Well well well, another week done!
How was the meditation this week? Well, for one thing, it was difficult. For the first couple of days, I had a hard time sitting still and concentrating but it got easier over the week. I figured that was all due to the week before in which I got vaccinated and spent 2-3 days sleeping due to the side effects. Then I was still too tired to do anything else.
So let that be a lesson, I need to keep meditating as much as I can.
This week I was to meditate on the concept of money.
Most people think money as a way to exchange for good and services, which is true enough. However, there is a deeper meaning to money in the late 20th and early 21st century: it is the lifeblood of civilization.
I write this now as my computer is being plugged to the wall and my fan is spinning. Common sense says electricity powers both machines. However, so does money. If no one pays the bills, no one can use the electric appliances, the plumbing, or even the heat. As it is, I am against this idea, we still have to pay property taxes in order to keep our house. So we need money in order to keep a roof over our heads as well.
More importantly, our money is the oil to the “machine” of modern living. Why do we have to pay money for electricity, water, and heat? It’s so the people can go to work and maintain the systems that make our lives comfortable. Same thing with food. We pay money for food so that the grocery staff, delivery trucks, and farmers can work. What happens when they receive money from us? Simple, they use that money to pay others to help them live.
The electric worker receives money for his job of maintaining the grid. He then buys food to feed his family. That money goes to the grocery store as well as the farmer. Then the grocery store owner and the farmer pays money to help maintain electricity in their homes and place of business which goes back to the electrical worker. This is a simplified version, since the economy is a lot more complex.
It is interesting to realize that the money we use enable others to work. Maybe if the US government does something about offshore bank accounts, the trickle down economy might help us out.
I am also reminded of South Korean president Park Chung-Hee. He is still considered a controversial figure in South Korean history, mainly because he ran his country like a dictatorship just like his northern neighbor, Kim Il-Sung. However, he also helped overhaul South Korea’s infrastructure to make sure it has the best railroads, roads, telephone, electrical, and plumbing system in Asia. It’s through his policy that the South Korean government included the internet as an important part of the infrastructure.
As a result, South Korea went from being a third world nation to one of the richest in the world. For all the flaws of the late President Park, he knew that good infrastructure helps money flow from every corner of the country. Once that happens, people’s lives will improve for the better.
It’s too bad most American presidents in my lifetime have yet to grasp this concept.
However, there is one last issue to address: Universal Basic Income. While Andrew Yang has been credited with popularizing the concept, lots of others have predicted this as well. The first person that comes to mind is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He used to work for General Electric in Schenectady, NY before becoming an author. He used his experiences working there in his first book, “Player Piano” which is about a fully automated society where only those with doctorate degrees can work.
Yes, we are now heading in a direction which only the highly educated can work. More and more unskilled jobs are being replaced by robots. There are certain restaurants where there is no cashier help. The customer just pushes some buttons and the workers in the kitchen make the food. There might be a time when we won’t have actual people working the kitchen. Someone invented a robot that can make pizza, by the way.
So the Universal Basic Income concept does seem plausible. If there are no jobs available, people can’t live. If only the top 10% can earn any type of living . . . heads are going to roll and it will be “viva la revolución” or even “ПРОЛЕТАРИИ ВСЕХ СТРАН, СОЕДИНЯЙТЕСЬ!” So people getting free money might mitigate this possible disaster.
That’s all I can think about in terms of money. I should read up more on economics and see what else I can learn.
So what else has been going on?
On the fitness front, not bad at all. As I have written in my last post, I am adding kata practice on top of my usual workout. Because I am lacking in foot work, I plan to focus on four main kata until I can move better. Funny enough, this reminds of a story in which a karate master only learned one kata and was considered the toughest fighter in all of Japan and Okinawa. So quality does beat quantity.
I do want to get back into Taiji training, but I’m not a huge fan of slow movements. I think what I will do instead is slowly build up my qigong routine to the one I used to practice in conjunction with Taiji, which is based on one of David Carradine’s books.
I’m still holding off on the job front. Again, I want to finish the Master Key System first. There was a time I was exploring options about working in Taiwan. Then I had a Thai friend trying to get me back to Thailand, which isn’t hard since I am in love with that country. Now, on Facebook, I am seeing lots of warehouse positions being opened. There is a lot of jobs being opened and companies want to fill them all up by yesterday. To me, Thailand is a land of smiles and happiness. On the other hand, though, American dollars can do a lot more for me than the Thai baht.
Next week should be my last week in the Master Key Study. I might take an extra week as usual, but I hope not.
These are the instructions by Haanel:
31. This week, try to realize that this is truly a wonderful world in which we live, that you are a wonderful being that many are awakening to a knowledge of the Truth, and as fast as they awake and come into a knowledge of the “things which have been prepared for them” they, too, realize that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man,” the splendors which exist for those who find themselves in the Promised Land. They have crossed the river of judgment and have arrived at the point of discrimination between the true and the false, and have found that all they ever willed or dreamed was but a faint concept of the dazzling reality.
I think this will be pretty easy for me to do.
Diary of a Heterodox Buddhist 