Does the following scenario appeal to you?
"You and your extended family and neighbours belong to a community. You meet periodically; have plans and goals for your community. You address the needs and wants that are mutually important. In the background, supporting you and your community, is a servant-based government (public servants). They don't rule you or decide how you should live or how to raise your kids. Instead, at your direction, they do those things that go beyond single communities - things like assuring that safe drinking water is available; that the food you buy is safe to eat; that you are adequately protected. Since they are YOUR servants, their scope and power is limited - they do NOTHING that you in your community can do for yourselves. As parents and extended family you raise, train, educate your children with skills, talents and knowledge to be productive members of your community. Other communities, next door or around the world, choose to live differently in the goals and details of their lives - and that is perfectly fine."
Excerpt:
Here are 2 scenarios:
1) You and your extended family and neighbors belong to a community. You meet periodically; have plans and goals for your community. You address the needs and wants that are mutually important. In the background, supporting you and your community, is a servant-based government (public servants). They don’t rule you or decide how you should live or how to raise your kids. Instead, at your direction, they do those things that go beyond single communities – things like assuring that safe drinking water is available; that the food you buy is safe to eat; that you are adequately protected. Since they are YOUR servants, their scope and power is limited – they do NOTHING that you in your community can do for yourselves. As parents and extended family you raise, train, educate your children with skills, talents and knowledge to be productive members of your community. Other communities, next door or around the world, may choose to live differently in the goals and details of their lives – and that is perfectly fine.
Or
2) You are skeptical of humans living “naturally.” That could lead to the strong overpowering and taking advantage of the weak. So you willingly turn your freedom, fully half of the money you make, and most of the big decisions of your life, over to some “leaders” who you count on to take care of you, keep you safe, feed you and provide medical and emotional care, educate your children, and millions of more details of human life.
So is this book for you? If #1 above has any appeal, if the idea of living passionate, purposeful lives free of the tyranny of a “ruling” class, then read on.
A CAVEAT: Do the strong ever overpower and take advantage of the weak? Certainly they do. If living freely leads to injustice and class distinctions, it is not living freely. It is the beginning of the same tyranny that the U.S. founders were fleeing. So the key word in living freely is a word that modern U.S. politicians avoid like the plague – moderation. Moderation based on love, tolerance and fairness.
Why do you need answers?
You need answers because now you can go for the life you want, knowing that every resource from the universe on down is 100% behind you. With that kind of support, you absolutely cannot fail.
You and I need to stop believing and expecting others to have the answers and to make our choices and decide how we are to live our lives. That’s our job. Do you want to be healthy, happy, and successful? Of course – we all do, so we need to know how to do that. We also need to be 100% confident that we deserve and were designed to be 100% human. And we need to know that society, community, extended family all are behind us, support us, have every reason and desire to see us succeed. This is not a fantasy or dream - it is as much our birthright as it is for every other living species. No one has an issue with a squirrel being 100% squirrel, but when it comes to us humans, some of us have the strange idea that living 100% lives is “asking too much!”
Who has the answers?
Politicians (all of them) and world leaders don’t have answers. Scholars and CEOs don’t. Churches and religions are trying to do the right thing, but they don’t have answers either. Scientists don’t – in fact, the more they are learning the more they realize the narrow limits of human knowledge.
Parents don’t have answers – societies lack them. Our elders apparently don’t – otherwise the world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.
Answers sometimes come from wisdom rather than knowledge, data, statistics, facts. Wisdom is sometimes of supreme value it because it resonates in our hearts (rather than our minds). So read what follows with a healthy skepticism, yet with an open mind and heart, to see if the truths outlined here will get you the thing of supreme value for you – a successful, happy life.