Author Archives: admin

Awkward conversations

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As I have continued with my give freely receive freely experiment, I have of course continued to have conversations with people about what I am doing and why I am doing  it.  For the most part these conversations have been really positive, often with people expressing what a great idea it is and that they hope I have lots of success etc etc.  But then some of the conversations have just been awkward…

Part of this is probably due to me not being all that great at expressing my ideas about GFRF yet, and then part of it is probably that the idea is so different from what people are used to and have experienced for their entire lives that they really struggle to understand what its about.  Some of our ideas about exchange are so deeply embedded that they become invisible to us, they become fundamental assumptions that we do not question or even necessarily realize exist.  So when a new idea is presented to us that operates outside those sets of assumptions we still try to interpret them in the context of our underlying assumptions even though they don’t apply, and this can lead to confusion and misunderstanding.

In a way its a bit like trying to tell someone that ‘there is no spoon’, those who’s minds are ready embrace the idea readily, while others just think you’re weird.  I guess what I need to do is demonstrate that there is no spoon to help them to understand.  I’m working on it but I think it’ll take some time.  (If you don’t get the reference, watch the video clip below, and if you do get the reference still watch the video – its a great scene).


So in this post I thought I’d mention some of the comments or misunderstandings I’ve encountered in my awkward conversations.

One of the biggest misconceptions I have encountered has been that by using ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ I am not valuing what I do.  One quote “Yeah I get what you’re doing, but I don’t think I could do that myself because I value my time too much”.  Honestly this couldn’t be further from the truth.  The way I see it is that I value my time so highly that I don’t want to put a price on it.  The moment I put a price on my time, even a very high price, it becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.  My life, and my time is more valuable to me than that, I will however give it freely at my own discretion.

Another misconception related to this when I mention this system of exchange is that I am expecting people to pay less because of this.  Again not true.  Essentially I expect people give to me freely in return because they want to support what I am doing.  This is not tied to any particular price level.  People will give according to their means and the value they find in what I provide.  I want people to find and evaluate that value for themselves though.  Too often our ideas about value are determined by marketing efforts or by power relationships (monopolies, cartels, vulnerability of one of the parties to the exchange) rather than by the actual value of what is provided.  This leads to distortions in our economy and society and causes resources to be directed to things that aren’t actually useful to us and to be diverted from things that are.  If each of us is able to determine value for ourselves then our individual and collective resources would go to the things that are truly worthwhile and make us happy, rather than being wasted on things that actually contribute no value to our lives.  (Many of the things our money and therefore resources go to under our current way of operating, far from adding value to our lives actually take it away – more on this in another post).

(A classic example of price being determined by marketing rather than true value in this article.  A $3000 vacuum cleaner that doesn’t perform as well as a $100 one: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10829343 ).

I believe there is great value in what I do, that it really helps people in their lives, and that left to find the value themselves they will value this appropriately.  Of course there is the challenge of helping people see past the common externally imposed marketing and power relationship driven value system, but you’ve got to start somewhere and I believe that exchanging in this way may actually cause people to value what I do more highly than if I put a set price on it.  Most people are actually quite intelligent if you give them a chance to be.

A third misconception again related to the other two, is that somehow by doing this I have given up on having all the things our material society values.  Basic things like owning my own house, take holidays and so on.  Again not true at all, I still want those things and think I have a good, maybe even better chance of receiving them by giving freely and receiving freely than by charging set prices.

What I have given up on is the idea of struggling and competing against others in my society.  I guess you could say I have given up on the rat race, but I don’t think that the rat race is the only way to achieve those material aims.  I think there is a better way, and that is what I am pursuing.  This way involves more trust and more co-operation with others in our society.  It will bring out the best in me so that I end up contributing more that is of true value to individuals and society without wasting as much energy on the things that are not of value; and if it works properly I will receive more in return for the true value I create.

This way is the Give Freely Receive Freely way.  I hope you’ll continue to follow my journey as I explore these ideas and learn how to make this work in practice.

The retirement crisis

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I was reading this article the other day: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=10828728  Its fairly humourous and makes interesting reading, but I started thinking… theres a fundamental flaw in the discussion surrounding the coming retirement crisis.

The potential crisis

For those not in the know, there has been a lot of discussion in the media and in politics in recent years about a demographic crisis which we will reach soon where we have a much larger number of older retirees and a much smaller group of working age people to support them.  The level of taxation to fund these retirees would be extremely high, so a lot of thought and analysis (and hand wringing and headshaking and arguing, but very little action) has gone into what western economies can do to deal with this potential crisis.

