The Philosophy behind Recession

This is most probably what is going on everyone’s mind right now. “A Recession! Why God Why!”.

Why should this happen to us! There are already a lot of people who are very poor and struggle for even a single meal every day or for weeks, and now we have people losing jobs. The world is now consisting more and more of hungry and jobless people. Even those who are fortunate enough to have jobs are upset because their buddy, who was working with them for 10 years is no longer there with them.

Why is this all happening and what exactly is the lesson behind the recession.

From an economists point of view one would point to unwise business strategies as the reason and the lesson is to spend wisely from here on.

But if we think deeper, there is actually more of a philosophy to be learnt from this recession than just economics.

The Object of Illusion.

Everything that is materialistic exists because we need it, we want it, we lust for it. The electronics company makes 50,000 mp3 players because there are atleast 50,000 people who want it. But now due to recession there are probably only 30,000 people who are looking to buy these devices. A common man looks at this as a bad thing because it reduces the circulation of money. But think further. What if there is not one single person, ready to buy mp3 players, not because they are cutting on spending, but because they have given up the lust for such a device.

MP3 players will no longer exist.

Consider the house that you bought a few years back for $200,000 in a quite residential area. It was a beautiful house and you thought that it was definitely worth 200 grand and will probably be worth more in the future. But with this downturn you just discovered your house is worth much less. So how much is your house really worth? Here is the answer in 2 points that is very difficult to digest:

1. Your house is only worth how much a buyer is willing to pay for it and it can also be just ONE DOLLAR!

2. If there are no buyers willing to buy, your house is not worth anything in terms of money.

But here is an interesting thing, Your house is worth all of it for the memories and good times that you have there. So doesn’t this mean that your house being worth $200K was just an illusion? You see, that is why our ancestors were not willing to sell their homes not because they are attached to the monetary worth of it, but because of the memories and good times they had there.

The concept of money that we have is just an illusion!

I am not asking you to give away all your belongings and become a saint, all I am telling is if you are able to realize that the money that we made is just an illusion, you will no longer need to become a saint, you will already be in the path of one. This is easier said than done. It is a Journey into the reality and It won’t be easy but the only way to see it, will be to take up the ride, and travel, perhaps with rest stops.

Everything Belongs to Earth.

Now that we have identified money is an illusion, let’s go back to our house. How was that built? Did God build your house as a gift to your good work? Nope! Your house is just a complex physical and chemical composition of Mother earth that a stranger built it for you in exchange to an illusionary object called money. So the house is just actually Earth! It belongs to Earth! You just bought an illusionary object with an illusionary concept called Money. What kind of an illusion is this! The one that will completely blind us I guess.

Again, I am not asking you to sell your house or not buy any house in the future or give it away and live in caves. If you are able to think and realize that everything you own, including your own body ultimately belongs to Mother nature, Mother Earth to be specific, then it doesn’t matter if you have a house or not. Why do we struggle for it then, when the whole of Earth naturally belongs to us? If you are willing to accept this idea, then you are ready to take up this journey upon you.

A Living example of this would be Bill Gates. He is the richest and now he gives away his wealth and the world is becoming better because he has probably realized this. He has taken up the Journey of the real life, after completing his illusionary life. Bill Gates was born to be Bill Gates. When you realize it, you will also know that you were born to be you. You don’t have to struggle to become like Bill Gates, You just need to be you.

You will now see Life from a completely different perspective.

You will now understand that Recession is just another illusionary state created from things that were already an illusion. You will have a lot of questions, but they will be answered. Time has the answers for everything. When time answers you, your twitter messages will begin to look like mine

Of course, you will not be able to think of any of these without your survival. Once you take care of your survival needs and once you are able to take care of your survival needs as you go, your journey will be much more smoother. This is exactly why we donate goods to those who don’t have. We are helping them survive and think beyond survival.

In Indian customs, the idea of giving food and water to guests is to satisfy their survival needs. Once their survival needs are taken care of, they will be able to see the things around them beyond all illusions.

All of this is just my humble opinion. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

The Purpose of Life is to undertake this journey of breaking out of all these illusions.

Blog Action Day – Poverty

Man invented money for trade. He exchanged goods for money. He defined prosperity in terms of money. He who had more money was the richest of the rich. But he failed to set an upper limit for the amount of money. Mathematically it is possible for anyone to own an infinite amount of money.

But nature’s rule is, for everything there has to be an opposite. An Anti substance or an Anti-matter has to exist for a particular thing in nature. A simple example is Man and Woman. In Science, people say there is Matter with Positive mass and Anti-matter with an equal negative mass.

So as human went after seeking more and more wealth, acquiring it faster than they should, they didn’t realize what they were leaving behind. They were leaving behind the folks who do not have all the opportunities in the world, who are unfortunate by birth or by situation.

Is it their fault that they didn’t go to school or college?

Is it their fault that they are suddenly not able to afford food due to inflation caused by a heated economy?

