A Story of Wolves, Lions & Lambs (or, the story of mankind)

Once upon a time there lived a little boy.  He was not unlike any other child except perhaps in that this little boy would think very big thoughts for such a little boy.  Sometimes, when he had thought something that really needed sharing … he would tell the people around him what he had learned.  Soon this little boy learned another lesson that was much harder to understand.  People, no matter how smart or trusted they may be, don’t want to hear the truth from a little boy.  In time that little boy started keeping those lessons learned to himself but he kept on thinking.  I wonder sometimes what goes on in his little head, let’s take a look shall we?

The story of mankind is not too unlike a story of three different beasts all wearing the same outward appearance.  For the most part, all members of mankind look pretty much the same.  They look like a creative & intelligent species, for the most part.  Yet upon closer inspection most of mankind act like simple beasts, without any real understand of why they do the things they do.  Yes, most of mankind live the life of lambs, and for them it is true when they say that ignorance is bliss.  When you don’t know about things, or don’t understand them, then they don’t worry you too much do they?  It doesn't have any effect on day to day life.  That must be nice …

Not all of mankind are lambs however and there are two other, more powerful, beasts walking in the flock.  Unnoticed by most of the lambs they live with, day in & day out.  There are wolves and lions both out there.  Strong powerful beasts who walk freely amongst the lambs.  Lambs who are so blissfully unaware these dangers even exist.  What makes the difference?  How can you tell?

To put it simply, one beast makes it's meal by taking from the weak while the other beast shares it’s meal to nourish the weak.  One takes from the flock & one protects it.  A great man once said ‘In life, we are kings or pawns.’  I disagree.  I think that we are wolves, lions or lambs.  The choice is ours with every moment of every day.  I am not a lamb nor am I a wolf.  I guess then, that I must be a lion.  I will do my best to protect the lambs from the wolves & quietly encourage the lambs to become lions themselves.

Well, isn't that an interesting little thought!  Isn't it sad when we are afraid to speak the truth because we fear being punished for it?  Still, it makes me wonder?  What am I … am I a lamb, a lion or a wolf?  What will you be?

The Bloody YOLO Mentality!

Few things get me going like hearing some idiot has used YOLO as a reason to do something totally stupid.  No, I don’t mean foolish or silly.  I mean STUPID.

You Only Live Once, that’s what that is all about right?  So based on that you should completely disregard how your actions and words effect other people around you, forget about saving for the future, not care about anything really because none of it matters?  You only live once, and then you die right?  So who cares…

To me this way of thinking is not only self destructive but it is in fact destroying our entire planet.  Hear me out on this one.  For thousands of years, much of the world has maintained the "life followed by death followed by ‘eternal’ judgement" theory.  As though existence were a straight line with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end.  This may, or may not, be the case … no one REALLY knows for sure but everyone has their theories.  With that theory in mind it becomes easy to think of the world as something that we can use and abuse as we please with no ‘real’ consequences for our actions.  After all , you only live once right?

Here’s the thing that causes me to stumble there.  Doesn't science say that energy cannot be destroyed but instead simply, changes forms?  What if, and I’m not saying this is the case either just sort of a… what if, everyone grew up believing that after we die we do reincarnate?  Would that change how we treat the planet and all the creatures on it?  It seems to me that if we all thought we would end up coming back here we might just care a little bit more about where the world is heading.  Dealing with issues that will only be a problem in 150 years would become almost as important as dealing with things that are a problem right now.  Would those big companies that are slowly killing us all still do so if they believed that one day that will be their drinking water, or that in the next life they would be forced to breathe the harsh stale air of a dying earth?  I’m thinking, probably not.

If you believe that the problems of the world are your problems, and how you treat other living creatures does matter in the long run then how could a person of any real intellect make the decisions these ’powers that be’ seem to make so freely?  In this writers opinion, the wars we are fighting, the air we are polluting, the wildlife we are killing freely … none of these things would be happening an a society where we all realized that ultimately we are all one in the same.

Just saying ...
JT Bear

The Amazing Power of the Penny vs. The Billion Dollar Corporations

　

When you think about it, a penny doesn’t really seem like much. One hundredth of a dollar, and it’s not like a dollar will buy much these days. In fact, I recently watched a report which stated that our dollar now will purchase about as much as four cents did in 1913. Four cents. Now, there is a huge ugly reason for that but that’s the topic of a different rant.

There are over seven billion of us on the planet today and that number is growing fast. Each and every one of us is, in some way, destined to come into contact with the Billion Dollar Corporations sooner or later. Can’t be helped. Most of us feed them with energy money if nothing else. Gas for the car, gas for the heat, electricity to power everything in our lives. These bills add up to a huge portion of our spending in ways most people don’t even think about. When you buy something at the store it’s price probably includes the cost of transport … more paying for power, but at least this time it’s only pennies. Right?

