Push To Implement Basic Income For All

[christian]

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
Communism is not on the table, at least not in my universe. Capitalism will always be around in some form or another for quite a bit longer, as the least of all evils. Socialism may have the right idea but it is tainted now with all kinds of extremism. So what's left?

Institutionalized anything leads to abuse and strong-arm tactics - and favoritism.

All of these forms of governance focuses on central control. Maybe decentralizing is the way to go. Focus on community and towns.

"Maybe decentralizing is the way to go. Focus on community and towns." — That's exactly what Capitalism is

The system today could be called an oligarchy, a corporatocracy, something like this… Capitalism is defined by (a) private property with no such thing as taxes or regulations on what you can and cannot own, but communities and towns etc may establish their own regulations here, and (b) a free market, no government robbing Peter to pay Paul or whomever.

As for Socialism and Communism, I like Ayn Rand's take on it: "There is no difference between Communism and Socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: Communism proposes to enslave men by force, Socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide."

World Communism—total control by some government institution—is being assembled as we speak. State control of anything in the US is higher now than it has ever been in history.

Communism today doesn't call itself Communism very openly, but don't mistake what's happening now for anything else.

Are we seeing government bureaucrats promoting individual liberty, aka Capitalism? Or are we seeing them promoting state control, aka Communism?

I think the answer is obvious. People just tend to confuse the words and actual meanings.

See for example this: Millennials Reject Capitalism in Name – but Socialism in Fact (Terminology Confuses Real Preferences)

Posted by risveglio (here)
The American people give vastly more in philanthropic donations on a percentage basis than anyone in the world. This is the best-kept secret in American textbooks. I know very few socialists but from my experience, they are the selfish ones.

There seems to be a basis to that claim.

"Those surveyed were asked: 'Is it your obligation to care for a seriously injured/ill spouse or parent, or should you give care only if you really want to?' Of those describing themselves as 'conservative', 71 per cent said it was. Only 46 per cent of those on the Left agreed. To the question: 'Do you get happiness by putting someone else's happiness ahead of your own?', 55 per cent of those who said they were 'very conservative' said Yes, compared with 20 per cent of those who were 'very liberal'. […] When asked by the World Values Survey whether parents should sacrifice their own well-being for those of their children, those on the Left were nearly twice as likely to say No. […] Most surprising of all is reputable research showing those on the Left are more interested in money than Right-wingers. Both the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey reveal Left-wingers are more likely to rate 'high income' as an important factor in choosing a job, more likely to say 'after good health, money is the most important thing', and agree with the statement 'there are no right or wrong ways to make money'."

[Daozen]

Exactly what Christian says^^^^. (And Fredkc, Onawah, Ernie Nemth etc.) Next time someone says they hate capitalism, ask them if they hate Ebay, online selling, digital money transfer, Kickstarter, AirBnB, Farmer's co-ops, Etsy, Paypal, Bitcoin, local markets, cash in hand labour, Craigslist, private tuition, the free press, concerts, online books and counselling...

I agree with the 'rejecting in name, but embracing in spirit' article. It's something I noticed for a long time but could never put succinctly.

I had this conversation a few times:

Someone else: "I'm sick of capitalism."
Me:" Maybe, what we need is a free market without government intervention. "
Them: "Yes! Down with capitalism, we need a free market "

!

I only heard bad things about Ayn Rand growing up. People said she was a 'Rothschild disinformation agent', but her "Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal" is one of the best books I ever read. It explains in detail why minimum wage is doomed to fail. Ask any Wendy's employee who just got replaced by a robot if she was right.

A true free market would (eventually) minimize governments, pharmaceutical giants and the military industrial complex. Or, minimizing govs, big pharma and the MIC would eventually give rise to a free-market. This would free up trillions of dollars per year. Where does surplus money flow? To businesses, investment, goods, the service industry etc. Billions of jobs would be created. It's not perfect but it's workable. If we wanted to eradicate poverty we could focus on building simple systems which provided food, water and energy at a household level, freeing people from the rat race. Then, and only then, could we free ourselves from the burden of debt. But that decision has to come from ourselves. Gunpoint charity is unsustainable.

If people truly want a world without money they will have to spend billions of dollars to get there.

