It is unknown when publishing will begin again.

I hope that in the meantime, my readers will continue to do everything they can to uproot the conservative Myths and the downright stupid notions that are preventing the nation, and indeed the world, from becoming a decent home for decent human beings.

Before I go, I just want to point at the very epitome of stupid conservatism: the Charlie Rose interview with Joe Scarborough and Paul Krugman that everyone is talking about this morning. 

Joe Scarborough knows nothing about economics that isn't a conservative talking point—which is to say, nothing that isn't riddled with the conservative Major Myths we have been denouncing for the past four months. Paul Krugman, on the other hand, has a Nobel Prize in economics.

Stupid, loudmouthed conservatives just love to shout down people who really know what they are talking about. Scarborough would have talked non-stop the whole show if he could have. And when Krugman tries to get in a point about the stupidity of what Scarborough is saying, Scarborough gets all huffy, and pretends that Krugman is the ill-manned one.

The substance? Scarborough: Austerity. Krugman: Investment.

Any business person worth his or her salt knows that the best time to make strategic investment is when the borrowing costs are low. Debt can be managed, even leveraged to make more money in the long run.

But Republicans like Scarborough see only the debt. They have no creative vision, only a simple-minded power of negative extrapolation that looks for disasters just over the horizon.

We cannot afford to listen to people with tiny imaginations any longer. It's killing us as a nation, and the entire human race as well.

Please, readers, become creators, and create the way out of the mess that the Major Myths and their conservative acolytes have brought us to.

Best wishes for the future of the New Vision,

Alfred George

Each day, we will take up a current intractable problem in American society and show how it is caused and sustained by the Major Myths of Conservatism.

As will become clear, the underlying perspective from which all these posts are generated is a decided viewpoint on the nature of so-called Conservatism:

Conservatism is not a legitimate world view that can be tolerated by people of good faith; it is a twisted network of ideas, all ultimately motivated by fear and selfishness, that harms everyone it reaches—even those who believe it.

Or, to put it more succinctly, Conservatism is unethical and immoral.

Each day, we will show how our most intractable problems are caused and sustained by conservatives acting on unethical and immoral “principles” based on fear and selfishness.

As we go through the issues day by day, it will become clearer and clearer how the Major Myths of Conservatism are making life more and more intolerable. I hope that the clarity generated by these posts will inspire more and more people to take action to minimize or eliminate the influence of the Major Myths in the world, and to remove those who believe them from positions of power.

Today we will discuss the “Sequester”—that utterly asinine collection of forced budget cuts taking effect today in Washington.

HOW THE “SEQUESTER” WAS CAUSED, AND IS SUSTAINED, BY IMMORAL CONSERVATISM

Washington is currently abuzz with charges flying back and forth about who is to blame for the “Sequester,” which, at least for now, all parties are calling a foolish crisis that should never have happened. Bob Woodward has recently claimed that the White House came down hard on him over his opinion that the Sequester was the brainchild of President Obama, who is going back on a deal he made with Republicans in 2011 that the Sequester would contain no tax revenue. As would be expected, the conservative media has played this up as a “revelation” showing the President’s mendacity.

Woodward is wrong, of course, about the history. This article in today’s Washington Post discusses why the White House never agreed to take tax revenue off the table in any negotiations.

But the reason why this little fracas even has any relevance is that each side is trying to blame the other for the Sequester just in case any untoward consequences follow from it. And in this matter, there is no doubt which side is responsible. As is almost always the case when terrible ideas grip American politics, the source is Conservatism and its “principles”—namely, the Major Myths that infect all conservative thinking.

Whether the idea of the stupid across-the-board tax cuts came from Obama or not, it was the result of complete Republican intransigence about raising taxes. Having gained a majority in the House in 2010, the Republicans took this as a mandate to blackmail the American people into continuing to support their ridiculous policy of never raising taxes. And this despite the absolute shambles that their policies had made of the nation’s economy during the Bush regime, which both cut taxes unnecessarily and spent wildly.

