Meet Nicholas Berggruen, a homeless billionaire. You read that right. Nicholas is worth billions but doesn't even own a home (he stays in hotels) because he's lost all interest in acquiring things:
After making his billions, Mr. Berggruen, 46, lost interest in acquiring things: They didn’t satisfy him, and in fact had become something of a burden. So he started paring down his material life, selling off his condo in New York, his mansion in Florida and his only car. He hatched plans to leave his fortune to charity and his art collection to a new museum in Berlin.
For him, wealth is about lasting impact, not stuff.
“Everybody is different and I think that we live in a material world,” he told me. “But for me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal. Whatever I own is temporary, since we’re only here for a short period of time. It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value.”
When I pressed him on why he no longer got much enjoyment from acquiring more “things,” he said this: “First, I don’t need it. Secondly, maybe in a bizarre kind of way, I don’t want to be dependent on it or have the responsibility. I don’t get that much enjoyment out of saying ‘I own it.’ ”
More at Robert Frank's The Wealth Report blog: Link
If he really wanted to practice what he preached, he'd give away all his money to charity right now, get himself a shopping cart, and find a street corner to sit on. It's easy to say material things mean nothing when you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from or whether you're going to freeze to death if the temperature drops.
The hippies were not weak and useless by themselves, any fruitful movements were penetrated by government intelligence and rendered useless, read history and discover this for yourself.
In the 1960's you see people breaking away from the cattle control of the government and doing their own thing, forming their own communities. Today any serious break away group or community, whether they be truly peaceful or whether they harbor ill intentions, are penetrated and scattered. I'm surprised the Amish are allowed to exist in today's world, but I'm sure they are heavily infiltrated and kept under constant observation. There have been attempts to bring them into the grid as I'm sure they will be swallowed into it given enough time and excuses.
Do you hate the war in Iraq? The futile and immoral war on drugs?
Posting online and talking about it do nothing, YOU (via taxes) ARE FUNDING these things you hate! You are as guilty as the ones who directly participate in it!
Without OUR funding, there would be no war in Iraq, there would be no war on drugs! Why do you continue to fund matters you don't agree with? Because you are scared of this same monster throwing you in jail?
Why do concern yourself with matters outside your "illusion of control" when you continue to fund them?
If you pay into the things you hate, hate yourself first, you are to blame, there is no hand washing, you are the problem.
Where do we go today? First, read "Food of The Gods" by Terrence Mckenna. See how the television is the worst drug of all, controlling and manipulating our perception. Timothy Leary was right, and hallucinogenic drugs are banned and some schedule I because they allow us to break free of the lies and brainwashing, you wouldn't know unless you've tried them.
Why are mushrooms in cow shit illegal? Didn't nature give these gifts to us?
Why is marijuana illegal? Why do we allow government, controlled by big Pharma, to control and dictate to us?
Why do we cower in fear and OBEY?
Why are so many of us scared to peacefully stand up and say ENOUGH? Because we might lose time at the computer, game consoles, etc? Because standing up for our rights and liberties which have been stolen from us would deprive us of our enjoyment? "But I have a family..." is not a good excuse, if you do not defend your freedom you do not deserve to live in a land where people went to war and died to protect them.
Anyone who cares about protecting our freedom is labeled a nut or added to a database. This has to STOP. Maybe the image of the dirty street dweller shouldn't return, but damnit, the peace sign and all it embodies should make its way back into the culture, we need to unite, we are divided, and we have already began to fall.
If you do nothing but talk and blog while funding the corrupt system, you are the corruption you hate. Change does not happen by people funding and rewarding a broken and corrupt government.
"All governments are liars and murderers" - Bill Hicks
For what it's worth, you're right but for the wrong reasons.
You cannot beat the system. So, you must go with the flow.
Can't exactly call a guy without shelter homeless.
But I truly want ALL of my actions to have a much longer lasting positive and loving affect and change in improving the lives of everyone God so chooses, much longer after I'd dead!