[Ernie Nemeth]

What happens when robots replace half the jobs in the economy? What happens when the people are not needed to do the labor? What happens to people who are no longer employable? We are already at the place where corporations and big business rake in monumental profits but the related jobs are in decline. There is a growing group that is exactly that - unemployable. The only way to ensure employability is to pay for higher levels of schooling. But the schooling programs your mind and erases individuality. Not to mention how you must start out in your professional life in debt. Debt that never vanishes and only grows. Debt that can be used to control you and manipulate you and steal from you.

Capitalism will not help then, being amoral at best. Also, capitalism is about secrecy and misdirection. It has to be. There is no other way of capitalizing on another unless the other is in some way at a disadvantage in terms of information or contacts. So we get information hoarding and patent applications for every little idea. Everyone wants to capitalize, wants to take advantage, wants to outcompete and destroy their adversaries. Anne Rand be damned. She is an elitist, and in her mind, justifiably so. She doesn't get it, neither do the other elitists. Mankind is being driven and corralled into a life that is unnatural. We judge too harshly because we use the criteria of our masters, who judge the vast majority as virtually useless. And yet our health services will pay any amount to keep one individual alive.

Then there is the notion of the "example". The example is the person who is used to show others what will happen if they transgress. This is where you get the "nothing personal" attitude as they throw the book at you. It is not about the disproportionate harshness of the sentence, they say, it is that others must be shown the severity of the offense. I've been caught in that one at least a dozen times.

True that communism and socialism does the same sort of thing, in a world of unbridled capitalism the unfair use of laws to curtail free market forces is hypocritical. At least in the alternates there is some lip service paid to the inalienable rights of citizens. Capitalism makes no such claims. Supposedly the motto is: "You sink or swim by your own hand." Umm, some don't know how to swim.

Some just want to wander through life doing what others would say is nothing. But in another world, in another time that is exactly what we all did: wandered through the world plucking fruit off of trees. Just because some are ambitious, the rest of us have to fall in line. And the sad part is that the others don't even know there is another way. We don't need jobs. We need lives. We don't need money. We need all the things money can buy. In fact we need very little, the rest we were trained to want.

I have no problem working - FOR A CAUSE and TOWARDS a FUTURE! In this society all co-operative ventures are vested interests - and there is no goal other than to win at the game. If some good spins off from that degenerate lifestyle it is only accidental and fully unintentional - and will eventually be used to curtail your freedoms even more.

There has to be another, entirely different, way.

I say give me the tools to live completely independently from all of modern society. Give me the tools to ignore the unfair laws and go about my business without fear of reprisals. then, in a generation or so, I'll be in a position to help others get free.

Until then, I oppose every proposal by the establishment and reject any and all handouts, claw backs or legislative fixes.

[shaberon]

Posted by christian (here)

Posted by shaberon (here)
If I need to be viewed as a slaver because I believe everyone deserves some minimal basics, then so be it.

Not at all. But because you want some institution to take the minimal basics from productive people by force and then redistribute them as that institution sees fit. If you'd argue for providing for the needy voluntarily, we'd be on the same page.

Sure, that would be much closer to my personal value: voluntarily give your time, labor, and stuff to those in obvious need. The most recent example I was able to find, was maybe not "the Mormons" but at least a particular Mormon who housed several hundred people in Utah.

The more I argue for someone to do something voluntarily, the more it becomes compelled behavior.

I don't want an institution. As long as there is one, getting it to take care of actual needs instead of usury and warfare, would be an improvement; killing it is also an option.

With the early United States, yes, there was a system of almost no government interference to the business world, and it was prosperous, without rampant hunger, homelessness, crime, and so forth. Even without the "relative" slavery of taxes and regulations, it thrived on actual slavery: the ownership of another's body and the confiscation of 100% of their productivity. For that reason, I'm not sure the world has ever seen an example of free market capitalism; and the questions I have about that, would be based from that it appears to cater to selfish interests as opposed to selfless giving; and that the only "capitalists" would be those who had a lot of money to make investments expecting a return. If we had equal rights, nobody would have anything to offer except their hands; I've always seen the wealthy telling the poor to take out the trash.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned trickle-down, there may be no such thing, but for a while it was at least a story provided by the institution as "hopium" I guess.