A couple of pennies here, a couple of pennies there … by the time you finish shopping you’ve probably spent at least an extra dollar in those little pennies but hey, they’re just pennies right? Those little pennies really do add up quite quickly. Let’s look at a large city, take New York City for an example. The last time I looked the population of New York was around 8.3 million people. If each of them only gives the Billion Dollar Corporations one single penny, the corporation has gained an easy $83,000 per day. If they are all good little shoppers and spend a full dollar in those little pennies for power the corporation has gained over 8 million dollars. From pennies collected in a single city they are up quite a nice chunk of cash.

The problem with getting that much money for no real effort is that you get quite used to it and spend accordingly. Let’s switch things up a bit shall we? Let’s say that each New Yorker were to keep just one penny back every day. One single cent. Eighty-three thousand dollars a day. After a year that would work out to over thirty million dollars they didn’t get to waste. Imagine if everyone was able to keep back that full dollar a day in pennies! That’s over $3,000,000,000 they don’t get to play with from just one city.

Let’s go back to the amazing penny but look at it from a global point of view, because let’s face it … we are all feeding the same beast once you look far enough up the financial food chain. So according to the world population clock there are over 7.1 billion of us here. If we could each just keep back one little penny per day at the end of the year we would have starved the Billion Dollar Corporation of $25,915,000,000. Almost 26 billion dollar they don’t get per year. From one amazing little penny. Kind of shocking, isn’t it?

So then, the question becomes how can we save those pennies and start to fight back where it will really hurt them. The answers are everywhere and we’ve all heard them before but not enough people are listening, so those that are don’t feel like anything is working. It is my friends and more people every day are waking up to the fact that something HAS TO CHANGE and soon. We’ve all heard that we should drive less and walk more to save money, and these days that’s way more than pennies per trip. Get more energy efficient items for around the home such as washers, driers, fridges and freezers. While your at it, check the insulation of your home. Odds are it could be improved upon saving you more than pennies every day there too!

Perhaps one of the best ways to pinch a few of those pennies is to start generating your own electricity. Much safer than trying to make your own gasoline I think. Two obvious options here would be solar and wind. Solar panels are becoming more efficient every day and they will produce electricity for a LONG time but they are really overpriced compared to the cost of that same amount of power from a plug in the wall. Most of the large solar panels that I’ve seen available to the general public would take over a decade of useable electrical production before they had recovered their purchase price. In my thinking that’s just the big companies trying to steer the people away from something that is a treat to their profits in the long term.

Wind power is a little more cost effective but there are associated dangers to wildlife, such as bird deaths, that tend to get people into an uproar so most people just avoid the subject to avoid the confrontation. As I look on eBay right now you can purchase one of several 500 watt wind turbines starting as low as $300. Okay, time for some math. Working at it’s peak off 500 watts for an average of 2 hours a day seems like a nice minimal starting point. So that boils down to 1Kw produced every day or 365Kw per year. Since I don’t know what you pay for power I’ll use the local price for my calculations, which is about ten cents per kilowatt. So easy math says that wind turbine is paying you back at a rate of a dime a day or a whopping $36.50 per year. Okay so, $300 to purchase divided by $36.50 per year means it will take about 8.2 years to pay for itself. Still faster than a solar panel, but let’s face it if you don’t live somewhere with a steady wind solar is pretty much your only option for green power supply. What if you do live somewhere windy enough to keep your turbine spinning long enough to produce 5Kw per day? Then it would have paid you back in only 600 days or about 1.6 years. After it’s paid for itself that electricity is costing you nothing and even more important that money is no longer being spent to feed the Billion Dollar Corporations. The really good bit about it all is that once you do invest in something that can generate some electricity you can start keeping pennies back right away. It may not seem like much when it’s just you and me, but let’s think about those New York numbers again. 8.3 million people, each keeping 50 cents per day from the Billion Dollar Corporations, over the course of a year would be … around 1.5 billion dollars per year.

The real problem is, most of these things require a large payment up front which, let’s face it, most of us can’t or won’t pay. What a surprise! Big business wins again … so again we must ask ourselves, is there ANYTHING we can do right now that doesn’t cost a fortune and take years to pay us back? The answer is yes. Yes there is!

One of the easiest and most affordable things that you can do to start starving the Billion Dollar Corporations is to start feeding yourself. Start a garden and grow ANYTHING you can eat. Seeds cost pennies each and grow foods that cost you dollars, that sounds like a good trade to me! Everything you eat from you garden takes a bite out of their income. That is why hobby level gardening is under attack in some parts of the world. The last thing the Billion Dollar Corporations want is for people to remember how to grow their own fruits and vegetables. During war times it was considered a citizens duty to have a Victory garden and produce some of their own food at home, before then it was just how we lived.

Anyone can garden at a hobby level. I don’t care where you live or how little space you think you have. Anyone can do it. There are so many videos available these days on YouTube showing different systems for different situations there really is no excuse to not at least try. Those pennies you save will begin to have an immediate impact on the wallets of the elite as well as your own. If you grow enough of your own fruits and vegetables to save $300 you can buy yourself a wind turbine! We can take slow and steady steps to save ourselves from these Billion Dollar Corporation and one by one, they will add up to something HUGE that cannot simply be brushed aside or ignored any longer. Are you ready to become a part of the one cent revolution?

JT Bear