Engulfed by a powerful, unseen force that seeks to control our every thought and how we spend our time, the 21^st century seeks to swallow us in doom and gloom whilst feeding our insatiable desire to fulfill our real needs with more empty substitutes.

“Woke this morning with an ache in my head 

Splashed on my clothes as I spilled out of bed

Opened the window to listen to the news

But all I heard was the Establishment Blues.”

~ Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Cold Fact

This is part one of a series of three articles that debunk and de-mystify money and the state of the current world we live in. Money and seeking all that it represents—a technology of greed so pervasive that it’s become unimaginable to live without its compulsions—has taken over our lives.

This power engulfs us with its relentless and insatiable hunger, such that its destructive force is unleashed on the world. The gluttony feeds on itself with such avarice that until there is nothing left to feed on. It will continue on, it has to.

The system is built that way. It must grow and grow, feed on itself, pervert every natural system—until there are no more resources left to hunt down and rape—then only then will it be forced to morph into a new beast.

What has caused this all-pervasive materialism, and what can we do to stop it?

Is greed our new religion?

Bereft of any substance, our desire for feeling and expressing our spiritual needs is denied, suppressed, sublimated and replaced by meaninglessness shoved down our throats.

We have become a whole generation of force-fed zombies seeking the latest fashion, entertainment, game, or fast food. Craving something real, the media rams us with ever-more emptiness filled with advertising doublespeak. What we experience within is a deep state of ennui—our soul is starved of meaning. We suffer with escalating cravings, addictions, depression, desire, anxiety—all the while our spiritual hunger is fed on nothingness.

Our soul knows the truth.

Searching for lost time, we have little energy left for other endeavors like following our dreams. Energy-stealing devices corrupt our thinking. Addictions tinker with our sense of purpose and connection to our soul. Technology blinds, perverts, distorts us into a numb follower of the status quo, a follower of nothingness.

“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”

~ The Matrix (film by Andy and Larry Wachowski)

2013 nears an end and we still have the same corrupt politicians fighting for or clinging to power, yet little or nothing has changed for the better.

What if we got rid of them, and started all over again? Since the system has proven not to work, and we claim we haven’t got a better system (…’so what can we do?’), we are at its mercy. We are enslaved by it.

Endlessly seeking more wealth, power and fame, our reality has turned into a world of insanity—ever-increasing debt, taxes (local, state, federal), mortgages, credit card debt, loans, a flood of bills, advertising, marketing and fashion promoting new trends every season to feed the whole system and create more demand for things we don’t need.

“As families gather round the table to have supper, the phantom of the Superclass appears, selling impossible dreams: luxury, beauty, power. And the family falls apart.The father works overtime to be able to buy his son the latest trainers because if his son doesn’t have a pair, he’ll be ostracised at school. The wife weeps in silence because her friends have designer clothes and she has no money. Their adolescent children, instead of learning the real values of faith and hope, dream of only becoming singers and movie stars.

Girls in provincial towns lose any real sense of themselves and start to think of going to the big city, prepared to do anything, absolutely anything, to get a particular piece of jewellery. A world that should be directed towards justice begins instead to focus on material things, which, in six months’ time. Will be worthless and have to be replaced…”

~ Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone

Why do we pretend that politicians are making a difference, can make a difference, or even care to? What if we judged them at face value?

What if we set ourselves free?

 Read part two here.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

{Photos: Pixoto, Webitpr.}