The Muse is Not Monogamous
About three years ago I was having meetings with Donnie Maclurcan from the Post Growth Institute. He was helping me develop an idea I had for creating a worldwide movement of people declaring themselves as individual not-for-profit entities.
We were exploring the idea of establishing a new tax designation that gave people an official way of declaring they were not interested in profit. One that went beyond the confines of, employee, self-employed, and company director.
A designation that included the recognition that part of the problem in the world is the fixation on profit and by extension, growth.
A personal declaration that they were happy with enough.
Donnie was so helpful and laid out the framework for how I might structure and begin the process. Then a combination of changes in my personal life and worldwide lockdowns put the project on hold.
A couple of weeks ago I open the newspaper, okay it was the internet, and there on the front page is Michael bloody Sheen doing exactly what I had in mind. He has only gone and sold his two properties, donated the proceeds to charity, and declared himself a not-for-profit actor.
How unoriginal Michael, go and get your own idea.
Not Practical
You might say that is fine for Michael bloody Sheen, a Hollywood actor, to sell off his two properties. I don’t even have one property! I don’t have any space to think about profit. It is all I can do just to pay the bills!
That is very understandable.
On the surface it looks like semantics and why would it even matter but at its core this is a question of consciousness.
A not-for-profit organization reinvests any money it makes, beyond its expenses, back into the organization.
It is not focused on profit and as a consequence does not have shareholders living off those profits.
When the focus of a company is on profits to satisfy shareholders all sorts of distance is put between the activities of the company and the profits. For example, none of the shareholders of fossil fuel companies want climate change but they do want those profits.
We have given companies the same legal rights as people but they are not people.
From a consciousness perspective, a company is a mental structure that is a repository for unconsciousness. They are part of the conglomeration of unconsciousness we have created that has been consuming everything for years. The other AI – Artificial Ignorance.
Off Grid
There is a big movement of people who are leaving the cities, living off-grid, growing their own vegetables, trying to be self-sufficient, living in tiny houses, living in vans, looking for alternatives.
They know our current system is broken.
They know it never really worked from the beginning, not for everyone.
And for every van-lifer, minimalist, homesteader, off-grider, there are probably 10 or more people who would do the same if they could.
Consciousness is no longer a luxury.
If you think about it in your own situation for a moment, what is the long-term plan for your working life?
What does getting ahead mean to you?
Where do you see yourself 10 years before you die?
If you are an employee, do you plan to remain an employee for the rest of your life?
Brainwashed
We have been conditioned to think like we are a for-profit company.
We are bombarded with highly sophisticated advertising that targets our unconsciousness to inflate a sense of lack, a sense of missing out, a sense that we are not enough so we unconsciously always want more.
We are not companies.
We are neither employees nor self-employed we are human beings first
and left to our own devices we just want enough and no more.
Lord of the Flies Myth
Collectively we are shaking off the conditioning that fundamentally people are awful and it is our base nature to be cruel, greedy, and violent.
The book, Lord of the Flies, is often cited as an example of what happens when we are left to our own devices but Lord of the Flies was a work of fiction.
When a real life version of Lord of the Flies actually happened, 6 Tongan school boys stranded on a dessert island for 15 months, the boys helped each other to survive and remained close friends for the rest of their lives after they were rescued.
Shifting from Outer Growth to Inner Growth.
Michael Sheen didn’t steal my idea, it arose in him just like it did in me, maybe you too.
If there is a muse it is the mystery.
Good ideas don’t just land with one person.
Like a farmer throwing out lots of seed knowing not all will grow, the mystery makes sure that an idea is going to come into existence by throwing out many seeds of the idea to lots of different people all around the world.
So if you get a brainwave you can be sure that at least 100 other people in the world had the same brainwave at the same time.
This idea, this declaring yourself as an individual not-for-profit idea, is part of the growing consciousness that we need to do something to fix the fundamental problems in the world.
What ideas have you been having?
Share them in the comments.
Get in touch.
Tell your friends.
Make connections.
Do your part for the mystery and help bring your beautiful ideas into existence.
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