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Guest Post - Changing the Script

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Changing the Script

By

Joe Withrow

 

Author of "The Individual is Rising"

 

 

 

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“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

 

The unsustainability of the current Pax Americana paradigm has been discussed here at length. We know sovereign U.S. debt is exploding exponentially. We know the true debt figure is actually north of $200 trillion – largely consisting of Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities. We know the Federal Reserve has pumped huge amounts of liquidity into the financial system in an effort to pump up asset prices and push down interest rates. We know even a slight up-tick in interest rates would dramatically impede the Treasury’s ability to service the US sovereign debt.

We know the official unemployment and inflation numbers are fudged and the economy has not magically fixed its underlying structural problems, thus there will be no ‘growing our way out’ of this mess. We know roughly fifty percent of the U.S. population is dependent upon government benefits in some capacity and we know 10,000 people will be turning 65 every single day for the next decade. And we know that which is unsustainable will one day cease to exist.

But we also know dying paradigms have an uncanny way of hanging around for a lot longer than we think possible.

Upon waking up to the demise of Pax Americana, the tendency is to react with anger. Throw the bums out! Route the globalists! Rebel against the New World Order! Let's collapse the system!

When the state of constant anger becomes unsustainable a feeling of hopelessness and depression kicks in. Everything is corrupt! The police state is omniscient – they monitor everything! There is nothing but injustice everywhere! Society is going to collapse any day now!

The tendency then is to switch back over to anger after the depression has run for a while and the cycle becomes self-perpetuating. The anger says “We need to change it now!” while the depression says “There’s nothing I can do!

Our anger and depression are both stuck within the current paradigm; we perceive the wall to be higher than what it is thus we make no effort to peek over the top.

There are only two ways out of the anger-depression cycle: (1) re-assimilate back into the matrix or (2) change the script.

Re-assimilation becomes extremely difficult once one has peeked down into the rabbit-hole. Conversely, changing the script becomes surprisingly simple once one takes the time to rise up and peek over the wall.

 

The Beginning is Near 

 

There are plenty of articles out there discussing all the ills of the current System, and there are equally as many articles explaining why we should be afraid of collapse.

There are also all manner of articles and ideas floating around out there promoting one utopian macro solution after another. Can any of these solutions work? Maybe, but I rather doubt it.

The human race is rather amusing in that, generally speaking, much of it seems to desire conflict, struggle, and competition for its own sake. Some people seem to have a natural desire to play the ruler and boss others around. Some have a natural desire to play the victim and be bossed around. Some seem to wish constant illness upon themselves and they revel in sympathy. Some seem to be chronic gamblers who get a thrill out of risking it all and subsequently hitting rock bottom. Some seem to lack empathy altogether and they enjoy harming others. Some seem to feel the need to play the hero and seek to improve every nook and cranny of the world. Some just want to be free to live their life as they see fit.

It is that last segment of the population that seems to get the short stick throughout all of history. There's always some collective boondoggle demanding their support. Holy wars, witch hunts, manifest destinies, wars for democracy, wars to end all wars, new deals, great societies, wars against poverty, wars against drugs, wars against terror, you name it. There’s always something deemed more important than laissez faire.

Too often the frustrated response is to fight the entrenched System. We can see extreme examples of this by looking back at the many violent revolutions which have taken place throughout history where subjugated people rose up to overthrow their ruling class. Many of these revolutions were in the name of freedom or equality and, when successful, the revolutionaries went to work setting up their own governments supposedly based on their espoused principles.

In some cases the new government soon became more oppressive than the old government – just with new insiders doing the oppressing. In other cases the new government was more respectful of liberty in its infancy. But even these ‘better’ governments eventually became corrupt, bloated, and hostile to liberty over time. The historical record clearly shows that fighting the System is not a long-term solution because it is always grounded in the current paradigm; the fighting is motivated by an intense desire to force change and make the System better or more efficient or more equitable or what have you.

A big part of the problem is people think of government as a service organization. This is what we are taught in our history textbooks and civics classes in the ‘public’ educational system and it is reinforced by news media and popular opinion once we reach adulthood.

But government is not in the service business, it is in the government business. Sure government provides some services. It delivers the mail, maintains the roads, and provides some semblance of legal and defense services that most people would consider to be necessary societal functions. But government doesn’t exist to do these things - arguably every one of these services could be done better and at a lower cost by local communities and private organizations. Government maintains a monopoly on these services only because it must do so in order to keep the masses docile in order to stay in business.