[Yetti]

Agree, the issue here is: what about the lazy people , the ones who has no desire to thrive, I know many of them! why they should be bail out? , what would be the incentive for those who believe in earn their living means thru hard and honest work?
I do not think a bail out giving people money just because they are there on earth , is any solution, but to invest in a sustainable way to live on this earth, integrating small business allowance without gov controls and regulations to the bone, could help, what I'm saying is LET THE PEOPLE WORK, stop draconian corporations to take over the whole thing ( including politicians). go back to the small village economy, farmers market, education instead indoctrination.. but this is just my idea.... thanks !

[Yetti]

Thanks Daozen. Yes, Gunpoint charity is not the answer. A huge Re-education program must be implemented and the free market solution is the one that seems to work the best. I saw small examples to this and let me tell you it works and not in a long term, the result is on a short- medium term, market adjust according to demand and offer.
People has the ultimate word on this so they will pay the goods according to their economic possibility. So any goods on the market with a price too hi will not find sale, bur a healthy competition will delivery the goods to the people at a better price.. And all this promote small business, and workforce, people busy have no time for drugs, crime, and sheer stupidity !

[Wind]

In a just society people would never ever have to worry about money. Sure there would be some work which people would love to do, but most of the time they would spend creating and doing the stuff they want, educating themselves. Freeloaders will always be there, so what. What we currently have is enslavement indeed. Wage jobs are mostly enslavement, while the elite gets away with the riches they certainly don't deserve. Middle classes are disappearing, poor people are getting poorer while rich are getting extremely rich.

In third world countries people are dying of starvation while here in the western countries extremely rich people keep on partying. Rain forests are chopped down and (especially endangered) animals are killed by the masses. What kind of a insane society supports that? Bear in mind that I live Scandinavia and here people still have some sense of fairness and equality although those too are being taken away, but without the governments help many people would have been in the dumpsters. They are considering the option of basic income, but I don't know if they will ever implement it country-wide.

Something much better than this needs to invented. People should not be seen as objects, statistics, slaves/worker ants which do their masters bidding meaning their bosses and the government, people are much more valuable than that. Everyone should have equal rights and we don't have them. Most people are slaves without even realizing it.

I would like to know what people think about what it truly means to be free in a just society where others are not controlling them or putting them to prisons for doing "crimes", which should not even be considered as crimes, like for example expansing your consciousness. That is the one thing the government doesn't want you to do, because then you might become a critical thinker who starts to question things and will think outside the box. Why are not innovations encouraged like they should be, but instead resisted by big government and corporations?

[Ernie Nemeth]

In this society we have an excuse: we don't know we are enslaved, or at least we can claim that.

I wonder about past societies where it was conscious knowledge that they were slaves. How do you live in that world with that understanding? I know how I would do it. I would fight until I was captured or killed. In this society I can be forgiven for not taking a stand to action because I can not be sure of my premise. But in a world where it is common knowledge a person like me would have no choice, I would have to fight. So here I straddle the fence, sometimes going along just to get along. Then other times I resist my jailers, test their limits and resolve until I get caught and fined, then back to conforming to climb out of the hole. Then I resist again until smacked down again.

It is crazy. A crazy way to live. I resent it immensely, and my part in it.

[Daozen]

There's no one size fits all solution to this problem. What we need is 10,000 experiments, where people go off on their own and live in the way they think is best. It's easy enough to knock down someone's ideas, but if you don't provide a viable alternative that can be acted upon, the conversation stays stagnant and theoretical. Intellectuals have been decrying the current system for centuries (I agree it's terrible) but many haven't *proven the concept* of something better. If you don't give examples, you're just an armchair visionary.

This conversation will just be mindless theory unless people start giving solutions. I think the answer to our problems is not so much political or economic, but grassroots technology.

*

What would you do if you had 25,000USD and a plot of land to design your ideal homestead? How would you build it so it could be scaled modularly in 10, 1000, or 10,000 units?

If ppl don't post actionable solutions that can be built from the ground up, no one will read, and no one will care. The timeline I'm building is "Lord of the Rings with Laptops" but other people might have different ideas.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Really great and uplifting Doazen. Nice

If all that was to be part of the "basic income for all", I would not be here posting.

I am trying to point out the danger of instituting a "basic" income. Like a minimum wage, "basic" income is a crutch and not a solution. The question of "Why are there jobs that cannot support the worker?" and "Why is there a need for basic subsistence in this world in the first place?" cannot be swept under the rug or it will just remain festering out of sight.

