You probably might think this post is rather strange why do a blog post on addiction?
This has been brought into my mind through various personal family encounters and with a work colleague.
Recently my sister lost her husband and suddenly she’s started smoking again having given up cigarettes a couple years before.
One of my brothers got involved with online gambling and got himself into a serious amount of debt.
I had a work colleague who did engineering contracting which meant he was away from home for several weeks at a time. His wife got herself into lots debt by running up her credit card for comforts buying.
What really got me thinking about addiction was a guy who’d been heavily into drug addiction. Which virtually ruined his life he got into soft drugs after he’d been attacked on his motor scooter by a group of bikers at the age of 21 when he was beaten up with a baseball bat. Sustaining a broken arm and the loss of his spleen.
This had a real detrimental effect to his health and psychological well being. The spleen has an important role in the body;
It fights invading germs in the blood (the spleen contains infection-fighting white blood cells)
- it controls the level of blood cells (white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets)
- it filters the blood and removes any old or damaged red blood cells
Can lead to anaemia
Symptoms can include:
- tiredness and lack of energy
- shortness of breath
- noticeable heartbeats (heart palpitations)
- pale skin.
John which isn’t his real name suffered afterwards which made his him lose interest in life. Few years later he was introduced to speed or Amphetamine; which are a powerful stimulant that keeps people alert, usually sold as an off-white or pinkish powder – that sometimes look like small crystals.
This is what started John’s drug addiction leading on to a whole range of other substances such as marijuana and then hard drugs such as Crack cocaine. But not taken singly but in whole cocktail of drugs uppers and downers. He became completely dependent on them to function which changed his personality.. Trying to get off drugs people crash or burn as John stated!
Humans seem to be vulnerable to addiction be they drugs, alcohol, sex, tobacco, gambling food, money, power, fashion, physical appearance, social media, smart phones, or today’s conspiracy theories?
Now the financial markets are addicted to quantitive easing that’s pumping millions of dollars/pounds of extra money into the financial system. Which causes the dilution of the purchasing power or so called valve of money. Which in turn means we all get poorer!
What’s causing this terrible human predicament? is it the way are modern world functions in trying to make us totally disaffected with life and it’s meaning?
Something seems totally wrong with our value systems?
Western life styles; what drives this system or underpins it is the nature of Capitalism; which is an explorative system to generate profits usually for the few at the top of this higher echelon system.
Many of us, me included have started their own businesses but in reality only a few survive the first 5 years of existence.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a “small” business as one with 500 employees or less.
- In 2019, the failure rate of startups was around 90%. Research concludes 21.5% of startups fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% in the fifth year, and 70% in their 10th year.
- According to business owners, reasons for failure include money running out, being in the wrong market, a lack of research, bad partnerships, ineffective marketing, and not being an expert in the industry.
- Ways to avoid failing include setting goals, accurate research, loving the work, and not quitting.
I’ve always thought that money makes money meaning many successful businesses have family members who are business people and have business networks and financial support to get them over the first 5 years of existence.
But for capitalism to succeed it needs to create dissatisfaction on a massive scale. To get us to buy things maybe we don’t want or need? The bigger house, the new kitchen, the new car and on and on!
Constantly images in the media, TV, smart phones,newspaper and magazines and the celebrity culture. What they wear, how they look where they go on holiday and on and on! We read about who’s who of the wealthy and famous to try transport us from our daily reality into a cyber reality.
What’s the point there is no point as I see it? It’s like living on big merry go round of complete delusion.
To live a happy relatively contended life we don’t require many things but it’s capitalism I believe creates this dilemma. What other system and way of living could we choose? I ask myself?
If we didn’t buy lots of stuff the business world would slowly decline we’d go into a deflationary spiral. Which is an economy dominated by debt fueled asset price bubbles, deflation can lead to a temporary financial crisis and period of liquidation of speculative investment.
So what’s the answer; the present system works on debt the more the merrier not only are individuals in debt and companies but nations. The whole financial system is one massive Ponzi scheme. a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.[1] The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds.
So we need a new way of living and new financial system. That’s not based upon debt, live now pay later mode of living. That’s going to be hard ask to change this system overnight. It might require a financial crisis of epic proportions to get people to change the way they live.
The old adage time is money? But it’s your time that you’re giving to someone else what do you get in return some money to live on and maintain yourself. How to break a cycle like that? We have a money system that’s on life support after the 2008 financial crash. The Central banks are pumping money into a system to keep it alive but it’s not working.
Rock bottom interest rates on cash savings, prices now increasing in energy supplies lack of goods in the shops now stagflation. Stagflation can be alternatively defined as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product. We could be on the verge of massive financial market correction with assets such as stocks and bonds suddenly going into free fall?
Sometimes in life you have face up to reality and the new reality could be tough for us all. But from that shock we could create a brand new reality? This has to be a massive shock to shake us out of our stupa! It’s going to be very painful indeed. I see no other alternative! Otherwise we will have a civilisation catastrophe. Through this we will have to build a whole new social construct. Never forget civilisation in the past have collapsed before what makes us think that this current paradigm won’t collapse to?
The above video I find the most fascinating why? The world we perceive outside our brains is based upon how we assimilate this information in our own minds.
From childhood we are bombarded with information mostly negative, this can cloud our judgement and effect our self esteem. Which can stay with us for the rest of our lives and deeply effect our personality and how we perceive the outside world. How do we protect ourselves from this bombardment of negative information we need to be selective and analytical in how we absorb this information.
As special forces soldier I had to undergo a combat survival course which meant being interrogated and deprived of sleep for long periods of time. The interrogators use white noise, food and sleep deprivation. This taught me the power of my own mind in how to combat constant disinformation designed to break my mental resolve. Finally it’s how we view the world around us, is it from fear or is it from love? We have the ability to create heaven or hell. Its in our power to create a new world that’s based upon more harmonious paradigm and not the current one based upon exploitive consumerism.