Government, it turns out, is unbridled self-serving force and coercion. That is the government business and that is why all governments, even when originally harmless, are eventually co-opted by sociopaths seeking to use the force of government for their own gains. Mao was correct about one thing: political power does grow out of the barrel of a gun. Even the ‘good’ services provided by government in the current paradigm require coerced taxation with the implied threat of force. Just ask Wesley Snipes if you don’t believe taxation implies force.

 

Civics Lesson 

 

Einstein advised “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”. Yet that’s mostly what I see happening today on many levels.

On the national level, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements personified anger fighting the System. One side raged against government and demanded more liberty. The other side raged against Wall Street and multi-nationals and demanded more equality. Both movements sought to collectively force change upon the System. While both of these movements have since been co-opted by established interests, the underlying sentiments still linger throughout the population.

On the local level, it looks like every community in the U.S. is spearheading an ‘economic development’ campaign. While the idea may be admirable, these campaigns all seem to be grounded within the current paradigm: they seek more. More tax revenue, more federal grants, more state grants, more population growth, more stimulus, more demand, more consumption, more everything. But more is backwards looking. More worked from roughly 1980 to 2008. It’s time has come and gone.

The solution is to change the script; to stop fighting the existing realty and begin creating the future.

Of course, the established order is not interested in change. Change is a threat. Change means more competition. Change means less power and wealth for the insiders. The establishment – governments/central banks/Wall Street/multi-nationals/Big-Agra/Big-Pharma/Big-Insurance/Big-Science/mega non-profits – will fight against change until their dying breath.

Thus the script must be changed at the individual level first. The individual must lead society, not the other way around.

The neat thing about this is there is no singular rigid model; no one cookie cutter solution. There is a basic regulatory framework rooted in common law (do not aggress upon others or their property) and contract law (do all you have agreed to do and nothing you have agreed not to do) but within this framework there is a blank canvas awaiting each individual artist.

My personal view is changing the script is simple. Not easy, but simple and intuitive. What follows are my experiences and thoughts on changing the script. What works for me may not work for others, so I share my perspective matter-of-factly with no implied suggestions, implications, or judgments. I am under no illusion of significance and I am well aware of the fact there are many others who have distanced themselves from the System much more so than I have. I offer my perspective only because I believe the sharing of ideas is what enables civilization to thrive.

My wife and I met in corporate America. We found ourselves working in the same department at the same mega-bank in the same metropolitan city. We were married at a downtown chapel in that same city a little over three years later. Our lifestyle was modeled after the mythical American Dream because that is what we had been conditioned to seek

It wasn’t long before we started to see through the deception and we made the decision to change the script. We ended our corporate careers, sold our home, liquidated our government-approved retirement accounts, and moved to a rural property with a little bit of land.

 

Changing the Script

 

Knowing we will never be completely self-sufficient, our first order of business was to make our small homestead as resilient as possible. We stocked up on a reasonable amount of food, water, and provisions, bought a small solar-compatible battery and several propane tanks to store energy, stacked a cord of firewood, made a few minor repairs to the property, and most importantly stocked the wine cellar. After the initial outlay, maintaining this basic level of resiliency costs very little. We don’t think civilization is coming to an end, we simply think it is our responsibility to be prepared for what comes with the inevitable collapse of the funny money Ponzi as well as any other disaster or emergency that decides to come our way.

We have reduced our consumerism and our consumption of processed foods and we save 75% of our income like clockwork. We spread our savings across several asset classes according to our personal asset allocation model with most of our cash held within a high-cash value life insurance policy structured according to the “Infinite Banking Concept” to allow it to compound outside of the banking system and government-approved accounts. We are actively working to create diverse income streams for our family so we do not have to be slaves to a wage and we plan to plant our first garden this coming spring.

While we still carry health insurance policies in case of major emergency, we have divorced ourselves from every other aspect of the corrupt health care industry. Regular exercise and a healthy diet based mostly on paleo principles have virtually eliminated illness from our household. Natural supplements have told Big-Pharma to take a hike. We have no primary care physician nor do we fall in line to get our flu shot.

My wife gave birth to our first daughter in October... in our dining room. We completely shut out the Big Government/Big Insurance/Big Pharma health care cartel on that one.