The solutions are there and we are talking about them. But they are not what we have ever encountered before. They are revolutionary. They are cultural shattering and paradigm busting in their scope. And they naturally feel uncomfortable during the transition. We have to grow into them and it is discomfiting at best. Still, we have to guard against half measures, warn against dead ends. If not the paradigm will never shift. So far, it would rather snap back and move the other direction toward totalitarianism. We have to ease it along, stretching seeming credulity until we reach the plateau.

It is not all intellectualism, either. There are diverse areas of research, from energy to propulsion that have revealed a new science or an extension to scientific inquiry that will, as we all know, soon catapult our technologies into unknown territory and make our present economic system obsolete. The elite wish to police this transition. We need to free it.

As Wade always says, patience is his bane (paraphrased). I think patience is what we need to practice now. No one can envision the transformational power of this paradigm shift.

A new world is just over the horizon. It will be either a paradise or a hell, which is not for any of us to decide alone.

We just have to wait and see.

[Daozen]

Glad you liked it, Ernie.

But how do we know that any of this will happen "soon"? Or that it is "just over the horizon".

We need basic subsistence because we are not skilled or focused enough to start providing the essentials of human life (food, water, medicine) in our own local areas. So we remain tied to the beast. I think you are right basic income won't fix an already broken system.

Why would we have to "wait and see?"

Any change we've seen over the past 20 years have come from engineers, whether that's agricultural, software, media or architectural. While I agree that we need a new paradigm, few posters in this thread have given examples of how to get there.

[Ernie Nemeth]

I think in terms of parallel indication, or counterintuitive behavior. The exceptions are where the answers are. Why? Because the exceptions are unexplored, or collapsed, potentials.

(The same can be said of the questions as you posed them. Each of those questions are collapsed potentials with reams of data pertinent to the discussion that are essential in order to make or attempt an informed decision. How do we know it will happen soon asks how long can the public remain blissfully unaware of true current events. How do we know it is just over the horizon is because we can feel and imagine it but it is not yet here. Therefore it must be over the horizon but close. We must wait and see because we have and are doing all that can be done, personally - right? We have to wait and see what the others decide, I guess.)

When collapsed potentials are looked at closer they expand in detail and reveal unexpected behavior. They eventually interlock with known behavior and are reconciled with accepted reality. In this case, the reality will be busted completely and the strange behavior will become the norm.

It cannot be predicted because we interpret the world with today's paradigm and that paradigm will no longer be the guiding force of tomorrow's culture. All bets are off on predicting anything, even what will stay the same.

On a side note: lazy people seem to be a common theme, especially in a secret slave society like ours. Lazy people are lazy because they can be. Lazy people in past ages were the soon-to-be dead people! Or they turned to parasitic behavior...
If we want to be open and honest, we could also demand that lazy people be rounded up and shot. That is our right. But to single them out and persecute them and try and make it about them does not serve any useful purpose. Some say they have nothing against charity, if it is not forced on them but at the same time they are alright with the lazy being forced to work, as if to prove the old adage misery loves company, or something like.

I am pretty sure it is not lazy people's fault, or the poor, or the minorities, or the stupid or the intellectual either. Most of us used to be engineers-by-necessity before the designation was subsumed by the profession so it cannot be their fault. It could be this or that race's fault but that seems sort of..well..racist.

We got to be fair does not include divvying up the pie according to the hours one put into it. Every moment of a life is a contributing potential, no one can predict the value of that.

It is the pioneering spirit that has been quenched in this society. There are no more open spaces and vast expanses to conquer, to subdue. The American "can do" attitude has died. That is what will be revived.

That is what will save us.

Even the lazy will participate in that, trust me.

[MorningSong]

The Swiss vote is in.... but only about 23% of the population voted yes:

Results can be seen here:

https://www.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/20160605/det601.html

World | Mon Jun 6, 2016 1:22am EDT
Related: World
Swiss reject free income plan after worker vs. robot debate

Swiss voters rejected by a wide margin on Sunday a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for everyone living in the wealthy country after an uneasy debate about the future of work at a time of increasing automation.

Supporters had said introducing a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,563) per adult and 625 francs per child under 18 no matter how much they work would promote human dignity and public service.

Opponents, including the government, said it would cost too much and weaken the economy.

Provisional final results showed 76.9 percent of voters opposed the bold social experiment launched by Basel cafe owner Daniel Haeni and allies in a vote under the Swiss system of direct democracy.

Haeni acknowledged defeat but claimed a moral victory.

