As a science journalist and professor, I believe science offers us many answers. But through all my time on the ground speaking to people across the spectrum of living. I’ve learned that some of the most important things about being a human-the things that most change a person’s and a community’s life for the better- can’t be measured.
-Micheal Easter.
A lesson in financial and spiritual Wellness…
As an Amazon Affiliate it is policy to inform you that this is an advertisement. However, this is still a reflection of a great book that I’ve read many times over. I believe it would benefit any who may read it. You can find the link for it in my references located at the bottom of this page.
Capitalism is a beast that must be tamed. It’ll take more than a blog or a few Instagram posts from me to do anything about that. At the very least, I can help you. Scarcity is the energy Capitalism feeds on. Poverty is government oppression, but scarcity is a mindset. “The slave mentality” is the current term for it. It’s true that there are plenty of forces out there seeking to profit from your bad choices. But the slave mindset makes you your own worst enemy. Understanding human instinct is exactly what makes certain industries as successful as they are. It’s how a marketer can see what is missing. It’s how any problem solver would apply their experience. Once you break yourself free of the slave mentality, you will realize that you have a much shorter path to abundance than you thought. Those who fall behind have different instincts than those who are ahead of them. What makes humanity distinctive is our ability to change our instincts. Change your instincts, change your situation.
The stagnant will be pacified…
So how does someone fall into the broke mindset? It usually boils down to a sense of dependency. If you don’t figure out why that happens, you won’t notice when it’s happening to you. You will be another one of those mindless someones who make this world far too loud. Take casinos for example. Why can’t people blow their money in silence? Why do people blow their money at all? Because of boredom? Yes and no. You’re on the right track, but that’s the wrong word for it. The word you are thinking of is “stagnation.” If you’re bored, you usually just need a break, but it doesn’t necessarily make you foolish. Most of the topics that we have to go over during the financial series will be quite boring. But good things can happen if you power through the boredom. However, boredom over a prolonged period of time can cause stagnation. Stagnation is the main cause of the broke mindset. Stagnation is like boredom but worse. Your life is all black and white. No color. You are just another empty set of eyes in the background, just doing what you are told until you die.
Slaves LOVE to gamble. With a broke mindset, you see no difference between gambling and taking a risk. There are plenty of ways to gamble. Each year, the American people spend more time and money on gambling than self-education. Something about gambling shuts the brain off. In other words, it pacifies us. Something a weaker mind prays for… When the mind is off, engagement sticks for much longer. That is what makes gambling such an intriguing subject of study. I don’t know about you, but I am endlessly fascinated with human psychology. Because that is what the colleges are interested in. And so are the capitalists. Businesses all around the country want you to play their game. Because just like a casino, whenever you play, the house always wins.
Here is how pacifying works. Say I wanted to shut your brain off. First. I would invite you to do something new, then I would give you something that makes it interesting enough to make you anticipate what might be next, after that I would make it easy enough to proceed, then finally I would attach the carrot to the stick. Novelty, hope, speed, and repetition. That’s how the trick works. You would be under my genjutsu. The reason why capitalists love studying gamblers so much is because games give a closer look at the type of decisions you would make. It’s almost like watching rats in a lab. There is a lot of money invested into figuring out what keeps the people engaged. The news needs that information. So do the marketers, the corporations, the stockholders, and the artificial intelligence engineers. When you are stagnated, everything feels the same. Being pacified feels different, and that’s how they get you. Your stagnation is also your need for adventure. An escape. Stagnation, although mundane, is still a constant source of suffering. Suffering of any type feels like hell after it accumulates for long enough.
Games will always be one of the greatest ways to pacify a weak mind. The issue with pacifying, is that over a long period of time it becomes something much more insidious. Conditioning. A groomer activity. Conditioning is a lot like teaching but much more sinister. While teaching, the objective is to pass on knowledge to the recipient. A teacher doesn’t necessarily care what you do with the information given to you as long as you aren’t incorrect. Conditioning has a different objective. A groomer would care very much about what you do with the information given. The only right answer depends on whatever it was you were conditioned to do. Teachers will only reward their students with graduation while a groomer will hand out various unpredictable rewards to keep you coming back. A teacher will show you how to think, while a groomer will show you what to think. You actually learn something from a teacher. With a groomer, you learn nothing.