We paid cash for midwifery services and received much more care, support, and education than we paid for when it was all said and done. Our daughter was born completely naturally without ever coming in contact with a hospital. There were no unnecessary prenatal tests or medications, no I.V.’s, no monitors, no labor-inducing drugs, no pain killers, and no invasive interventions. Upon her birth directly into her father’s hands, there were no meddlers waiting to rush our daughter off to be poked, prodded, weighed, measured, tested, vaccinated, or placed under a lamp. The only things awaiting her arrival were her mother’s loving embrace and her midwife’s gentle inspection.

The midwife made a 36-hour and then a five-day house visit to check on mother and baby and she answered numerous text messages and phone calls at weird hours during that stretch as well. As a result, mother and baby did not have to leave the comforts of their home for more than two weeks after birth. Three-week and six-week office visits that required no form-filling or waiting-room sitting completed our private contract with our midwife. Despite this, she offered to answer any questions at any time via phone or email going forward. Needless to say, there will not be any pediatricians in our daughter’s future. You just don’t go back to the cartel after such extraordinary health care service.

The wonderful homebirth experience was just the tip of the iceberg of our vision to provide our daughter with a mindful childhood free from the forceful expectations and coerced indoctrination that characterize so many American childhoods. Instead of viewing her as an ignorant child to be molded into society’s likeness, our daughter will be treated as a beautiful individual with innate untapped wisdom that very well may exceed our own.

When the time comes we will cater a home schooling program to her unique personality, skills, and interests. Her education will be as rigid and demanding or as free and creative as she needs it to be. As she grows in maturity, her home school program will become more self-guided and our role will move more towards encouraging her to pursue her own unique talents and passions.

Rather than ignoring financial education and hoping Social Security is still around in the year 2079, we will incorporate sound finance into the home school curriculum. Our daughter will learn the merits of saving, capital formation, and asset allocation at an early age. She will understand that fiat money is an illusion not to be cherished, but at the same time every individual has to make their own way.

We will also help her test her skills in the marketplace should she have such a desire. If she enjoys writing we can help her self-publish a book. If she is a skilled musician we can help her record an album for sale. If she likes baking we can take her to the farmer’s market to sell her goods. Any income derived from these enterprises would help her get real-world personal finance practice as well.

There will be no pressure to go to college upon completion of her home school program. We are capitalizing a small IBC insurance policy which will be given to her when she reaches adulthood to get her started on whatever path she chooses. If she chooses college she can go with no student loans necessary. If it is travel that calls to her she will have the means to begin her journey guilt-free. If her desire is entrepreneurial in nature she has the start-up capital already secured. Given the freedom to discover and pursue her passions at an early age, I suspect she will know what her next step will be well before ‘graduating’.

There is no doubt in my mind this script will enable our daughter to quickly mature into an intelligent, rational, logical, caring, passionate, and skilled adult. I contrast this with my own script that involved twelve consecutive years of public education followed by five consecutive years of higher education at a public university. It took me nearly a decade afterwards to shed the social conditioning and indoctrination and to mature into a free-thinking individual. By then my balance sheet was a wreck, my skills had atrophied, and my philosophical awareness was non-existent. Digging out of the hole of my own lost decade was exhausting.

I can’t help but imagine a world full of independent-minded individuals following the script of their own choice. What if individuals with infinite potential were not automatically plugged into the inner workings of the machine to perpetuate the System? What if more people were not exposed to all of the social conditioning throughout their childhood? What if more people did not get their news from the corporate media? What if more people recognized their true worth and settled for nothing less than following their own path? I can’t help but think such a world would be a much happier, healthier, and wealthier place.

But then I stop myself. For now I only need to concern myself with envisioning a world in which one family successfully writes their own script.

The rest is probably none of my business.

 

Joe Withrow aka ZH's Joe Galt

 

ZH's Joe Galt

 

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the Infinite Banking Concept please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at

"The Individual is Rising" 

The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

 

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Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:44 | 5625189 Victory_Garden
Victory_Garden's picture

Problem solving the old style way was a SOULution for healing the ailments of the heart, mind, and body. If you heal the heart, you can heal the mind and body. Peace in all these parts of the human make-up was always the peacemakers choice. Harmony comes when the mind, body, and heart are all in synchronicity with each other, and not conflicting. Say for instance, the mind conflicting with the body, or the body conflicting with the heart, or worst among all, the mind conflicting with the heart, and body.

One way shower said once, the heart has it's own mind. Listen to it, and not the easily fooled and conditioned brain moar often, than most times. Feed your mind with knowledge, and feed the heart with love. Call that balance. Even Steven.

