Never Under-estimate the Power of Influence

It must be something about growing old. When I was younger, as in when I was holding onto a career, raising a family and beginning to enjoy watching my family raise their family, I really didn’t take much time to think, consciously think, about influences and influencers around me. Silly me. The world works through influences and influencers. It’s called marketing.

It is patently obvious that we influence each other; it is just as obvious that news media influence us – and that we tend to lean towards the outlet that most closely reflects what we think of as our own views. That’s why some folks prefer to buy the Telegraph, or the Mail, or the Guardian, for example, or attend this or that church, or this or that club or association. That isn’t right or wrong. It’s just the way things are.  ‘By their fruits/friends shall you know them’ still holds true, thus reasserting that there is nothing new under the sun.

For many people, most people even, being influenced is a life-long experience. It seems to me that the experience isn’t necessarily good or bad either. It just is. As my mother would have put it: They (the being influenced people) are any way the wind blows or, they’ll change their minds with the weather. Loosely described, I’d call them ‘the followers’.   

All great (social) movements need followers. The question I ask is: How much do we really need great social movements? Or pack mentality? The people in history who we call ‘great’ were never members of the pack. They were leaders.

But there are others out there who I describe as ‘the students’. These are the people who question things and ideas with a view to gaining a better understanding of the world and its ways. From time to time they will hit on an idea, find others who share the idea and, for a time, become promoters – the movers and shakers of a generation. They will also come across those who oppose; those who closed their minds to alternative philosophies; those who become the fundamentalists – the people who assert in word and deed that ‘I am right and you are wrong’. Sometimes referred to as ‘bigots’.  (Bigot = a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief or opinion – www.dictionary.com ).

The true student, however, will continue to build his or her philosophy and belief system, and will usually stand aside from the followers. A bit like the idea of ‘come out from amongst them’, which history tells us can be a lonely experience.

The concepts fascinate me. Remind me to look up the meaning of 'delusional'.

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A couple of weeks ago I spent an evening with 30-or-so friends I hadn’t previously met. I call them that because we had come together in a social environment to talk about our shared concerns.  We could call it ‘brain storming’ in modern-speak.

We sat ‘in the round’ and the leader led by asking questions – always an excellent way of directing a conversation. It became apparent quickly that each one had a different experience to describe and differing views about how to react to it or deal with it.

There was frequent mention of ‘they’ – an indication of ‘them and us’ thinking, which is rarely helpful; and some mention of ‘we’ – which I thought was more helpful. After forty minutes or so I put a question to those I felt were speaking as if they are victims: ‘Are you a Sovereign Being?’ and ‘If you aren’t a Sovereign Being, how would you describe yourself instead?’ Silence.

An outspoken lady threw the question back to me: “What do you mean by Sovereign Being?”  Boom-boom. A dichotomy if ever there was one. (1) Do I answer and thereby take the focus from everyone else by cancelling my own question and thus place the focus on me instead, warts and all, to be argued with; or (2) Do I NOT answer because I was trying to control the conversation through questions? Or, maybe, (3) Did I really have any idea of what I was talking about?

I failed to answer, which isn’t the same as deciding not to answer, and the debate moved on without me for the next few minutes.

But the point I was trying to make was and is: I believe that we have an inbuilt ability, an inherent power, to establish for ourselves the parameters of what we will or will not accept. We DO NOT have to accept the decisions of others, no matter how well intentioned they seem to be, and no matter how legitimate they seem to be. Put this way, I see personal sovereignty (that of a Sovereign Being) in a light similar to personal responsibility. We can take it or not take it.

Maybe that’s what life is about. By and large, folks don’t want to accept personal responsibility; they don’t want to be accountable; they don’t want to be a Sovereign Being. They DO want to be cuddled and looked after and if it is the State offering the cuddles and looking after, so be it.

It seems to me that’s how we become the stooges of the state. In other words: the manipulated horde. WE are the units of production working for those who aspire to manage production rather than produce.

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A few thoughts now on the subject of money. I have here in my hand a pretty thing; a very pretty thing called a £20 note. To whom does it belong? I hear someone say: ‘You have it in your hand so it probably belongs to you.’ Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and all that. Ah.

It is true, isn’t it, that when we own something we tend to mark it in some way to identify it as ours? A signature or picture or something? QUESTION: Whose picture is on this £20-note? Not mine, I assure you.

All through life the representatives of the lady whose picture is on this note spend time in devising ways of parting me from it. They are aided and abetted by other people (known as political party representatives) who design regulations and statutes to ensure that, one way or another, I shall be parted from this £20 note. And when, finally, I fall off the perch I won’t be able to take with me any of these that I used to believe were mine. The faceless people in the institution that represents the lady on the note will do all in their power to take back from me and mine the piece of paper described as a £20 note, to return it to its owner – the institution. I and mine just had use of it for a while. They don’t teach that in school, do they? I wonder why?

When my labour isn’t sufficient to provide me with the number of £20 notes needed to make it possible for me to exchange them for something else of value – a car or a house, for example – What then? Easy peasy. The friends of the institution will arrange something called debt. It is there for the asking.  But it isn’t real £20 note money.  It is simply debt described as credit. It is nothing more than a line of numbers in a balance sheet or in a computer that have been created solely for the purpose of creating debt. And to add insult to injury it is debt with interest. In the olden day it was known as usury. And this goes on minute by minute in what we describe as ‘the real world.’

(Usury [N] [S] - the sum paid for the use of money, hence interest; not, as in the modern sense, exorbitant interest. Judaism forbids to exact usury ( Leviticus 25:36 Leviticus 25:37 ), only, however, in their dealings with each other (Deuteronomy 23:19 Deuteronomy 23:20). The violation of this law was viewed as a great crime.

Islam also forbids usury but the modern adherent often disguises it as ‘administrative fees’.

Does this mean that modern bankers are criminals and are the institutions they support also criminal? You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Something to think about – hey?

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Then There was Bobby Thompson 

Bobby Thompson,

known  as the Little Waster

Bobby Thompson was a comedian barely known outside County Durham, in England's north-east, mainly because his accent on stage was so broad it was virtually unintelligible to anyone who didn't hail from those parts. Thus, his humour didn't travel very well or very far.

From the stage he shared his wisdom with those who had ears to hear - and many in the working men's clubs in that area had ears to hear, and laughed.

"Now, that's the thing aboot debt. Some calls it debt, ya see, and then there's them what calls it credit. Committee mens' wives, 'on account'. Well, am in debt on account of not being able to pay me credit!"

Have you a better description?

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Cause no harm

Be honest

Be peaceful