Anything with a touchscreen can be used to condition you. The capitalists discovered this after the reinventing of the slot machine. In the past, slot machines didn’t make a lot of money for the casinos. The real gamblers only wanted to play cards back then. Slot machines were somewhat predictable, and they used to operate with a pull handle. Today, slot machines are all touchscreens, and you never know what will happen. Today, slot machines bring in the majority of a casino’s revenue by a landslide. Slot machines started making so much money, that now you see them in gas stations everywhere. You don’t necessarily have to leave the house anymore. Gambling can come to you now. The apps on your phone are designed for you to scroll endlessly in the hopes that you’ll hit some sort of jackpot. Scrolling is one the easiest ways to gamify anything. YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, you name it. As long as you keep scrolling, chances are likely that you will find something worth your time. At least that is what you are conditioned to believe. That’s exactly how so much of your time (and eventually your money) gets squandered.
Once conditioned, your actions become compulsive, and willpower alone will no longer be enough. This is how many addictions begin. Anywhere engagement takes place, there are groomers waiting to pacify you. Social media has the largest collection of groomers and enablers I have ever seen. There is no better place to spend your time if your objective is to lose yourself. In the past, emails were a very popular way to scam somebody out of money. It still happens, but mainly to the elderly, non-tech-savvy types. Most shopping apps make money off your tendency to impulse buy. Advertisements are anywhere and everywhere that holds your free attention. At least my advertisements lead you to a book that may elevate your perspective.
Every industry relies on conditioning to create a dependency on them. The dating industry lets you see what it’s like to have full visibility to condition you to require that level of connection. A fun first experience will make you pay for full visibility once more. Just like adding credits to a slot machine. The video games we play today never come out completely finished. You can always count on there being some DLC to explore something you should’ve already had access to. The news cannot be trusted at all. They show you exactly what they want you to see. If you let the mind slip, there will always be someone there waiting to groom you. Even the fitness industry does it. You don’t just show up to the gym for a month. Not if you’ve been conditioned to believe you need them. Building a home gym isn’t that expensive compared to a yearlong gym subscription. If you want tips on that, send me a message.
Industries rely on cheap dopamine hits to keep you dependent on them. The capitalists understand that without dopamine, life loses its color. Dopamine is what most like to call “the happiness hormone.” But I prefer calling it “the reward hormone.” What makes happiness such a problem is the constant additions it requires. More money, more status, more stuff. It will eventually exhaust you. Like a drug, its effects will become less potent over time. Then it’s like you can’t feel anything anymore. You would do anything to feel that way again, even if it meant making a terrible decision. Our passions can drive us to achieve so much. To conquer. To explore. To acquire. But when there is nothing left, eventually an emptiness will come over us. Once enough time passes, we will look back at all our achievements and ask, “So what? Did any of that even matter?” To avoid that uncomfortable question, we seek out cheap thrills and worthless junk.
Life is subtractive by nature. Additions are nice, but not always the right answer. The more you want, the more you are likely to suffer, regardless of how much you achieve. Subtraction isn’t always a bad thing anyway. Especially if what you are subtracting is bad for you. Subtraction removes clutter and keeps you light. To get ahead of the pain of a loss usually requires making a sacrifice of some type, not by trying to fill the void with more stuff. Subtraction only sucks when it’s not your choice to lose it. During primitive times, it was simpler. More meant good. It was how we survived. We did whatever we could to get as much as we could, or else we might not survive the winter. Those who understood this lived on, and this became the way that all humans operated for a long time. The world has gotten much more complex since then, but our programming hasn’t changed much since the times of actual scarcity. There are two things that make animals superior to humans. Animals do not require much, and they are not easily bored. If animals were more sentient, they would see things much clearer than we do. Take a second to think about that. If you didn’t require so much, and if you weren’t so easily bored, how different would your life be?
