What kind of lifestyle can I expect when I make the move to giving

HEllo again Nicholas, I would like to add to your story. I also have a apartment full to the brim of things my family and friends and aquantences have given me. I have 4 vacuum cleaners because my one friend will not return things if she doesnt like them after she buys them. She says she doesnt have time cause shes always working. I have many beautiful luxurious sets of towels, you know the ones people keep in the closet because there too nice to use. Christmas comes around and they get a new set and guess who gets the old(new never used ) set. Same goes for sheets and pillow cases and comforters, dont you just love those friends that have to have the latest designer 600 thread count sheets every season in every color. ALso my favorite, people who have to have the latest technology. I have two coffe makers and two keurigs state of the art coffe maker, 3 crock pots with all the bells and whistles,all the pots and pans I could ever use.(the good stuff) Three air purifiers because the others were too loud when they were sleeping. 6 tvs 3 of them flat screens hdt some are in my closet. countless computers.( they have to be upgraded ever 2 to 3 years) the newest fones because they change so fast. A new elecrtic fry pan cause she said the lid didnt seem to fit right so she bought a new one. 2 irons I never use and a sewing machine I use once in a while. three sets of stainless steel flatware because people have to have the latest patterns( last months pattern is fine with me) 4 sets of butcher block knives(anybody want to buy some knives), there is more but ill stop here. Once people find out you need some thing or dont have a job they graciuosly gift you with there gently used articles, so they can go buy some more, and go to work to buy some more. and get up early and drive in rush hour traffic so they can buy some more,and so on and so on. I just have one request, any one out there have a gently used couch or sofa or sectional there not happy with and thinking of buying a new one? MY love seat I aquired because it didnt fit in there room is getting a little saggy. I need some thing bigger.

The issue is not ‘working for free’ but rather the ‘type of work’ enslaving us…

———–”More Jobs” and the Post-Peak-Oil World———-
by, Jan Lundberg

What was required for the growing economy that was supposed to uplift all of modern humanity is at root a false notion for the manipulated public: the overwhelming majority must work for others to enrich the few so that all of society benefits through unlimited expansion. This problematic profit scheme is failing to hold up, what with general economic uncertainty on the rise (apart from “Hope” ) and the advanced depletion of easily extracted, cheap oil.

To put even greater pressure on our bankrupt (in so many ways) system, the ecological crisis is knocking at the door ever more threateningly, demanding not mere policy adjustments but a radically different approach to treating the Earth and all its people and species.

The system for unrestrained greed would have long ago been abolished as unnecessary and unfair but for the population-management advantage of divide-and-conquer competition. One can seek refuge in, “I’m not greedy, I just want a middle class life and I work hard for it.” This dream is less and less tenable for the majority. One may as well espouse peace while unquestioningly buying increasingly subsidized gasoline, as profitable wars recur or rage on — even though the oil will be running out.

Employment has pay-offs but they are unreliable and uneven, depending how easily satisfied a regimented individual or family chooses to be. Ultimately we have seen that society’s approval of greed is shown by the legal funneling of unrestricted wealth to the influential top. However, we refuse to stop feeding the process when we retain our highest faith in more laws, elections and “Hope.” Demanding more jobs as a solution to our problems is unimaginative and only exacerbates a fatally flawed system. Look around, is it getting better? Have brakes been applied to truly gross profit-taking and the corruption that goes with it? Hardly.

The emperor has no clothes — nor adequate oil to keep the mass materialist illusion going. Calling for more employment is a beggar’s cry when the stores of food are low and the promise of prosperity is empty.

Even if the current dismal state of affairs and blind clinging to the status quo were somehow acceptable, a return to growth to create improved lives for everyone willing to work (or able to find it) is no longer feasible.

With the departure of cheap, abundant energy upon the peaking of oil extraction — the engine of the economy’s expansion — work as we know it is going by the wayside. This will bring about liberation for a high proportion of the population, if not everyone, and more importantly see our natural environment become our partner rather than our exploited victim. For this to take place while we still have a chance to salvage what we need for a livable planet, collapse of the corporate economy — the global-warming machine — must be embraced and accelerated. There is a better way to live, starting with survival.

~The not-so-illustrious history of work

The dominance of work, like so many aspects of Western Civilization and its economy, is seldom discussed openly beyond disorganized griping. For we are asked as good citizens to not question the idea of work. Indeed, we are required not to question it. Jobs are sacrosanct. However, that belief may be part of the old paradigm that is being ushered out as the pace of change keeps up.

Hard work has been relatively recently been enshrined as a natural obligation, while it conveniently maintains the state and its ruling elite. For the vast majority of people, work invariably confers no equity stake in the enterprise or product. Whether it’s called civic participation or a right, or whether it is as Nazi Germany depended on it (Arbeit), work as we know it is an acquired trait and a recent phenomenon in human experience — that is, when it is a form of evolved slavery for the masses of people. Perhaps 99% of our time on Earth has been as hunter-gatherers, habitually spending on average much less time on what could be called work, compared to members of agricultural and industrial societies.

By recognizing work as forced, and not particularly kind for the body, spirit, or the Earth, we can regard work as linked to overcrowding — or overpopulation. A large, hard-working population produces surpluses, fueling more population, especially with technology to help. We are now overdosed on technology applied regardless of consequences. Doing more work isn’t going to help if it’s to cater to endless growth or to further technology for its own sake. It’s like digging a hole deeper for no good purpose. To differentiate between such work and purposeful, voluntary activity that benefits the whole community, we can create a designation that means the work is vital and widely appreciated: “Chosen Work.” Chork, anyone?