The ancient and right proper way is not found in the more modern Hegelian dialectic way of problem solving, where more often than not violence is used for ulterior reasons and mostly for profiting from the created disaster in the second part(anti-thesis) of the twisted and evil dialectic idiocy it really is, rather we find it in a much simpler for third graders to grasp and understand methodology.

The easy formula is identify the problem, consciously from a proper place of edumacation CHOOSE to either eliminate it from your life if possible, or to embrace that very thing that is identified as the problem. Example? Lets say Peter has a problem walking and running because his shoe laces are not tied safely. So, identifying the problem as the shoe laces are untied, is the first step of healing and already 75% on the way towards solving the problem. The final step is deciding to embrace the problem by letting the shoe laces remain untied, or to solve, eliminate, and release the problem by safely tying up shoelaces.

Hummm...

Ignorance and the embracing of a blatant in your face to the point of deep uncomfort in the heart-place problems, is pure ignorance. The greatest of all sins to God and Creation is ignorance of the All Love that it all is. Where does anything but love, fit in well at in this 3-d world? For crackers and biscuits at tea time, it is ALL LOVE on the other side.

The common Law is, if you do not harm anyone or their properties, you are not violating any Law. If you do harm anyone, or anyones properties, you are in violation of the Law and should be immediately trespassed and brought to the righteous non-corrupted Scales of Justice NOW! The world of the future will have no time for idiotic explanations as reasons for denying this basic Law that each Soul on board has engraved deep in the heart, like it is in eternal Stone. Denile, is not just a river in Egypt!

Most of may go down in flames of glory, but the words of many many many such Messnejahs will be left here on ZH for posterity and future generations to understand how, and why the world of Love turned into the lost empire of chaotic dust.

Choose well, the paths you ALL take.

Nosy folks here, too!

PS class imaginary meditation: one is reminded of a scene in a movie that was an ending and in it was the Germans looking at video tv's spying on China, and as the screen backed out, it showed the Russians spying on the Germans spying on China on TV' videos, and then the screen backs up some moar, and then you see the Americans viewing video tv's spying on the Russians spying on the Germans spying on China, and again the screen backs up and you see China spying on America spying on Russia spying on Germany Spying on China and then, the screen backs up to reveal Isreale spying on the Chinese, spying on America spying on Russia spying on Germany spying on China and for what seems to be the never ending backing up revealing screen shoots movie angle, it backs up yet one moar time to let come into view a little curly haired hazel-eyed fourth grader with a remote control in his hand sitting in the easy chair watching all this unfold on his big screen TV sometime in the mid-forties, munching popcorn spying on isreal, spying on China, spying on America, spying on Russia, spying on Germany, spying on China.

Pheeeww, whata concept. Sure glad that none of that could ever be real. It would be un-Lawful if it were.

Knock, knock, knock...

Who goeth there?

Keep it in the real. Keep it in the Heart.

Pass.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:31 | 5625143 sodbuster
sodbuster's picture

>Einstein advised “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”. Yet that’s mostly what I see happening today on many levels. <

I disagree, we are not at nearly that high a level. We are at the basic level- greed.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:52 | 5625459 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Greed is only a symptom of the basic level we, collectively, have been stuck on. Fear is the root cause, specifically fear of the biggest ( and inevitable) unknown; DEATH. 

I think that the insanity reflected in our world stems from the inability of truly overcoming the insane fear of that which is inevitable. 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:07 | 5625276 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Well......since greed created today's soup we seem to be in agreement. ;-)

If you think about it, exactly what is the Fed selling but pure unadulterated greed as 'the' solution to prior acts of greed.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 19:15 | 5625759 thistooshallpass
thistooshallpass's picture

Hey, why give soup a bad name?

 

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

 

This has essentially been my philosophy: fighting is a waste of energy; put your energy towards what you want to see. Battling the monster (usually out of frustration and anger) only entangles us up in the drama the monster created. No thank you.

 

With regards to the potential of humans.. I agree it is purely unlimited and mostly untapped. Recently saw a before/after pic of a caged/free range hen. Thinking back now it makes me liken it to humans even more, even  though our cage is purely mental.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 21:03 | 5626098 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

That is why I'm for panarchism.

It's illogical to want to force anarchy on those who want to force government on you.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 19:32 | 5625822 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"Thinking back now it makes me liken it to humans even more, even  though our cage is purely mental."