Once a dependency is reached, conditioning becomes a full-blown addiction. Screens aren’t the only things that can condition you. So can your environment. Limiting your screen time will do nothing about the influences in real life. We use our vices to escape the suffering, at least for a little while. We only form habits for good reasons. For example, people who develop drug habits normally don’t do so because they partied too hard too often. There are some who use it to numb injuries and those who use it to perform. It is common for soldiers to dope themselves to cope with extremely hostile environments. Those in poverty use drugs to take the edge off the daily grind or to grind longer. Once you’re addicted, you are lost. You might be sick, but there would be very little a doctor could do for you. Unfortunately, there is no gentle way to fix addiction. It would take a great traumatic shock for you to come to your senses. Your corrupted spirit would have to be broken and then restored to its default. Addiction is an internal problem. Your values are screwed up. If you don’t want to get help finding your way back, then the only choice left would be abandoning you. Addiction is the result of unchecked greed of the individual or the one who corrupted them. Greed and love are so closely related, mainly because those feelings stimulate the same areas of the brain. This is how some people can choose drugs over their family. In other words, you need to govern your desires. You have to slow down out there. Not only will that keep you out of trouble, but it will also save you money. Once you can control your impulses, your life becomes less expensive to maintain.
More than just drugs, most of the things we get addicted to were good for us at one point. A lot of things we get addicted to ARE good for us under specific circumstances. It’s possible for an addict to recover without too much pain. It’s been done before. However, it takes great strength to endure that choice; strength that some of you will not possess. Some people are stronger than others. Some choose on their own not to be a slave to their impulses anymore. As times change, we must change with it. This doesn’t mean keeping up with it. It means adapting to it. In our lifetimes, whenever we refuse to change, the choices that once served us will begin to backfire. Hopefully, I’ll reach most of you in time. There’s still hope for those with plenty of time left. For those who are older, it’s never too late, but your uphill battle is a bit muddier. An addict only wants to escape. Something must convince them to fight instead. The cure for addiction is self-improvement. Improving your environment. Improving your relationships. Improving your fitness and intellect. Getting back on your feet is hard, but it’s possible if you want it bad enough.
Stagnation is a spiritual problem. During the poverty briefing, we highlighted that exploitation is what makes us human. Exploiting doesn’t always apply to manipulating those around you or optimizing your environment. To exploit can also mean “to seek out.” To adventure. Part of life is finding our “thing,” our “niche,” our way of contributing. Our “something” to exploit. We need adventure more than food, sex, money, or any basic need. Because all of it becomes meaningless once you’ve stagnated. You can’t stop moving. This also goes for those of you who do not have enough money. You actually have to go out and get it, you know? You’ll never figure it out if you don’t explore. You don’t have to travel the world if you have no inclination to, but how well do you know your town? What are your skills, and where can you go to use them? Is there anything you are curious enough about to go out and see for yourself? Is there anything you are interested in learning more about? You’re adventurous, aren’t you? If not, then that’s your problem right there.
No more junk…
If you have stagnated, start with cleaning out all the junk in your life. Most of us have a junk problem. We spend way too much money on junk we don’t need. By junk, I mean anything that is not a tool. Just like wants and needs, a slave wouldn’t be able to tell difference between a tool and a piece of junk. A lot of the stuff we think we need today is the result of that conditioning I’ve been talking about. You were just fine before you laid eyes on that shiny new piece of junk. Now that you have it, it’s almost like you forgot how life was without it. A proper tool should be versatile and imperishable. You shouldn’t have a tool if you do not have an everyday use for it. You should also have emergency tools such as weapons, candles, flashlights, and other such contingencies. For any tool you no longer have a use for, find a way to sell them. Do not just throw them away. Unlike most of your junk, any tool can be sold. Any survivalist would tell you that the lighter you pack, the further you’ll travel. Carrying around way too much crap is a disaster waiting to happen. I believe that this is a universal fact of life whether you find yourself in the wilderness or not.