The use of machines and the production and consumption of mined and refined, toxic materials can be summed up as an unnatural and oppressive punishment: carried out for the generation of others’ vast profit. The Industrial Age saw a hard fight for basic human rights to be recognized, thanks largely to the union movement. But these gains were not completely fulfilled, and work was still barely questioned. Technology was supposed to save time and deliver us from drudgery, but it turned out to cost jobs and take up more of our time at the expense of human interaction and communion with nature. When a labor movement only takes the brutal edge off overwork, there are still a lot of struggling workers or former workers with basic needs unmet. Unfortunately, the U.S., among other places, does not utilize resources such as tax funds in such a way for most people to enjoy decent social services. Rebudgeting the funded priorities would take care of almost all our problems, if this could really be attempted, except for the fact that the generating of surpluses engenders wealth, greed and ecological destruction.

~Living first, working second

Work as a vestige of slavery does not mean any enterprise or business must automatically involve exploitation and pollution. Between friends and neighbors — in a close community — there can be more material reward for the ring leader who may have conceived of the enterprise and who put in the most work. This would be Voluntary Work or Chosen Work for all concerned, as opposed to Desperate Work.

Despite industrial society’s imperative to work our lives away, the involuntary-unemployed level is at a near historic high. There has indeed been hardship caused by the “Great Recession.” But we must question solutions that offer only more of the same, even if the “solutions” are from critics of the White House and Wall Street. Aside from the impossibility of constant economic expansion and full employment in an overpopulated, energy-constrained world, how we live our lives deserves to be re-evaluated: as if freedom and more efficient, sensible and ecological ways of living are up and running right now.

Workers are really trying to obtain the necessities of life and to enjoy a bit of leisure. They aren’t truly in need of devoting the best part of their lives at machines or in cubicles or behind the fast-food counters. Instead they want and need to secure their food, shelter, clothing and heat for survival and a decent life. As parents they almost all would like to be the ones to raise their children rather than see it done by institutions or day care mills (which are costly). Many workers would like not to have to put in time at a job in order to pay for a car habit mainly for getting to work. A labor union, even a scrappy and gutsy one, isn’t likely to buck the model of isolating family members or take a stand against car culture — let alone question employment in favor of a local-economy, mutual-aid barter society, a.k.a. the gifting economy.

The dollars for one’s basic “living cost” aren’t themselves the point of today’s work, but rather they are to obtain what the dollars buy. Traditional societies obtained the essentials from nature and from communal cooperation. Considering climate destabilization and the potential for greater global devastation from war, the society we need must center on the community’s providing essentials from the local ecosystem. For that to work, egalitarian social structures are necessary. They involve a different kind of work — shall we say, living — that is, tribal or ecovillage living, trade via sailboats, and all manner of collective organizing

Trying to achieve freedom from the employment-syndrome and the capitalists’ grip is not a pipe dream. For if enough people do not buy corporate items, and money is kept in the local economy, this can demolish the corporatocracy and put infamous greed into the ashcan of history. Localism also creates community relationships to co-produce and trade for the food, shelter, clothing and heat that people need. If this strategy is called unrealistic, because people will “always” buy distantly made corporate products or accept any job-job, that doesn’t wash — for petrocollapse will soon take down consumerism and the high-entropy employers as well as bring about bioregional, community-oriented economics.

~EscapeTheIllusion

#4: And another member of Nick’s inner circle steps forward to defend her Guru. What a surprise. Let me guess… another family member Nick? Or perhaps just one of your friends who’s signed up for the ‘Grachanin How To Work For Free’ way of life. Too transparent Nicholas. You fool no one but yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q95kX_EP2Nk
~Apotheosis 101

* I hear ya Sped. Just reminding St. Nick that Santa Claus isn’t real.

well if you actually read my post you would see that i was talkin about nick not you. so try not to make assumptions about me either.

it’s alright jwinter. i wish i would never had said anything really. i don’t know what’s comin over me. when i read nicks post… i guess i just have a hang up when it comes to rich people. i have never really met any that were nice to me and i reckon it has made me jaded towards them. i guess the best thing for me is to just not read them anymore. i know nick means well and i shouldn’t be so negative…it’s just another part of my ego i’m wrestling with. peace and love to you also

Stick,

I have been following Mike Quinsey, and more recently paying a little attention to Sheldan. I rarely go beyond that when visiting this site. I found GM by doing a search for Galactic Federation of Light, or Brotherhood of Light – I do not remember which specifically. My relationship with non-physical entities and energies goes back to the late 1970s, and I am going through the same, sometimes confusing, changes related to the end times and Ascension. I seek out like-minded souls here and elsewhere, who are not in resistance to the imminent changes, and who have had the ability to discern Truth from falsehood, where public knowledge is concerned. It is not easy to be here in this dimension where duality exists, and I believe we need all the support and encouragement we are able to give and receive whilst we are observing the crumbling of the dark empire. Some of us have been on the Earth as part of the Divine plan, and it is an often difficult path to stay upon. You may believe whatever you wish regarding my intentions or origins.

Namaste`

Love & Light,
jeff

Thank you.