Over time as we learn and grow new things are presented to us that many of us shun immediately due to it being seemingly unbelievable. I have found that the mind has a hard time of letting go of what it first learned. Apostle Ron Carpenter who was at the time the senior pastor of Redemption World Outreach Center (RWOC) in Greenville, SC was the first that I have ever heard to word it this way. I had delved into religion, history, and even politics but I had desired to go to a higher level of understanding human nature than just looking into one or a few topics. I began to notice that within politics when it came to government policy the policies themselves did not seem to align with the politics. I then noticed how in almost everything people did something different in practice from what their rhetoric was.
I chose to focus upon money in relation to human nature. Why focus so much on money? Money is what fuels our world, regional, and local economies. We utilize money[1] as a medium of exchange to trade for the goods and services that we not only desire but also according to what we can afford to trade it for.[2] I found that when it comes to money much of what many claim to believe and say that they do rarely aligns. Many make claims to honesty and virtue that their own individual decision making in no way validates. What is the lesson in this? Behavior above rhetoric. We tend to believe things about ourselves, or say that we do, that we continually do not for whatever reason practice.
Along the way the trail towards understanding the darker side of human nature would not escape my view. The brighter and darker sides of life exist in tandem and on many levels. People, in general are good and bad and we operate from either side based upon what is convenient and expedient at the time. We are not by default moral, kind, nice, courteous, considerate, loving, caring, nurturing, supportive, etc. Of course, there is nuance as there is in all things. Regardless, the real world is just that. It is real. And it is best to do what one can to understand this.
After reading the works of the likes of Edward L. Bernays,[3] and others, I had concluded that the managers of our society often utilize different methods in order to govern more effectively us the laypeople. Ideas are formed and belief systems are handed to us in order to better manage us on a psychological level. This began to make sense to manage people through their minds, though puzzled me at first due to what people said that they believed. I once believed that people did what they believe. I no longer hold this view. It would appear more accurate that people do what they know more so than what they believe. There are even differing versions of all things to include religion, even if it is the same, politics, etc. Why? Simple. People want to do what they want to do. And generally speaking, people believe that they are right and if they find that they are wrong and accept it then they will do something else.
For some time, I have been posting things on Twitter[4] that might appear strange. Why? It is very different from my three books. I was not planning on going down this road. I just wanted to understand how the world worked. Why did that idea ever come into my head? An entirely new world opened up to me. The more that I burrowed down this rabbit hole the more made sense. I have a long way to go. Just scratching the surface has caused me to awaken on levels that I was unaware was possible. This world is more than one thing. I have come to accept that this world is open for infinite possibilities. Some have told me that there are no accidents nor coincidences. I disagree. There are even unintended consequences. This exploration into another aspect of human nature has caused me to change my overall approach. Over time I will flesh out in detail and not so much philosophically my position. Stay tuned …
References
John Downes, J. E. (2010). Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms (Eighth ed.). Hauppauge: Barron’s Educational Series.
STAFF, I. (2020, October 4). Investopedia. Retrieved December 8, 2020
[1] MONEY legal tender as defined by a government and consisting of currency and coin. In a more general sense, money is synonymous with CASH, which includes negotiable instruments, such as checks, based on bank balances. (John Downes, 2010, p. 364)
[2] Money is an economic unit that functions as a generally recognized medium of exchange for transactional purposes in an economy. Money provides the service of reducing transaction cost, namely the double coincidence of wants. Money originates in the form of a commodity, having a physical property to be adopted by market participants as a medium of exchange. Money can be: market-determined, officially issued legal tender or fiat moneys, money substitutes and fiduciary media, and electronic cryptocurrencies. (STAFF, 2020)
[3] Propaganda, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, © 1928 Horace Liveright Inc., First Printing November 1928
A Traveler 