Cleaning up and maintaining is also a great way to save money. You would be constantly reevaluating what is junk and what is not. Most of what you buy will last longer than its projected lifetime if you maintain it properly. Besides, if you are a slob or a hoarder, you don’t exactly deserve to have nice things anyway. You wouldn’t need it. A tool might as well be another piece of junk as far as you’re concerned. The vast majority of humankind is materialistic. This happens for two reasons primarily: survival and status. You are valuable if and only if you have something other people want after all. That will always be the way of the world. But most of us take this the wrong way. Most people will turn cold once they internalize this fact. They become shallow and self-centered. In other words, loneliness. Just so you know, money won’t make you feel fulfilled.
Some of us want way too much out of life. For those of you who believe you don’t have enough, then ask yourself a serious question. “What exactly is enough for me?” I want you to take that question literally. Be as specific as possible. If the answer to that question is “I don’t know,” then I’ve got some bad news for you. You are weak minded. Nobody is easier to manipulate than someone who doesn’t know what they want. When you hold superficial values, you will always feel this emptiness in your heart. A void that you think money can fill. Yes, you need money, but is it truly the most important thing? Why? Would this mean that you would do anything if someone paid enough? We have a term for people like that, you know? Bitches. We call those kinds of people bitch ass bitches. You would be the type of person who would deserve to be treated a certain way. Feel me?
Removing the junk in your life also applies to your food. One thing you must never run out of is food. You shouldn’t even run low on food. However, you shouldn’t be spending too much on your food either. If you are spending more than 15% of your income on food, you are broke. What you eat is important. A lot of food today has been designed to be addicting. Back during primitive times, we didn’t have much of a selection. The sugary, buttery, salty crap we take for granted today was a necessity for our survival in the past. The average American eats similar to how a king or queen would back in the 1700s. Another thing to note is how many different food choices we have available today. When we have a bunch of choices, it is tempting to try as many as we can. It is part of our nature. But we can’t forget to watch what we eat. Only children and fools prefer junk food over staple foods. Your eating habits will determine what illnesses and deficiencies are likely to arise. Eat too much colored sugar, and you’ll get cancer. If don’t eat your sour fruit, you’ll catch scurvy. If you don’t drink your milk, your bones will start to thin out. Eat too many calories, and you gain weight. You can’t stop taking your health seriously.
If you live in a developed country, you will most likely die of some kind of heart disease or stroke. Why? Because of your eating habits. Keep eating garbage, and eventually, you’ll just keel over. I prefer the term “eating habits” in place for the word “diet.” A diet implies a temporary change. Unless you are traveling abroad, there is no point in dieting if you are just going to go back to the same garbage you were eating once you’ve finished. When you diversify your eating habits, food behaves more like medicine. You would sustain your good health and vitality. Your immune system wouldn’t need all this extra help from multivitamins or drugs. A good way to limit how much you spend on food would be avoiding anything ultra processed. This junk food is not only loaded with calories, but they aren’t even designed to fill you up. It would also be wise not to visit any restaurants. This stuff is bad for you, especially the fancy stuff. That steak dinner at Ruth Chris has damn an entire days’ worth of calories packed into it. That large meal you got from the drive-thru would have half a days’ worth of calories. The solution to your food problem isn’t eating less. It’s eating right. This is good for your budget as well as your body. It’s not just about “calories in, calories out.” You are what you eat, correct? So, if you’re eating garbage, what kind of person are you?
The best way to save money on food would be to become a better cook. One way to know for sure that you have become a better cook is once you’re able to cut back on the ingredients you need to make a good meal. Most of the stuff that is bad for you has a laundry list of ingredients involved in the recipe. Most of that stuff is exactly what you shouldn’t be eating. America has good food, but most of us choose the garbage. Why? Just imagine how much your health would improve if you started eating right. I’m not just talking about weight loss and muscle gain here. I’m talking about a stronger immune system. A deeper night’s sleep. A sharper mind. A better life. Part of fixing your money problems is learning how to get by with less. It’s already bad enough that you have to overpay. That doesn’t mean that you have to overspend or overconsume.
