometime your the windshield, sometimes the bug. I've been up and I've been down financially. When you take risks sometimes you fail. Once the pain has eased you will be able to dust yourself off and go at it again. You will be smarter and understand the money game better. Failing doesn't make you an idiot, even though it's hard on the ego, not trying again makes you an idiot.

    You can't lose if you don't quit!

    Good luck to you. And if you will allow me to suggest, dropping out is only one answer, my personal goal is to beat the b@$turds at their own game. That means know the rules money so that you know where to bend them.
    Good luck and hang in there! [grouphug]
     
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  18. Yard Dart

    Yard Dart Vigilant Monkey Moderator

    I am not sure of your age @GhostX ..... or your exact situation. But I will say that many of us have had restarts with life, at many points. I started strong with a full head of steam, plans and dreams..... and at 29 was busted due to divorce... took me 10 years to recover and more years to rebuild. Financial recovery takes a lot of work and patience.... dropping out of society is an escape, not a solution when it comes to financial issues. Living off grid, or a minimalist lifestyle still requires one to have a financial sound foundation to purchase the things needed. It takes years to be self sufficient... many of us here are working our tails off.... and still have a hellofaways to go. ;).
     
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  19. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @Ganado "...You will be smarter and understand the money game better. Failing doesn't make you an idiot, even though it's hard on the ego, not trying again makes you an idiot...

    Geez, that's good advice. Man-oh-man could I tell you stories about losing and winning money, stocks to be specific. I would give one more bit of advice, never use money that you need in any venture, no matter what it is. Understand it is a gamble, pure and simple, like life. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I invested not so long ago in something that I researched with a friend completely and totally, inside out, for no less than a week - yet - BAM. You win and you lose, and especially in the market one needs to understand that the game is definitely rigged, big time, doesn't mean you can't win just means you need to understand that there is a better chance to lose no matter how good it looks.

    "That means know the rules of money so that you know where to bend them"
    My problem has been getting all the facts and information and getting it in a timely manner. You can't and that's what caused my loss this last time. The problem is they control the information. I am speaking, of course, about the market but this pertains to the government or any financial institution... My point is sometimes even if you know the rules - well - they can add/subtract rules or there are special/exceptional rules, they change rules, rules one would never hear about and they would never tell/publish. The game is rigged. Know that before you play.
     
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  20. GhostX

    GhostX Monkey

    I plan on holding onto a few chips for when I might need them but for the most part, I'm through with the game and I'm cashing out. I was born into the game and I never agreed to play it. Maybe a forefather of mine agreed or was more likely tricked into doing so but he is not me and his debt to the game is not mine. So I refuse to play. If my children might want to play it one day when they're old enough, I will let them, but I will make damn sure they know how the game is designed to work.

    If that makes me a bad person in some way to someone in society, sorry, but it's my life and I intend to take back my ownership of it.
     
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