I want to talk about one of the reasons I’ve felt like I’ve been fighting an uphill battle at steemit. I’m a freshwater fish in salt water here. I feel a certain kind of culture shock everywhere I go. First, I don’t really identify as “anti-“ anything. I would rather focus on building then destroying. I’m also open to discussing things with anyone who is open to listening with an open mind. I will not tell you your ideas are wrong even if they are very different from mine, although I may see contradictions and try to point them out if you are keen on debate. I also respect a few kind-hearted and intelligent people who identify as capitalist.
That all being said, I do not identify in any way as being capitalist and many of my positions come in stark contrast with those of the majority as such, in steemit as in my daily life. I didn’t become this way through reading Karl Marx or anything. I just grew up feeling pretty uncomfortable about competition. It didn’t seem to make sense given the context. It’s not like we had to fight for food in my hometown. I’m not communist or socialist or fascist either. I’m not very interested in debating economic philosophy, I’d rather focus on immediate problems and work towards a solution. I do see a value in discussing philosophy sometimes but when our opinions vary too much, the gap is too wide and we don’t usually reach each other.
If you identify as capitalist (or libertarian), this is not an attempt at instigating a debate, I believe in your right to form your own values and beliefs the way you see fit and build your world in accordance. This is just about telling you where I am coming from and the difficulty associated with holding the beliefs and values that I hold. I want us to understand each other and be able to learn from each other.
Different framing, different starting points
Most people around me talk about “adding value”, about supply and demand, and about “taking advantage of opportunities. There’s game theory and the idea of 80/20 and whatever else. These concepts all stem from our understanding of economics. I don’t see economics as a place I want to draw my understanding of reality from and so I am much more hesitant to use these terms in communication, when I do, it’s merely to state things in a way that makes sense to people who talk this way. I have to do it a lot here, actually...people all talk about “adding value”. I see any attempt to put a numeric value on something as arbitrary, but if I say that every time my conversations with capitalists and libertarians don’t even get to the second or third sentence without a debate. And I don’t need or want to debate everyone.
Economic philosophy is built upon the idea that people always act in their own self interest. While I do recognize that there is some truth to this, I see it as extremely one sided and based on a past that was much more “difficult” in some ways then the present. We act in our own self interest, but when we know that our needs are met, don’t fear that they may not be, and have s little trust in others, we recognize our interconnectedness and act in the interest of everyone else as well.
Paying it forward comes more naturally than paying it back
The idea of paying it back comes from the idea that we OWE something to someone. This is not intrinsic to our experience as humans, it’s something we learn, part of our culture, something I can understand but feel a little far removed from at times and it can really cause misunderstanding. In society, we generally help only those who help us and when we help others first, it basically serves to makes us feel good or raise our social status. It comes from the idea of debt, a very capitalistic idea indeed. Firstly, you must carry an idea of “exchange”. For those of us who think outside of these terms paying it back feels more selfish than paying it forward, because there is always this expectation of reciprocity. When I help others, I TRY to do it without expectation of reciprocity. Of course I need to keep some level of scrutiny in order to avoid being taken advantage of, and because the opportunities to be paid forward are so few, sometimes you need to take what you can get. Still, I don’t like to keep tabs on who has helped me and who I’ve helped. I feel thankful, and if they need the help I’ll help them without question. But my attention doesn’t always go back towards them and when it does, it’s because I believe in them or I believe in their belief in me, or maybe out of respect for their culture of exchange, it isn’t out of a feeling of obligation.
This may have caused me much extra work at steemit as I have tried to give a much higher percentage of my voting power to users who need it more, rather than just whoever helps me, especially when I see they have much more. Perhaps if I were to pay back the larger accounts with a 50% or 100% upvote for their support, they might continue to return the favor and I would benefit greatly from it. I do not like to play this way. I believe in more distribution, providing more to those who are smaller than I.
I could have easily marketed and sold my fiction, packaged my music, offered perks to those who paid more, it may have done well, and if it didn’t, I could have changed much strategy and eventually profited from it, I instead chose to offer it all pay-what-you-want, which to most people means “free”. In some moments, I’m forced to ask myself “Am i being too idealistic?”