The fundamental flaw

A lot of this discussion (including that in the linked article above) revolves around the need for these retirees to save more so that they will be able to self fund their retirement, meaning that the government won’t have to support them through untenable levels of taxes on the smaller working population.  And this is where I think there is a fundamental flaw in the thinking.  What is it that these retirees are going to consume/need when they retire?  It will be things like food, clothing, housing, travel, medical care and so on right? How are these things going to be provided, or rather who is going to provide them?  Well one way or another it is the working population who is going to provide these things.  So regardless of how much these retirees save we end up with the same problem of a smaller working population supporting a too large retired group.  This will have to balance itself out one way or another.  The most likely way is that prices will simply rise due to supply and demand imbalance and the retirees savings will be devalued, so in the end they are no better off than if they had not saved.

At the heart of this flawed thinking is a common mistake that many people make in our society today, and that is to think of money as ‘real’ or a ‘thing’.  The hard truth of the matter is that you can’t eat money, it won’t keep you warm at night or dry from the rain and it certainly will not carry out any medical procedures on you.  Most money today isn’t even physical in the sense of a piece of paper or metal or plastic, it is merely an electronic blip stored on a computer somewhere.  Money is an abstraction of value within our economy.

What actually makes sense?

So what does make sense to prepare for this potential crisis?  Well in a certain sense, saving is effective for individuals, because if you have saved more than those around you then you will have more purchasing power for an easier retirement.  But this doesn’t do anything for the group and our society as a whole.  To deal with the wider societal issue we need to look at what we are doing with our resources now and how we can adapt our societal structures to deal with the changing situation in the future.

There is a kind of saving we can make now that will make a difference in the future.  That is building infrastructure.  If well planned this will make everyone’s lives easier in the future as it will allow things to be done more efficiently.  A smaller number of workers will be able to provide more goods and services for everyone in society if they have better infrastructure to work with.  Building infrastructure is a type of ‘real’ savings vs the abstract hypothetical savings of accumulating money.  If we build the housing, medical facilities and other productive assets now that will be needed by our population in the future, that is taking a load off those future workers (it would also stimulate our stagnant economies in the current economic environment).

The other thing that makes sense is to get rid of the idea of an expected retirement age. This is one idea that has been discussed to some degree in the mainstream political commentary, and while it clearly makes sense, it has not been a very popular idea politically.  I think this is due to the fact that many people see work as a hardship, something they only do because they have to, so they look forward to retiring as soon as they can and see it as ‘unfair’ to have to work longer than they expected.  But when you look at it objectively, people are living longer and healthier lives, why should they stop being productive, providing for themselves and contributing to society?  In nature if an animal does not ‘work’ the animal dies, there is no ‘retirement age’.  Why should it be any different for us?  This is in fact similar to the situation when retirement ages were introduced.  The average life expectancy wasn’t much past the age of retirement, but things have changed and our ideas need to change as well.

Work doesn’t need to be a hardship.  People who truly find fulfillment in what they do, do not want to quit or ‘retire’.  They want to keep doing it for as long as they can.  We may need to create ways to make it easier for people to move from physical labour (a much smaller part of our modern economy now anyway) to other types of work as they get older, and to work less hours and so on to fit with their capacity, but ideally work should be something that people enjoy doing and look forward to rather than something they want to get out of and ‘retire’ from.

I believe that the Give Freely, Receive Freely concept holds answers to how we can address these issues or resource allocation and intrinsic work motivation.  These answers would not only address future economic concerns but make for a happier more productive society for all of us right now.  It starts first with change inside the individual, and can then spread to influence how communities and eventually whole societies function.  I hope to flesh more of these ideas out in future blog posts.

……………………

(I did think of one more idea of what makes sense to address the future retirement crisis – investment in developing artificial intelligent robots (I guess this is a subset of building infrastructure)…. if we have a smaller human working population we could supplement this with a robotic one.  Not something I think we should hold our breath about though, and then of course we would have to always be on the watch in case they try to take over the world :P)

 

Links to mainstream media articles

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Over the last couple of weeks I have been finding myself bookmarking quite a few webpages for news articles etc because I have thought they would be interesting to refer back to when I am writing a blog post on a particular topic.  But realistically I realize I will probably never get round to using them if I store them up and wait till later.

So I am going to start writing more short posts with commentary on some of the articles I find.  I don’t want the posts on my GFRF updates and announcements to get lost in all of this though, so remember you can always look in the categories on the right of the screen if this is the only bit you are really interested in.

My First GFRF Online Course is now live!