Now the Republican mania for tax cutting comes from their uncritical belief in the Myth of Capitalism, which tells them that all economic activity ought to be free from government restraint of any kind. After all, they imagine, what is liberty once it is hedged in? Of course, they also scream for government protection from the inevitable bad consequences of not having government restraints on any individual actions that might disadvantage them. As is customary with conservatives, they don’t see their own contradictory behavior as being contradictory, nor do they see their own hypocrisy.

As we pointed out long ago, the Myth of Capitalism is also bound up with the Myth of Self-interest and the Myth of Competition, both of which are ultimately rooted in the fear of shortages and of other people. This is even more ironic: the “freedom” that conservatives want in their unrestrained capitalism contradicts the very essence of capitalism, which requires government oversight to prevent the selfishness and unethical competitive practices that will inevitably arise if people pursue economic activities without restraint.

This pattern of self-contradiction inhabits all of conservative thought. Ultimately, it comes from the conflict between unethical and immoral principles (e.g., the immorality of the selfishness underlying the Myth of Self-interest, or the unethically mindless contention underlying the Myth of Competition) and the psychological need to regard oneself as decent. This gives rise to the characteristic personality traits of conservatives. Because they know deep down that they live according to unjustifiable principles, they must project self-justification at all times. Hence they become arrogant, preachy, holier-than-thou, and completely uncompromising.

The Sequester is the offspring of the uncompromising stance that conservatives have taken regarding their fatuous “principle” that taxes are always bad and must only be cut, never raised. No political opinion has been demonstrated to be wrong more conclusively. Raising taxes does not lead to economic stagnation. (See the 1990s.) Lowering taxes does not lead to economic boom times. (See the 2000s.) And austerity does not lead to solvency. (See Europe now.)

Yet we are still dealing with the consequences of Republican intransigence. Their rebuke at the polls in 2008, their rebuke by the world finance community after their attempt to prevent the debt ceiling from being raised in 2011, their even greater rebuke at the polls in 2012—none of this registers with them. They continue to insist that taxes never be raised, and that the only path they will allow the American people to take is the path of extreme austerity. And this despite the wealth of poll data that shows a substantial portion of the American people against nearly all their policies.

This sort of unethical and immoral behavior—and it just cannot be called anything else when the people’s representatives insist on shoving demonstrably false policies down the throats of the people who have voted agains them and continue to voice their opposition to them—this sort of behavior is what can be expected from those who believe unethical and immoral Myths grounded ultimately in selfishness and fear.

As long as nothing can be done to remove these people from office altogether, or at least to whittle their number down to an ineffective minority, America will continue to waste her resources and deprive her children of the future they deserve.

What is called conservatism today is the perversion of politics and the vector of the disease of selfishness. Those of us who are still free of disease must eradicate it before it infects everything that is good and true.

Next we will tackle the problem of guns, and show that immoral conservative Myths are all that stands between us and a much less violent society.

Until Monday, then.

Now, having completed our survey of the Major Myths, we are about to embark on a new series of posts that will focus on pressing current events, in which we will demonstrate how nearly every problem that confronts America is rooted in the Major Myths, and exacerbated by the intransigence of conservatives, who refuse to let go of their disastrous fear-driven beliefs.

The fundamental insight that animates the posts that will follow is something that I have mentioned before, but may have gone unnoticed because the focus was on other things. It is this:

Conservatism is not a legitimate world view that deserved to be tolerated by people of good will. It is an unethical and immoral ideology of selfishness that does harm to everyone—even to those who believe it.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be traced back to conservatism, and that cannot be fixed by refusing to accept the Major Myths that support conservatism.

Starting tomorrow, then, we will be addressing a current, pressing American problem. We will show how that problem is caused by conservatism, and we will identify the Major Myths behind the problem.

And we will begin with tomorrow's most pressing American problem: the "sequester"—the horrible and stupid across-the-board budget cuts that Congress cooked up to force themselves to do something about the debt and the deficit, because it would be too stupid to be allowed to take effect. As everyone knows, Congress failed to do anything, and now the cuts will be going into place tomorrow.

