05 Self Worth, Power and Control
Erepo Controls
I’m sure that anyone who’s really thought about self-worth, has at some point found themselves on the floor staring at the ceiling. An eighth of a billionth of the population. On a planet in a solar system in a galaxy with a 100 billion stars, in a universe where we can see more that 100 billion galaxies. In fact we are limited by the speed of light as to what we can see in the universe, as the universe is bigger than the distance light travels in 14 billion years. Our life a fire fly on a timeline that places the whole human race on less than a second of a 24 hour age of the universe clock.
Is it all pointless? Are you pointless?
You can see eps 2 and 3 about the key to happiness and the meaning of life but its time to talk to you about your self worth.
If you are in a dark place, with the colour of the world some how drained out and its not that you cried in despair, but that you are still here afterwards, empty. I have a use for you. I have a purpose for you. I want you to go help people. If you’re written yourself off, then you’ve nothing to loose and I hope you find purpose.
The first thing we need to do however is to let you recognise yourself. Do not be depressed at the pointlessness of it all and your place in the universe. If you are sad then know that you are back engineering a result. Being sad is an animal emotion and that is where you’re stuck. The machine, the problem solver is looking for an answer based on the question you give it. So it isn’t all pointless and that is why you are sad. You are sad and your machine head is telling you its because it’s all pointless. The thing is, it isn’t.
Are you worth anything? Of course you ducking are?
There is nothing rarer than you. No one else exists in your space time. You are a rare human on a rare planet and if you need outside validation, I’m it. If you can be sad at things, then you can be happy at things too. If you can care about others then you have a beautiful soul and I need you to find people who care. The easiest way is to find people like you. Go find your social group.
You are magnificent. We are advanced lifeforms that evolved in part through predation so our energy requirements are above what we can produce. I think Christian tradition captures this understanding slightly with their concept original sin. It’s more like an original energy sin and the word sin is junk so lets just call it what it is. Our energy debt. You can’t just stop or you die. Entropy is a killer. You constantly need energy so you constantly need food and so you need work to get food, these days usually via the work for money, for food rather than the work of picking berries to eat.
Money is just an IOU for work and so being wealthy means you spend these on getting people to work for you. Work can be bottled. People can work at mountains to dig out ore. They can work at smelting the ore into steal. They can work the steal into a gun and ammunition. You can buy that gun with work IOUs, money and that’s economics. So money is a form of power and power is the means to make things happen, which is important as its used to manage risk. A bear can kill you in fist fight but verses you and that gun you can come out on top.
The human animal feels power as social standing or in other words power is cool, or more accurately, cool is power. Sunglasses hide your eyes but you can see through them so you have an advantage over others. However crazy silly sunglasses that look like a liability in a fight are uncool as they restrict your power. The coolest people are so cool they don’t care about being cool. The irony is that they couldn’t be as cool if they did care because they are affected by it. To have nothing influencing you to do things, including the want to be cool, is to have power and be cool.
Power is important to understand, but people mistake power for self-worth and the supposed lack of self-worth from the lack of power. The trouble happens when people who have power and want more of it, without empathy for others, will argue that power is worth, and if they can get you to submit to it, then they have even more power, as they have power over you. It’s the perception of increased social standing by increasing the gap between them and you, but it’s not by them rising, it’s by them pushing you down.
The insidious side of power is that people try to lock it in with control. Not self control, the opposite, non-self control or as I’m going borrow latin again because people like it, to coin it erepo control. EREPO, to creep out, creep up or creep over. You really need to understand this because your failure, that you use to judge yourself harshly is against a backdrop of a controlled environment.
There is an ideology of law. One I do subscribe to. With these laws we have civility by outlawing things like theft and murder. But there is also erepo control laws and these get hidden by being bundled in with the civility laws and any attack on them is conflated as an attack on the rule of law by those in control.
When slavery was outlawed, the systems in place at that time, effectively remained, and those keen to retain the power found ways to maintain it. Like the use of recognition. What use is law declaring freedom when being black in an area is enough to get you stopped. What use is a law that says the police can’t stop you without probable cause if they then invent probable cause so they can stop you. What use is a legal system when the cops word is taken and what is emancipation if the Black population ends up in prison, in chains, manufacturing number plates without a vote.
Red lines also stopped Black businesses growing so Black women run hair salons in the kitchen. But this is made illegal without a prohibitive regulatory license. And if that license says you must run it as a business but your mortgage says it’s invalid if your house is a business.
Tipping in restaurants was made big in America so business owners, who were white, didn’t have to pay their Black workforce. That doesn’t sound like emancipation to me either. But, don’t make the mistake of not tipping on principle though, as the business owners will just laugh at you as you’re helping them have people work for nothing. Tip generously. If this bothers you, make the getting of a living minimum wage a political priority.
Schools that say there is no gender restriction on the climbing frame but the boys are better at climbing it. The rules do say that boys must wear trousers and the girls must wear skirts and no-one should be flashing their underwear on the climbing frame. Gendered rules in schools should largely be abolished. These are erepo controls. The rules should say that children must wear official school uniform, which must be trousers or a skirt. The kids can work it out from there.
The world does not owe you a living, but if you want a fair crack you need to stand up for it.
So back to you and your self-worth. As a wise song once said,
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much
Or berate yourself either
Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
And wear sunscreen.
Us humans are inherently magnificent unless you bring negativity that brings you down. If there is negativity in your life, do your best to fix it or let it go.
We need to forget the machine brain of yours and look to the animal for the emotions.
Spite will destroy you by rotting you from the inside. Love will be destroyed by anger so save it for righteousness. Also, most anger can be cured by a good nights sleep. If you are happy with yourself and know you are kind, then you are. If you are worried about your negativity, then congratulations, you care, you are a good person.
So let me tell you about you. I’m going to represent your closest friends when I say this, and if you say you don’t have any then I represent those of your past and future. This is from them. You are magnificent. You may not have deployed that magnificence yet, but it’s in there. You did that funny thing that entertained us and I can’t believe how you sang that song that time. You bring me joy. I love your style but I can’t believe you wore that thing. You really need to stop doing… well you know, oh and please buy a new thingy.
It doesn’t matter how long it is between when we talk, we pick straight up as if no time passed. I think you’re very brave. It’s so important you do the thing you love, please continue that. Keep going. You are right about this. You can do this. They are not right for you in that, as they are coming at it from a different need.
I need you to find the issue you really care about, agism, poverty, the dearth of live music in your local pubs, sexism, racism. The path to a better world is better democracy setting up better laws. Choose your topic and if you can, stand up and represent that issue. If like most people you don’t have time for that as you’re too busy fixing your biological energy bill, then get behind those who can represent your issues. Have people stand next to the countries leaders letting them know they represent 30 million women, asking, what are you doing with this new law. We need advocates and if you’re that person in that dark place, I need you to become an advocate. Thank you.