The best kind in fact. Low cost, low maintainence and infinitely adaptable and replicable. Welcome to the NEW cotton plantation.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 22:17 | 5626361 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Keeping up with the joneses...your not a real man unless... apply for our 'special' low rate card.... they set things up so that you feel inadequate unless your playing the game. Once you decide not to play you can then change the rules.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:32 | 5625397 new game
new game's picture

throwing some cd humor at it "what's for desert?"

seriously though; nice piece - to some degree or another I suspect we all are doing some of our own scriptin.

thanks, agreed:) script onward to the true artist inside being released daily...

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 21:11 | 5626148 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Control, not greed.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:10 | 5625051 hedgeless_horseman
hedgeless_horseman's picture

 

 

The solution is to change the script; to stop fighting the existing realty and begin creating the future.

There is no solution. 

There is only one's response.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:17 | 5625339 joegalt
joegalt's picture

I suppose if ‘solution’ implies concrete finality then I absolutely agree. Perhaps individual responsive action is a series of solutions?

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:09 | 5625044 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I last guest posted Joe Withrow (aka Joe Galt here on ZH) back in early October. Joe kindly accepted my invitation to return with another great piece.

Joe will be present in the comment threads to answer all your questions.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:21 | 5625353 Hulk
Hulk's picture

just re-read that October piece and it was a goody. Good luck to you Joe ! Just curious, will your kids have SS numbers? All 13 of my moms siblings were born in the house and didn't have ss numbers untill their mid twenties...

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:39 | 5625423 joegalt
joegalt's picture

Thank you kindly. The SS issue was something I reckoned with for months. I absolutely abhor the notion of “applying” to assign a government number to my daughter but in the end I could not find a practical reason for avoiding SS.

Will the political class check their list and allow my daughter to opt out of all the nonsense simply because she doesn’t have a number? I rather doubt it.

So we sadly bit the bullet. Without the SS we could not purchase an IBC insurance policy for her and we felt it would be better to provide her with a chunk of starting capital within a legally favored structured once she reaches adulthood.

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 11:44 | 5627926 chumbawamba
chumbawamba's picture

Joe,

How about a birth certificate?  Did you register her birth?

-Chumblez.

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 11:02 | 5627740 fast and furious
fast and furious's picture

Nice article.  We were on the frontier with similar notions 30 years ago.  Both boys were homeschooled and both boys were honor students in college, (one was the first Rhodes scholar nomination from his college in 10 years!).  Stick to your principles...they will NOT be unchallenged.  I too went for the SSN for both boys.  It was not a bad move.  Especially when it came time to go to college.  I've been a money manager for 30 years and can tell you problems are not solved within the system that created them.  I agree 100% with your thesis.  I enjoyed your comments.  Happy New Year.

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 10:31 | 5627623 tarsubil
tarsubil's picture

I understand but that is sad. It was an inspriational story nonetheless.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:15 | 5625069 joegalt
joegalt's picture

Thanks for having me back once again CD. I will keep an eye on the comment section throughout the day - all feedback, questions, and vitriol are most welcomed. 

Tue, 01/06/2015 - 01:17 | 5626877 delacroix
delacroix's picture

won't a financial collapse bankrupt the insurance companies too?        what do they hold as assets?

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 17:02 | 5625278 sodbuster
sodbuster's picture

Vitriol??? Nah- not on ZH!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 05:36 | 5640687 ConfederateH
ConfederateH's picture

I left the big bank where I worked not long after my yearly performance review when I was rated an "under performed" because "as a member of management (I had a high rank but was a techie) it is not sufficient to be diversity aware, you actively have to promote diversity.  What have you done in the last year to actively promote diversity?".

Usefull idiocy is metastacizing all around us.  The upper education system was lost decades ago and now we have bullshit like global warming and LGBTxxxx in-your-face-fascism.

So here is my vitriol:  Retreating to your "farm" may help you have warm-fuzzies about your good life, but it will not have done your daughter much good when she grows up a white-redneck-hick in a vibrant multiculti empire that despises and yet simultaneously feeds off of the product of white european prowess.

In short, by fleeing you are condemning your daughter to a life of servitude.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 19:41 | 5625853 SafelyGraze
SafelyGraze's picture

training:

1. I didn't see your hand raised.

2. No, you may not be excused.

3. The assignment is on the board. It is due tomorrow.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!