We will show why the "sequester" is the fault of conservatives, we will point up which of the Major Myths are at the bottom of it all, and we will demonstrate why it is unethical and immoral, like all conservative beliefs.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will complete our whole study of the Major Myths, the devastation they create, and the need to be released from their soul-numbing delusions by discussing what happens when the cyclical flow between Creativity and Freedom is broken. And we draw our final conclusion from the common human desire that this cycle continue in perpetuity.

The Creativity-Freedom Cycle and Getting Back the Future

As we said yesterday, Creativity and Freedom are linked together in virtuous cycle of mutual reinforcement. As long as we can keep the cycle going, we continue to learn how to create more effectively, and we continue to grow more free.

If we stop creating, however, the cycle is broken. Debility, degeneration, and death is the result. We’ve all heard the story about the guy who went to work at the factory stamping out molds every day for fifty years. Then he retires and within a month he is dead. Why do such things happen? There are surely many reasons, but one of them may be that the only thing he ever created in his life were those damned molds, and that once that creative activity was gone from his life, his spirit could not carry on without the daily regenerative shot of bringing something, even something so trivial, into the world.

This is certainly not the way any of us want to live. But most of us don’t seem to know that the answer is to maximize our ability to create. Instead of just stamping out molds as your sole creative activity in life, try to live your life so as to be engaged in many creative projects all the time. Then you won’t ever face the bleakness of a life without creativity in it, because you will be a creative dynamo no matter what happens in the external world.

Ultimately, this series of posts has not been just about releasing the hold of the Major Myths on society, and not just about young people getting their future back from the older generation who has been brainwashed to believe the Myths. They have really been about developing the ability in young people to create their own lives, together with an ability to help everyone else do the same. The New Vision is what the world will look like after the young generation has created the new outlook that will push the Myths aside. As an old-timer, I cannot see very clearly what the details of that world will look like. But if the roots of the New Vision are planted anywhere near the notions outlined in this book, the New World will be a place where everyone will have the chance to give birth in freedom to whatever he or she is capable of bringing into the world.

I, for one, cannot imagine a more satisfying life. And the young generation, who was brought here by the older generation, deserve to have that satisfaction, even if their parents have forgotten that it even exists. So let’s get to work.

Now we begin a new series of posts. For the foreseeable future, our daily posts will be highlighting the immorality of Conservatism. As we will say tomorrow, it has been assumed for far too long that Conservatism is a justifiable world view that has something constructive to contribute to human society.

The truth is that Conservatism has almost nothing at all to contribute to society. And this is not just because it is mistaken. Beginning tomorrow we will see that it Conservatism is culpably ignorant—which is to say, immoral—in all its beliefs and prescriptions for human life.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today, we forge the connection between realizing your inner Freedom and becoming a creator. The exercise of Creativity is the key to opening up the natural Freedom that you already possess.

How Creativity Releases Freedom

A reliable indicator of inner limitation is your inability to bring about what you imagine. If you find yourself imagining all sort of new experiences in your life but they never come to pass, then you have a limitation that is preventing you from realizing those experiences. This is no esoteric principle. It’s just common sense. For instance, you imagine playing a wonderful piano recital to a sold-out house that gives you one standing ovation after another, but you cannot bring it about because you don’t know how to play the piano. That is a pretty clear limitation in you that you won't be able to change without a serious amount of work.

The same principle applies to every aim that you can imagine, even it there are external limitations as well. If you imagine living in a new house but it never comes to pass, this points to an inner limitation that is preventing you from getting that house. Yes, there may be a lack of suitable housing, the mortgage market may be tight, and there may be other external limitations. But this means that you don’t have the inner resources to know how to push aside the external limitations and get to your goal. Whatever you want to have, do, or be—the ultimate cause for not possessing the goal is some internal limitation that is preventing you from attaining it.

Creative ability correlates with inner freedom. The fewer your internal limitations, the more you can create in the world. And the more you can create in the world, the fewer are your internal limitations. The inner fires are stoked by actually creating. This reciprocal relationship between the freedom of your inner life and the fecundity of your creative ability is the key to understanding why you must become a creator.

As you leave your limitations behind, as you step away from the Myths, you will become freer internally. This will manifest itself by an increased ability to create things in the external world. By taking the opportunity to actually create the things you now are able to create, you rejuvenate your spirit for the task of freeing you from more internal limitations. This self-regenerating cycle keeps you young, powerfully creative, and as free as a human being can be.