I bet your phone is full of junk apps you barely use or don’t need. Our hands were meant for tools. Your phone is a tool. Not a toy. For those of you who spend a little too much time on your phone, it may serve to uninstall certain apps that offer no value to you. For example, is there a streaming service you barely use? Focus on any subscription-based apps first. If you have more gaming apps than news apps, that might be a problem. For the remaining apps, work on optimizing them for productivity. Turn it into a PDA. Social media is a bit tricky. Yes, spending a lot of time on social media has been proven to be bad for your mental health. Generally speaking, anyway. This is because status is a big deal to us whether or not we admit it. Envy is the only sin a man will never admit to. On top of that, what most people post about their lives is some sort of twist on the actual truth. But even if this is the case, social media is still a useful tool for keeping contact with others. Instead of using social media to compare yourself to others, you should use it as another way to keep up with current events. Why not follow some local news channels, or a local community page, or something like that. Social media is a tool. Use it to help you track the pulse of your city, not to keep up with the Joneses.
Life is a journey…
The internet remains as humanity’s greatest invention. The internet creates a new millionaire every day. Mastering the internet is possibly the easiest path toward prosperity. Because the internet gives you access to almost any human in the world. You used to need an actual talent to become world-renowned. To become an international celebrity has never been easier than our current time. This is a good thing, but with all good things comes it drawbacks. Most of the famous people today have no talent. This leads to a lot of slop content being pushed out. Thanks to the addition of artificial intelligence, slop gets churned out at record speeds. Slop is junk information that serves the author instead of the reader. Why do we enjoy slop? Because we have been conditioned to enjoy it. Conditioning. This is what we choose to do with A.I. It truly feels like the end of days is upon us.
Our love for adventure comes from our desperate need for information. The internet gives us an easy way to explore. The need to know is the most potent driver of dopamine. As the capitalists gained mastery over the internet, they took full advantage of our need to know. Today, we are living in post-adpocalyptic times where people can’t take their eyes off their phones for longer than an hour. The internet and real life have become harder to contrast for a large majority. Information (a lot of it being untrue or greatly exaggerated) is thrown at you just to trigger that need to know. Because of this information overload, it’s hard to tell what is important and what isn’t. You will spend hours scrolling through pointless information just to figure out the difference. Any solid information you would receive would be based on experience, not from a news headline. Research is becoming a lost art. While we’re at it, I’ll share with you the highest form of research: Playtime. You need to play with the information you come across. Don’t just stop at reading a book. Go out there and test it out for yourself. Find some good people to argue and learn with.
Slop is a lot like junk food. It’s not meant to be good for you. It’s meant to make the creator some easy money. Most of us today are terminally online. Some more, some less, but most of us are. Maybe you aren’t making multiple Facebook posts every day. You might even get out a lot and have a healthy social life. But can you try anything without googling it first? Would you watch that movie, or play that game, or visit that restaurant if it received low critic scores? If not, then you are terminally online technically. At least to a small degree. You cannot function properly without the internet. There is nothing wrong with making an informed decision. Often, it is the wise thing to do. But you must know for yourself before you make any judgments. For all you know, you’ve found a hidden gem.
We can also become stagnant within our occupations. A slave is constantly overworked. Perhaps they like the paycheck. Or maybe they believe someone would care about their contribution years down the line. Or maybe they just don’t want to be “left behind.” No matter the reason, whenever we burn ourselves out, it’s usually for someone else’s sake. We make money when we contribute, but we find meaning in the work we do for ourselves. The work we do for ourselves wouldn’t change our status or bring us any worldly reward, but we wouldn’t feel that emptiness which most people believe money or other people can fix. In the past, I warned you about needing at least two jobs to survive in today’s climate. You need more than one job, and you need to work at least one of them every single day. That is still true. But It is also important not to spend most of our time working, regardless of who it’s for. If you spend most of your day working, you are a slave, plain and simple. I don’t care about your reasoning or how much money you have. Why spend all your time working when you will never be finished? A true master’s work is never done after all. At least that’s how it should be. Because the point of work isn’t to finish it. It is to do it. Everyone has something that they were meant to do and should make time for it. But it shouldn’t be your only function.