On Blog Action Day, I am not going to speak at length on the topic of Poverty as we probably know a lot about it already. I am here to throw 2 main points that I think is very key to eradicate Poverty.

1. Education. Without this no one can be competitive. The difference between the people who are well off and the ones who are not is the opportunity to learn. Education is not a material that is obtained using money but with a thirst for Knowledge. Hence, My ultimate dream is Free education for all. I feel it is every one’s birthright to get free education to give every one a fair chance in life.

2. A Steady Economic Growth. We need Growth to create good jobs and wealth. But it has to be steady. Growth has to be natural and when Growth goes off in a tangent not coinciding with nature you fall off the cliff, the bubble bursts, the trouble deepens.

The Rise of Slackers

Michael Moore has released his latest documentary “Slackers Uprising” at the right time with US Elections just a few weeks away. You can download the movie legally for free, just follow the link provided by Patrix.

The term Slackers in this movie refers to College Students (So not people like me), who would prefer to be Lazy and Party around (Sounds like me) instead of registering and voting in Elections (Shit! Sounds exactly like me!). I have many reasons myself for not voting in India:

- I wan’t in a single place long enough to catch an election.

- I did have a chance once, I went to the election booth with my Voter’s id only to find that they didn’t have my name listed in the Roll. That was it, I traveled away again and I don’t know when I will be able to vote again in Elections.

Ever since I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, I had become a big fan of his work. His documentaries are all about bringing forward truth with facts. When you watch his documentary you can’t help but notice Truth staring at your face. Slackers Uprising is one such effort by Michael Moore.

Picture: http://www.slackeruprising.com

The movie is about his struggle that he went through in the Fall of 2004 before the US Presidential election, to tour colleges in US and make the students to register and vote. With just 5 weeks left to election in 2004, He toured colleges in 60 cities in that short frame of time. It was amazing to see what one man was capable of doing. At some point I felt Moore must be Gandhi of the West. Sure, he isn’t exactly what Gandhi was, but his belief in fighting the Bush Administration with Truth was remarkably similar to what Gandhi did against the British. Throughout the movie, Moore doesn’t dislike the citizens who are Republicans. In fact he goes to the length of welcoming the folks who disrupt his speech and tells them that if Democrats come to power, whatever beneficial things that are going to happen will happen for them too. This is another place where I saw Gandhi in him.

Winston Churchill did say that if Gandhi fought him with Guns and Canons, He would have crushed him with his weapons. But Gandhi fought him with Truth and Churchill said that there is no weapon to kill Truth. Moore’s agenda was simple and clear throughout the movie:

1. To bring out the Truth in front of the people.

2. To show them their responsibility and what it means for the Young to go out and Vote.

To me Michael Moore is a Modern Gandhi and I wish we had more or atleast one in every country.

There are various issues that one has to consider for this election – Economy, Jobs, Healthcare, Illegal Immigrants, Environment, Rising prices of Energy, Foreign policy. These issues will have to be fought and solved even after the elections. But to put the first step in the right direction for all these issues to be solved, it is very important for every American Citizen to go out and vote. This is exactly what the movie portrays.

The movie begins with showing how John Kerry, who was leading in opinion polls, all of a sudden was steered away due to the Republican Campaign. By the time Kerry and Democrats responded much damage had been done. Moore comes to the rescue, by talking to the young voters who haven’t registered to vote and urges them to Vote. The movie is all about that Journey, the difficulties, the opposition from Republicans preventing him to speak and much more. In the end, Kerry doesn’t win. He loses only by a small margin and if Moore hadn’t done what he did, Kerry would have lost with a wider margin

That is the essence of the movie, To show what difference it will make if each and every eligible citizen in a Democracy (not just USA) goes out to Vote for whom he/she believes in. The key word is Democracy and hence this movie can not only be applied to the US Context but also to all the countries which exercise Democracy. This is exactly why I care about the movie even though I am not a US Citizen.

Why should the rest of world care if Slackers in US Vote or not?

1. US is the No. 1 Economy. If something happens to this big economy the ripples are felt through the entire world. There is no doubt about that.

2. As a leader US has the power to set an example either good or bad, because they are looked upon by the world as the leader. The attitude in most cases is “It worked in US, so we do it” or “It failed in US, so let’s not repeat that” with some exceptions.

3. The Govt. that comes to power in US has the say in Foreign policies and that means a lot to other countries that have ties.

I am not a politically savy person and these are just some reasons I can think of as to why People of the world will care about the US Elections. There could also be other reasons like Technology, Education, Science, Medicine, Business etc. If you know of anymore reasons please feel free to share it with me.

Here is a non-U.S Citizen sincerely hoping that good things will happen in this election and People will cast their vote for carefully thought out reasons and not for reasons that sound like “Sarah Palin is Cute”, “Sarah Palin is Hot”, “Dude, did you see her in Bikini?”, “Palin’s glasses are awesome, it’s a rage”, “Palin’s Daughter is way Cuter than Hillary’s”!