(This is Part 9 in a series. Go back to Part 8.)
It's good to remember that a debt deflation is ultimately a constructive process. Though it is painful, it is painful in the way that withdrawal from heroine or speed is painful —the pain is part of an overall process that is beneficial.
The overuse and misuse of money and credit is something that a nation or culture undertakes because it appears to be an effortless way to get something for nothing.
Just as an addictive drug promises to juice up an addict's life, new injections of money and credit promise to juice up the economy, asset markets and the currency. In the end, they wind up destroying all three.
It's still true: We reap what we sow. The universe seems to be willing to teach that lesson over and over because it is essential to happiness—of a person or a society.
If a person truly wants to be physically well, to have lots of vitality and feel high on life, he or she would do well to gravitate towards a more life-sustaining diet, a more careful listening and affirming within, and more gratitude in one's heart—that is, the basics.
Taking various stimulants seems like a good shortcut to the inherent vitality and joy of life, but in the end they exhaust the body. Similarly, artificial stimulants injected into an economy seem to work at first, but ultimately they exhaust the economic body.
In both cases there is, in effect, a borrowing of energy from the future. And since reality is exquisitely balanced between all possible dualities—and must be so to exist—all deficits and imbalances must eventually be rebalanced in one way or another.
That is what a depression does. It removes the toxicities that have built up in the system. It's like going on a fast at a health ranch. Freed from the addictive stimulation of more and more money and credit, the economic body can gradually restore and renew itself. It can gradually lay a foundation for a healthy existence once more.
Second, you are better off having some awareness of the reality of a situation than not having it. If you are taking your child for a walk and you sense a danger, the child may be completely unaware of that danger, but as the parent, it is better that you are aware of the reality than not aware of it.
Humanity must now be a parent to itself. We must parent ourselves and the planet and inhabit our role as the parent. The time when humanity could afford to be the neglectful child is past. We can no longer despoil the environment, ignore the poor, or live on the future without expecting to pay a price for it.
If these words about finance and the economy are true, then there will be a great deal of fear in coming times. People will be experiencing a great deal of economic stress and emotional anxiety.
You have a role to play. If, at such a time, you have some sense of what is happening and have prepared yourself emotionally and financially, you can be a source of calm and stability among your family, friends and associates as society undergoes this constructive but stressful process.
(This is the end of Part 9. Go to Part 10.)
—jim sloman, 4.2.04 for Oct 4
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