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It is a 12 week online qigong course.  It has been a huge amount of work putting it together.  About six weeks of loooong days to get it ready using every spare moment to work on it, and that doesn’t include the years of work preparing the material in the course in the first place.

Part of me is nervous about putting so much work into something that potentially I will not be paid a cent for, because hey, I have to be realistic – I need to eat and have somewhere to live just like everyone else, and if my time and effort is going into something like this that means its not going into something else that might help to pay my bills.

But I’m excited to have it up and at this point don’t really care if people pay me anything for it or not.  I just want people to find out about it, use it and benefit from it.

This video gives an introduction:

 

You can see the whole course here: http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/

and like the facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/longwhitecloudqigong

Let me know what you think!

Another interesting study

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This one was about changes in behaviour when people think about money.  They found that people reminded about money were less helpful, and preferred more solitary activities and less physical intimacy.  Hmm, I wonder if people are being reminded about money regularly in our society today…

On the flip side they were inclined to work harder and take on more challenging tasks.  I tend to think this has been shaped by our society though and that money now stands as a proxy for more basic motivations.  The average person is no longer in touch with those basic motivations because money has become such a pre-occupation.  I think those basic motivations could be rediscovered and provide all the stimulation we need to work hard and acheive great things for ourselves and our society.

You can read the article here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=10830294

Cool conspiracy theory movie

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I found this well made recent conspiracy theory movie on youtube.  It ranges from free energy to suppression of other technologies to the banking system… and so on, linking them all together.

They make a good case for some of their ideas, but what really made them stand out from other conspiracy theory movies was their call for action at the end. There are a lot of nice ideas on those lines in that section of the film.  I think though that some of their ideas for change are… well they’re nice, but in some ways don’t go far enough.  To me, regardless of whether there is or is not a conspiracy in the world, the root cause of so many of our problems is greed and power seeking.  To me, it seemed like some of the proposed solutions would end up in the creation of new power structures that might work well at first, but would most likely still end up becoming corrupted because of the nature of the structure centralizing power to a certain degree and allowing for corruption to occur.

I really liked the movie’s emphasis on individual’s rights and individual action.  I think this really is a big part of the way forwards to a better world.  I don’t think their solutions really addressed the core problem of rooting the tendency to greed and power seeking out of the individual.  While this tendency continues to exist then systems will inevitably become corrupt.  Any system is made up of its constituent parts, only when we have a group of people who have removed greed or power seeking from themselves on an individual basis will we be able to have a society with the same characteristics (my next post is going to be on greed by the way, its halfway written at the moment).

The video is below.  I think it makes a good watch.

GFRF Workshops Update

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I have completed the first lot of workshops that I scheduled using the Give Freely Receive freely system of exchange.  It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t a trainwreck either.  Some people paid the same as they would normally have when I charged a set price, others paid considerably less.

I think there are a number of factors why people would pay a lot less, financial need is one – in which case fair enough, that is exactly the sort of person who should pay less, but I think that reason is less common than you might think (my prices were already very reasonable).  I think a more common reason is the mindset we get used to which is behind so many of our exchanges, which is to get as much as we can while giving as little as we can.  Another is a misperception that because something is being given away potentially for ‘free’ – this makes it like a ‘charity’ and somehow cheapens and devalues it.  I think there are some major unhealthy distortions around our ideas about charity in our society.

I’ll write more about these types of thinking in future posts.

Anyway, my current evaluation of the success of my workshops… they were OK.  They were successful enough that I want to continue to run them GFRF and see how they perform in the future.  I have some hope that performance will improve.  I think there may be long term benefits as more people are exposed to the idea, begin to understand it and become comfortable with it.  I think there may also be long term benefits in terms of a long tail of goodwill which will build as I stick with the concept for longer.

More financial markets craziness

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I wonder how aware most people are of the financial manipulation that goes on behind the scenes.  This happens on every scale, from individuals, to corporations to sovereign nations – gaming the system to their own advantage with little regard for true underlying value.

Those who don’t participate are disadvantaged.  I think its time for a better system that doesn’t reward this kind of behaviour.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10827874

 

The danger of SPEs

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I just read an interesting article about a paper by a couple of law professors who argue that three of the biggest recent financial scandals (junk bond fraud in the 80’s, Enron in the early 2000’s and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008) were all down to a special accounting technique of using ‘special purpose entities’.

You can read the full article here: http://business.time.com/2012/08/15/the-accounting-trick-behind-thirty-years-of-scandal/

I think there is a deeper issue though, not just about SPEs, but about how in general we create fictitious legal entities to conduct exchange and hold assets.  These entities take the humanity from our interactions with each other… because the are not human.  We quickly become trapped in the complex rules that we have created to support these entities and huge effort and resources are put into maintaining the environment which supports these fictitious structures.