Being the change
I am NOT being too idealistic, I’ve seen people act outside of selfish interest. I understand that selfishness and selflessness do not need to contradict and can, in fact, cancel each other out. I know that there are infinite ways to provide for yourself as you provide for others. I know that once you cultivate a habit of helping others whenever you can, and still manage to take care of yourself, it’s actually really easy. I’ve seen that when people who act like this come together, all our old ideas about human nature are easily no thrown out the window.
Still, these experiences can not be shared with words, they need to be experienced. most people don’t believe me. I can tell you my story but in the end, experiencing it yourself is the only thing that can make you believe, and so I’m here searching for people who would believe in and support this vision of humanity, and hoping that some who support it are already able to support themselves without much trouble. I want to bring together those who can give freely AND receive freely, the hard part is that most of these people are not in a position to give very much.
No matter what we do we are hypocrites
Even if we don’t need believe in capitalism, we still need to eat. We can go off into the wilderness and fend for ourselves, hoping no one will come and tell us we aren’t allowed to inhabit “public” or “private property. Still, as social creatures, many of us are unwilling to do that. Since we are not always respected for our ideas, sometimes even ridiculed for them, not everyone who shares them is vocal about them, it becomes harder to form a community.
So we conform and prove capitalists right, focusing on our own monetary situation because we know that under the current situation, money will allow us freedom to explore our beliefs. We sell our “goods” and provide our “services” in the hopes that one day we will be free to live the way we truly desire, freely and without keeping tabs.
We find ourselves charging more and catering our work towards those who have more already because they are the ones who can help us earn money, and earn our freedom. With every step, every success, we work against our original vision. We work for big companies in order to give more money to a cause we believe in, as our provider, the company, is likely adding fuel to the fire and working against new that very cause. The libertarian and free thinker can easily relate to this, as it’s a situation not entirely reserved for non-capitalists. But it hurts us more because we become the most hypocritical in the act, it breaks us down and destroys our credibility and our own self confidence to such an extreme degree that most of us are unable to continue. We sell out.
And for those of us who follow our ideals and don’t cave in, we are further ridiculed by those who have given up on their own. We are always left questioning if we are fools because so many are there to remind us of the current we are going against. I was blessed with a strategic mind. I can’t even count on my fingers and toes the opportunities I’ve had to become “rich and successful”, but none of those opportunities felt right, none was compatible with being the person that I want to be. Still as time goes by I’m swayed by a lack of results to make compromises and too late to reap the same rewards that I would have if I had given in so quickly.
This applies just as much to steemit as it does to anything else. I’m quite sure I’d have done much better in my first 6 months if I did everything strategically in order to benefit myself, if I had paid back instead of paying forward, perhaps giving the impression of paying forward, while focusing more on my own gains. I haven’t played up the role of “creator of the Be Awesome community”, nor have I been very opportunistic about its growth because I’ve wanted to keep it organic and pure and without hierarchy and regulations. I try to set boundaries and follow my ideals and sometimes I’ve severly handicapped myself by doing it.
The resources are all stuck inside of capitalistic systems. We don’t all have access to the means of production, so even if we don’t believe in capitalism we have to participate in it, making us hypocrites unless we want to fight against everyone, which is truly not my desire. Even crypto which is opening up resources to a new degree is really just capitalism 2.0. I suspect that once it has truly become mainstream and more and more popular than fiat, you will see the technology benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else and the newly rich become even richer as wealth attracts wealth and some of the wealthy attempt to consolidate their resources.
Still, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most realistic way that I can make great strides towards a future that I believe in is to play the game, even if it makes me a hypocrite, to make money and “earn” a whole lot of resources in order to free them up for others to share. I can only hope that the process won’t break me down.
Can you see why it’s a bit of a struggle to fit in here...or ANYWHERE? People like myself believe in a different kind of world and we have good ideas about how to reach it, but we are often met by pesimism, ridicule and nihilism. You don’t have to agree but I hope you can respect our desire to explore the possibilities, just as I respect the libertarian who wants to explore different possibilities. I hope we can mutually support each other and learn from each other rather than pressuring everyone to be the same or telling others that they are being too idealistic when you haven’t seen what they have.
I believe that one day myself and others like me will be able to build a strong and resourceful community here at steemit and convince enough of you pay-it-back people that we as individuals and our community are worth paying it forward to even if we don’t agree on everything, that we deserve respect and that we may know a thing or two and will help to benefit all of society and everyone in this ecosystem.
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Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories
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by @skyleap