These days, people talk a lot about the rather well known Bitcoin ”Fear/Greed Index.”

At the moment, the index is tending towards maximum fear. It's not as low as it was a few days ago, but still pretty bad.

To Live In Fear...

What is it really that we're afraid of?

The obvious answer is that we are afraid that the price of Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general) are going to decline even further.

But why does this give us fear? Haven't we been here before?

In the broadest sense, we're afraid that we're going to ”lose” something, as a result of which we are somehow going to end up with ”not enough.”

In other words, the fear we're feeling is based really on a fear of suffering, as a result of not having enough... which, in turn, is a reflection of the scarcity mindset that seems to predominate in our world.

What is "Enough," Anyway?

To be honest, here at our household we're very accustomed to living with scarcity. As such, any feelings associated with the gyrating price of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies going down aren't related to ”not having enough,” but instead to losing the potential opportunity to reach a place where we would have ”enough” and would no longer have to worry about whether we can afford to pay the electric bill, or making the choice between food and keeping the mobile phones turned on.

The importance of ”enough” is an interesting one. What we desire in life is precisely that: ”enough.” Enough to cover the basics without having to sweat it all the time, and enough to know that if someone was sick for a couple of weeks — or we suddenly needed a major car repair — it would not be the end of the world.

For the time being, we skate by on the hope that nothing out-of-the-ordinary will happen. That may — or may not — be wishful thinking. However, it is reality...

Scarcity... and Greed

This, of course, is where greed starts to come into the picture.

Many of the people who purport to want to reach a point where they have ”enough” are actually looking for more than enough, and for some that can become an obsession... to such a degree that there is no such thing as ”enough” in their existence. Even if they were a single individual, and had enough to comfortably care for 1000 people, they would still not feel like they had ”enough.”

That is also how the scarcity mindset works.

These days, a lot of pundits also talk about humanity being at the threshold of an ”Age of Abundance.”

On paper, that might look good. But I have some skepticism as to how that will play out, in terms of practical application.

What IS "Abundance," Anyway?

As best I can tell, abundance isn't that much about having a large enough stack of dollars, or gold, or coins, or food as much as it is a mindset, a way of thinking.

And whereas we may have the physical reality to create something that resembles abundance, as long as there is an underlying mindset operating in the minds of many people that they ”have to keep accumulating” far beyond the point of having ”enough,” how are we going to actually bring abundance about?

It seems to me that there's an interesting paradox at work here. On one hand, we talk about ”building wealth” which seems to be an extension of (endless?) ”accumulation;” on the other hand we talk about ”abundance,” which is typically centered on the premise that everybody has ”enough” and suffers no lack or need.

I'm not claiming to have an answer to these questions. I am simply putting them out there in a small attempt to invite thinking and discussion about the deeper implications of these ideals we are trying to work towards.

Thanks for stopping by!

=^..=

CuratorCat 12-JAN-2022