Changing the Script
By
Joe Withrow
Author of "The Individual is Rising" [17]
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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.
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.
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.
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 [21]
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" [22]
The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.