I think there’s a better way.  It involves doing away with fiction and returning to what is real.  This will take some effort as many of the fictions we have created as a society have become so embedded that most of us perceive them as ‘real’. There are of course also many highly intelligent people who understand the fictions behind much of our current societal structure, but because of the societal inertia behind the system they are also compelled to interact with them as if they are real.

As a society we need to recognize when our fictitious creations no longer serve us effectively.  I think recent world events indicate that we are now at that point and we need to rethink how we interact with each other.  It can be hard to change how you think and move from one paradigm to another.  When the change is complete though, the old paradigm often seems ridiculous and the new paradigm obvious common sense.

These times of change can be challenging as they involve doing things in ways that are new to us and so involve uncertainty and maybe even fear until the new ways have been proven effective.  To do things in a new way first involves at least imagining what those new ways might be and then having the courage to try them – even with the inherent uncertainty.  I believe that the ‘Give Freely, Receive Freely’ concept could be part of a paradigm shift and new way of interacting with each other.  I don’t think I’m alone in this, I know there are other people out there doing similar things, I just haven’t been very successful in connecting with them yet.

Give and Receive versus Give and Take

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‘Give and take’ is a commonly used phrase in our culture.  I think there is a lot of truth in this concept and it sounds similar to the idea of ‘give and receive’, so I thought I’d take a closer look at the similarities and differences between these two ideas.

To start with they both describe some form of exchange between more than one party.  This may be an exchange of any sort, it could be of labour, information and ideas, money or goods and so on.

Compromise

Inherent within the phrase ‘give and take’ is an implied compromise.  In the case of exchange of ideas it implies that you will take on board at least some of another person’s ideas in order that some portion of your ideas will be accepted.  This is something that goes on in politics all the time, and part of what can make it difficult for a politician to keep their integrity as they can be placed in situations where in order to progress ideas (legislation) that they believe in they are faced with making compromises that progress other peoples ideas (amendments, or other pieces of legislation) that they may not believe in.  I don’t envy politicians the difficult decisions they must sometimes make in these situations.

On a smaller scale this happens in our everyday interactions with the people around us all the time.  Going out to dinner with friends, different members of your group may feel like different types of food and others may not really mind what they eat.  In order for the greater good or happiness of the group, several group members may compromise on what they want to eat, agreeing on something that is not their first choice but is acceptable to all so that the group may happily share in each other’s company for the meal.

In terms of exchange of labour, money or goods, there is an implication that both parties will not get everything they want out of the exchange, but will give something up that they want in order that they can get something else that they want or need more.  At its extreme you could take this as implying that each party would rather not give up anything in order to get what the other person is offering, they would rather keep it for themselves AND have what the other person is offering.  Thus what they put into the exchange is ‘taken’ from them as they would rather not actually give it up, even if they do agree to the exchange.

For example if I were to go out to buy some donuts, the donut vendor would put a price on his donuts that he will take for them, lets say $10 for a dozen.  In a ‘give and take’ relationship there is an implication that I would rather keep my $10 and have the donuts as well, but because I want the donuts more than the $10 I give up the money, so that I can take the donuts.  The converse is true of for the donut seller.  The exchange is free in that we both agree to it, but not completely free in that there is a set price required in order for me to obtain the donuts.  I don’t have the option of paying $5 for them, or giving no money at all.  Equally it is unlikely that I will pay $20 for them because in these types of exchanges we tend to give as little as we can so that we can keep more for ourselves.  Thus the idea of give and take tends to imply and reinforce the idea of a world of scarcity.

Compulsion – Take and be Taken From

Because the idea of scarcity is implicit in ‘give and take’ exchanges, it means that parties to the exchange cannot all have everything they want.  They have to give up something they want in order that they can have or share in something that they want more.  This means that there is always a certain begrudging tone to the exchange, both parties have agreed to the exchange but they would rather not actually give up what they have agreed to if they can avoid it – it must be taken from them.  This implies a certain level of compulsion in the exchange, and this is the case with most transactions in the world today, there is either an implicit or explicit contract which means that if one party gives up certain things they are entitled to ‘take’ certain things in return as part of the transaction contract.  Failure of one party to supply what they agreed can lead to the contract being enforced against them so the other party can take what was agreed, possibly including penalties and using external enforcement agencies such as police, courts and so on.

In a sense because the exchange is a two way exchange, and each party is entitled to ‘take’ what is agreed from the other party, ‘give and take’ is actually ‘take and be taken from’.  This leads to great conflict in the world, as each person ‘fights’ for their own best interests.