Wanting more is what makes us common. Everyone wants something. How much is enough for you? That will probably be the most important question of your life. For those of you who are not sure, it will most likely take a brush with death for you to finally put matters into perspective. No one can tell you how to be happy. But you cannot forget that happiness is a problem. Most of your problems and the problems you cause come from your wish to be happy. Happiness is for children, and children do not know the true value of a dollar.
How much you have accomplished does make you impressive. But it is more impressive to see how little someone needs to make something happen. You would be the real McCoy. The real slim shady. Billy badass himself. We are conditioned to want more than what we have. Happiness always boils down to attaining more of something. But unless you are a collector of some type, having too much eventually becomes a burden on you. When we are happy, it is only for a brief moment. Happiness truly isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We aren’t supposed to find everlasting happiness; it goes against human nature. Literally. We would no longer seek adventure if happiness lasted. You would be one tragedy away from losing the will to live. Greed is the desire to be happy. To be happy you must take more than what is required. You will not find satisfaction in anything worldly. It can only come from within. Not from your accomplishments, but from your experiences. Perspective matters a lot when it comes to money. Your perspective, no one else’s.
Humans are social creatures. A human wouldn’t live long without other humans. But do other people have anything to do with your life satisfaction? If so, you are a lost one. Satisfaction can only be found in solitude. People constantly get Isolation and solitude confused. In solitude, you can still check in on the people you care about occasionally and can count on them if you are in a jam. In Isolation, you are in danger. Just because you need the people in your life, doesn’t mean they get to dictate how you live. But why does solitude make us better? Because of the time and space, it allows us to have. It has been proven that more space makes us more creative. And the more time we are allowed, the greater our creations become. You don’t need more money; you need more discipline. If you have discipline, you will have all the money you need. If you are immature, you will never have enough. It’s that simple. How much is “enough” for you? Who are you when nobody else matters? What is “enough” for that person?
Slave mentality…
If happiness is not the goal, then how do we attain satisfaction? The simplest answer to that would be to do something hard. Something that is hard even for someone with talents like yours. The hardest work is usually something extremely boring. If you can create entertainment out of the most boring thing for you, you will attain satisfaction. I guarantee you. Changing requires more than the desire to change. It requires the will to live. A strong spirit in other words. Determination. Without determination, you will not change your situation. I’ve already explained determination in my book so I’ll just take a quick quote from myself…
“…Tapping into the fighting spirit almost feels like going against your nature. You would want to run away, but you would refuse it. You would want to give up, but you would refuse it. You would want to accept the handouts, but you would refuse it. This isn’t the same as being stubborn. What I am describing is determination. That is how you tap into the fighting spirit…”
…Changing your situation will take everything you’ve got and more. People will never fail to come up with clever ways to compel you. You must realize when it happens as soon as you can; instantly, if possible. Financial literacy involves a great deal of skepticism. Don’t forget that certainty is a rookie mistake.
You can break free of the slave mentality, but you may one day find your way back to a colorless stagnation. Even if you free yourself today, you might be a slave once more in the future. It usually happens once the mind starts to dull. So you must keep your imagination active. Under the right conditions, the scarcity mindset can make you creative. Nobody can “figure it out” quite like a broke person after all. Start with cutting out all the junk. Only once you’ve gotten rid of all the junk in your life will you become truly untethered. If you are stuck in the past, you are a slave. If you are fixated on the future, you are also a slave. Freedom can only be found in the present. You could make today the most important day of your life. We must keep moving and must regularly reevaluate ourselves and our needs. If we fail to do so, stagnation is imminent.
References and photos
Scarcity Brain – Micheal Easter
Adventure Time – Pendleton Ward