"As a businessman I am a realist and had reckoned with 15 percent support, now it looks like more than 20 percent or maybe even 25 percent. I find that fabulous and sensational," he told SRF.

"When I see the media interest, from abroad as well, then I say we are setting a trend."

Conservative Switzerland is the first country to hold a national referendum on an unconditional basic income, but others including Finland are examining similar plans as societies ponder a world where robots replace humans in the workforce.

Olivier, a 26-year-old carpenter who works on construction sites and runs a small business designing and building furniture, said he voted "yes".

"For me it would be a great opportunity to put my focus on my passion and not go to work just for a living," he said.

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION?

Champions of the plan portrayed a more automated future in a poster bigger than a soccer field asking "What would you do if your income was secure?" They had also marched as robots down Zurich's high street and handed out free 10-franc notes.

"I voted 'yes' because money does not really have its place in this world, it is so arbitrary and linked to power games," said Ronnie Lehmann, 37, who makes less than 4,000 francs a month as a bicycle mechanic. "But I'm not surprised the proposal got rejected, the world is not ready for it yet."

A woman named Meleanie said she reluctantly voted "no".

"I find that it is a real danger that once people just get their basic needs covered society doesn't feel responsible any more to look after the ones who can't really handle the situation on their own", she said.

In a separate vote on Sunday, Swiss voters clearly rejected a proposal to require state-controlled companies, such as Swisscom (SCMN.S), not to seek to make a profit.

The government had warned that accepting the initiative would hurt the companies' competitiveness and could lead to higher taxes.

Employers heaved a sigh of relief that Switzerland, where unemployment is only around 3.5 percent, had not become the first country to embrace the guaranteed income measure.

The Swiss government had urged voters to reject the campaign, saying the scheme would cost too much and undermine social cohesion.

Interior Minister Alain Berset said the vote showed Swiss voters supported the economic and social system in place "and that this system works well."

The plan included replacing in full or in part what people got from social benefits.

The government estimated the proposal would have cost 208 billion Swiss francs a year, significantly weakened the economy and discouraged people, especially low earners, from working.

Much of the cost could have been covered by existing social security payments, but sharp spending cuts or tax increases would have had to make up a remaining gap of 25 billion.

An advanced social safety net already supports people who cannot pay for their own livelihood. Fewer than seven percent of people lived in poverty in 2014, official data show.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sw...-idUSKCN0YR0CW

[Yetti]

Right Daozen, but now the most effective system to deal with water as an example ,is the grey waters management, before to go to the septic is recicled back to the toilets , that save a lot of water in a regular home.
It is obvious that we need to move to the green side of living better sooner than later .

[Daozen]

I think there are many solutions to water and sewage. I support all experiments. Let's just try everything and learn from each other's mistakes.

BTW, the Swiss said no to UBI with a healthy margin.

[Mike]

Ultimately its a spiritual issue, I think.

There is a great apathy that has settled into the hearts of millions of people. They may not know what the "illuminati" is, but they are very aware that the deck is stackly largely against them.

This idea, this so called american dream is largely a myth. People are finally finding out. Their best efforts - even if they work very very hard - rarely if ever result in what they had envisioned.

The game is rigged. So why play? Why knock yourself out? I take walks most nights in a lovely little village near a lake, populated mostly by nice but modest homes..and I often think about how pleasant it would be to own one..that is until I consider all the work involved. Those people worked themselves ragged for those modest little homes...and they don't even really own them...in most instances, the banks do. Thats no dream..thats a nightmare.

Me..i'd rather work some easy, sh!tty little worry free job, go home to a small studio apartment and drink myself to sleep. At least it gives me the freedom to think. Besides, you work hard all your life...blood.sweat n tears...and then theres an orchestrated crash and youre no better off than me anyway. A part of me has always viewed my so called unproductivity as clever...and I still do. I take a certain pride in it.

Ever work a commission based job? Great job Mike, you hit your numbers. Well done. but then they just keep raising the numbers. They become impossible to hit. And when you don't hit them you get demoted. Thats your reward for hitting your numbers the first time. Most jobs are like this...if not literally than metaphorically.


Ultimately there are no "ists" "isms" or "ocracy" that will change the hearts of men. No matter how seemingly fair and equitable a so called solution seems to be...there will always be someone there to corrupt or take advantage of it.....no matter if its capitalism, socialism, marxism so forth.

