Stuff

As Tyler Durden put it in Fight Club (possibly the most important movie ever made), we're "chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." And, even worse, "the things you own end up owning you."

He's right. Very few, if any, of our possessions actually make us happy. On the contrary, they often make us quite miserable. They enslave us to having to maintain them and they trap us in fear of having them damaged, stolen or destroyed. Plus, we just don't need 99% of the stuff we own.

Over the years I've been cutting down more and more on stuff, and you know what? There's little that feels more freeing than getting rid of things I just don't need. I'm also buying a whole lot less. If I don't need it I try not to buy it, and does this ever save a lot of money.

Learning to live with less stuff is the first step on the road to freedom. The funny thing is, while it sounds like it would be difficult to do, at least at first, one quickly learns that it's actually one of the easiest things in the world to do and that the less you have the richer your life becomes (not to mention the richer your bank account becomes, if that's something you care about).

Slavery

I am a slave, and odds are high that you are too. We are slaves to a system that has come to dominate pretty much the entire world. I call this system "transactionalism." It's a way of life in which people will only do something for you if you do something for them, and vice versa. It's a way of life where you can't have even the basic things needed to live, things like food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and health care, unless you have something to trade for them (hence the name "transactionalism"). In times past we traded other objects for the things we wanted or needed, though these days we mostly trade icons made of metal and paper (we call these icons money) that represent an imaginary point system made up by humans long since dead. All but the richest of us trade our time and energy in order to gain the objects or icons needed for these transactions, but all of us trade our souls.

This is a voluntary slavery, however, because transactionalism is completely unnecessary. I believe that we could actually eliminate all forms of commerce and trade and that humanity would not only survive, we would thrive. I would say that well over 90% of the jobs out there would be completely unnecessary if we were to eliminate transactionalism from the equation. The vast majority of jobs exist solely to make money (for owners and employees). Without money, the only work that would be left is that which truly is necessary, work such as that which provides food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and health care to the planet's population. With today's technology, less than 10% of the world's population would have to work in order to provide these necessities, and since most people would get bored without a job, these jobs would never go unfilled, even without the financial "rewards" for doing them.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of humans have given their souls over to transactionalism, and are taught from childhood that it is the only way. In fact every religion is really a form of transactionalism (do certain things and/or avoid certain things and your deity will reward you, or at least not punish you too much). While my dream is a transaction free world, I realize that this is unlikely to happen in my lifetime since humans aren't likely to get over this system anytime soon (if ever).