Extreme interpretation

I know this sounds like an extreme interpretation of the situation, and I certainly think that ‘give and take’ and its implied negotiated agreement of exchange is far preferable to ‘take what you want’ or ‘might is right’, but I hope that this interpretation will make more sense to you as we look more into an alternative view of exchange and we discuss more issues surrounding our current exchange environment in future blog posts.  When we have become used to a certain way of viewing and interacting with the world it tends to become embedded in our thinking to the extent that its underlying assumptions become invisible to us.  When we really examine our view in depth we can sometimes be surprised by what we find lying underneath it.

Not convinced that being ‘taken from’ is a common implied part of our normal day to day exchanges?  Have you ever had to dispute a bill or invoice you disagreed with?  It takes considerable effort, and the company in question may try to ‘take’ what they think they are owed through various types of enforcement.  Have you ever tried not paying your taxes?  The tax department will find ways to take those taxes from you or enforce penalties against you.

Turns both into ‘Givers’

Ok, so lets turn our discussion from ‘give and take’ to an alternative concept of exchange ‘give and recieve’.  The key difference is of course the substitution of the word ‘take’ with ‘recieve’.  This has quite significant implications for the exchange relationship.  Each party to the exchange effectively becomes a giver rather than a taker.  They each give what it is that they want to give and receive in return what the other party wants to give.  There is no compulsion in the exchange, as each party gives only what they want to and the other party has no right to demand more or something different as the giving was not conditional on what would be received – there are no rights to ‘take’.

This implies that each party is willing to give things up even if they receive nothing for them in return, this in turn implies a world of abundance where each party can have what they want without worrying about getting what the other party has from them.

Gratitude

The giving instead of being due to obligation or fear of repercussions becomes an expression of gratitude and possibly of concern for the wellbeing of the other person. The focus instead of being how much you can get from the other person and how little you can contribute in the exchange, switches to appreciation of what your are receiving, and thinking about how much you are able to give freely in return.

Even if the exact same amount of money, information, goods or services are exchanged in this way as would be exchanged in a ‘give and take’ relationship, the net result is different.  Because of the freedom of the exchange, there is no room for begrudging the other party which can occur when things are ‘taken’.  Instead as parties to the exchange think about the welfare of the other person when deciding what and how much to give, this can create positive feelings towards each other.  The inherent gratitude underlying the exchange means that the focus is put on what each person has, instead of what they don’t have.  This is a powerful change of mindset and can help each party to recognize the abundance in the world and be happy and contented with what they have, instead of always seeking for more (whether or not they actually need it).

No-Compromise

In terms of information exchange, to give and receive freely implies that there is no need to compromise your personal views when exchanging ideas with other people.  Both parties to the exchange give their ideas freely without any expectation or need for the other person to take on those ideas.  Each person is free to take on as much or as little from the other person as they want to.  I think as a society we are coming closer and closer to this ideal.  Whereas in the past people tended to easily become suspicious or uncomfortable with people who thought or acted differently, many of us are now completely comfortable living alongside people with very different views and lifestyles to our own, and in many cases even enjoy and celebrate the diversity.

To refer back to the dining out example used earlier in this post, giving and receiving ideas freely is a bit like being able to eat at a foodcourt or buffet where everyone can get exactly what they want.  No-one has to compromise their personal tastes to enjoy the meal with others.  The fact that someone else chooses to eat something different to you doesn’t detract from your enjoyment at all and in fact may give you the opportunity to try something new that you would like – but only if you want to.

In terms of exchange of goods, people only give what they want to.  The never feel compelled to give up something that they don’t want to, and they never feel compelled to give up more than they want to.  This means that they enter into the exchange with a very different set of expectations.  This has big  implications in the areas of job satisfaction and work/life balance.

Conclusion:

Give and take has a lot going for it.  I think this concept encapsulates some of the significant progress we have made as a society over the years, but the ‘take’ part of it has it’s downside as this can imply compulsion and no-one likes to be taken from.  I think ‘give and receive’ could be another step forward for our society bringing greater social harmony and appreciation of the amazing abundant world we live in.

I may have overstated, understated or expressed poorly some of the ideas in this blog post.  I’m really just trying to figure a lot of this stuff out myself.  As mentioned in the post, these ideas are given freely and you don’t have to take any of them onboard if you don’t want to.  I do hope you’ll stick with me though as I continue to explore these ideas and further refine and develop them.  The idea of a world of free exchange raises many intriguing questions which I intend to explore in future blog posts, as well as continuing to post updates on my own practical experimentation with these ideas.