As long as our hearts are impure, none of it will matter. Our economic systems should ideally reflect our pure hearts...but instead they try to compensate for our moral deficiencies..and there are just way too many for any "ism" to even begin to contain.

The human race needs to evolve. quickly.

Meanwhile i'll be enjoying my unproductivity...

[onawah]

There is a perspective on human evolution that is being channeled by a group of people called "The Micheal Teachings", which I've found very interesting.
http://www.michaelteachings.com/
I haven't really checked it out for a few years, but they are still going strong apparently.
Hopefully they haven't been invaded by Archons or whatever it is that has happened to many other channelers who used to be giving out pretty good information, but I do know that the information the Teachings used to disseminate was very helpful to me and a number of other people I've known over the years, and that basic info can still be found online.
One of the things that I found to be very illuminating has to do with Soul Ages. http://www.michaelteachings.com/soul_age_index.html
It's complicated, but to break it down for this discussion, the Teachings divide up basic human soul ages (levels of development) into Infant, Baby, Young, Mature, Old, Transcendental and Infinite, and there are certain characteristics of each stage.
One might assume that Old souls would have it all together and ascended to the upper strata of society having experienced so much, but in fact, in the way that the Teachings describe them, Old souls often don't care at all about worldly success or having it all, they have a sort of "been there, done that" attitude as far as the outer world goes and they aren't ambitious in that way--it is the inner world that interests them, and they will often take up easy, menial jobs just so they can think their own thoughts and not be bothered with worldly clamor, and won't seek worldly power or influence unless they really think they can do some good.
So the concept of "laziness" takes on a different aspect when you looks at things from that perspective.
Some Old Souls might be judged "useless eaters" by some, but how do you measure a soul's worth--is it only by what they tangibly produce, the income they make?
Old souls can offer a lot that other levels don't have, even if they aren't particularly productive in the usual sense of the word.
But the world would certainly be a poorer place without them, and that should be taken into consideration.
With "the system" the way it is now, I think all too often such people can easily fall through the cracks, and that is a tragic waste.

[Mike]

I thought i was the only one who read that book Nat....I found it buried in the "occult" section at my local used book store.

Fascinating book. Never read anything quite like it.

The ouija board group, right?

Everything about it seemed dubious from the beginning...until it began making relentless logical sense. It was so involved and so detailed and reasonable that it ultimately won me over.

I agree with everything you said.

[11one]

it should be like pro sports. theres a minimum everyone gets and theres a maximum. i dont believe that horse**** that people will be sapped of their creativity, motivation and drive if there are parameters set in place for this game we are playing. being a lazy bum is its own punishment, anyone whos been that and we all have know what im talking about

[Wind]

Posted by onawah (here)
One of the things that I found to be very illuminating has to do with Soul Ages.

One might assume that Old souls would have it all together and ascended to the upper strata of society having experienced so much, but in fact, in the way that the Teachings describe them, Old souls often don't care at all about worldly success or having it all, they have a sort of "been there, done that" attitude as far as the outer world goes and they aren't ambitious in that way--it is the inner world that interests them, and they will often take up easy, menial jobs just so they can think their own thoughts and not be bothered with worldly clamor, and won't seek worldly power or influence unless they really think they can do some good.
So the concept of "laziness" takes on a different aspect when you looks at things from that perspective.

Some Old Souls might be judged "useless eaters" by some, but how do you measure a soul's worth--is it only by what they tangibly produce, the income they make?
Old souls can offer a lot that other levels don't have, even if they aren't particularly productive in the usual sense of the word.

I always found that material fascinating and noticed that I fit well with the Old souls group. I think also Michael Newton talked about soul ages in his books. By societies standards I probably would not be a very productive member (not that I really give a damn about it), but then again I've always had my physical problems anyways which have resulted in weariness (old soul symptoms). Most of my life has consisted of studying, mostly spiritual and esoteric things. Inner work. Perhaps that information will one day somehow serve others too.

I was always wondering if the less mature baby/infant souls were the more aggressive, ego-driven and judgemental ones, while the old ones can just more easily not judge others and see the beauty and interconnectedness in everyone and everything. Souls who are just more focused on "being" than rather doing. Why compete? What's the rat race really all about? Not saying that some doings should not be done, but it's about the focus. Not getting attached to the wheel of karma more anymore, completing the cycle, serving others in our own unique ways. No one can put a prige tag on that.