Tomorrow we will conclude this series with a post that will sum up everything that we have said since November 7, 2012 about the disease that is Conservatism and the cure that is Creativity.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will begin a three-day consideration of the most important question of all—How should you spend your life?—and try to show that you must, if you want to get the most out of life, be a creator.

Freedom, Creativity, and Life

As we have said umpteen times, all the Major Myths are based on Fear. The more you believe the Myths, the more Fear rules your life. And conversely, the Myths only seem attractive to you to the extent that you are a fearful person.

As we have seen, Fear limits you in all sorts of ways. But the most important way in which Fear limits you is that it stands in the way of your creating both what you want in life and what would be best for everyone. The more you leave Fear behind, the more creative you can be. And the more you displace the Myths from your thinking and from the thinking of those around you, the more creative the world will be.

The secret of your participation in the New Vision, which will eventually replace the Myths altogether, is for you to create new things that can be seen to exist outside the limitations of the Myths. As the number of such things in the world grows, as people begin to see the novelty, the utility, and the beauty in those things, the Myths will be pushed off to the side as a wake glides away from an advancing ship. Eventually they will recede into the stream of time, never to oppress anyone again.

Now we are finally in a position to answer, as a summary of all we have learned, what is probably the most important question that can be asked about living a full life: Why must you become a creator? We will do so over the next three days.

The first thing we want to note, and the last thing we will remark on today, is the true nature of Freedom. True Freedom is not immunity from external forces that interfere with your will. True Freedom is liberty from internal limitations. The ancient Stoics taught that, to whatever extent others may threaten your possessions, your body, and even your life, they can never reach your spirit unless you allow it. Therefore, you are already free. To realize that Freedom you need only let go of the Myths that keep you fearful and limit you to only a few of the innumerable potentials that are available to you.

Tomorrow we will show how you can make the Freedom you already possess manifest in your life by becoming a creator.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will discuss briefly how being in touch with the tribe will promote the New Vision needed to remove conservative influences from society.

Promoting the goals of the GIB tribe

Staying connected to the tribe will be a constant source of inspiration and ideas for spreading the goals of the tribe. Discussing your ideas with your personal friends, with the tribe members, and with anyone you happen to meet who seems receptive will also go far to disseminate the message of GIB and add members to the tribe. So if you are a good communicator you will certainly have plenty of opportunities to broadcast the tribe’s aims and its philosophy.

But this in itself is not enough. Since one of the main tenets of the New Vision is creative freedom, the message alone—even if it is promoted creatively—is not enough to engender trust in those who need to hear it. In order to promote the tribe’s goals persuasively, you must actively create things that help everyone to live a life that is internally free from fear and limitation. It is only by creating new, useful, and beautiful things that you can encourage others to make more new, useful, and beautiful things. Creating, you inspire others to create.

Communicate and create. Keep up those two activities, and the New Vision will arise as if of its own accord.

Until Monday, then.

Today, we post just a short note about how to connect with the tribe.

Connecting with the GIB Tribe

If you want to become a member of the tribe and stay connected to it, the current starting point is The Get It Back Tribe on Facebook. As the site grows, you will be able to signup there and link to your other favorite social networks. You will also find brief bits of information about the tribe, and, once people get it started, an ongoing conversation by members about their ideas, suggestions, projects, reflections, and conversations generally concerning how to co-create the New Vision.

You can also start your own node by inviting your social-network friends to communicate both with The Get It Back Tribe on Facebook and with you personally about your ideas and their ideas. If everyone who believes in the rightness of creating the New Vision joins the tribe through Facebook and generates a small node of friends independently, there will soon be millions of young people showering creative energy on the tribe’s goals. If each of them devotes just ten to fifteen minutes a day creating parts of the New Vision, that could amount to millions of person-hours each and every day!

This is kind of connected power we need to bring to the tribe’s work in order to turn around the mess that my generation has made of things.

Tomorrow we will discuss what you can do to promote the ideals of the GIB tribe.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today, we discuss whether the GIB tribe has any resources that its members can use.

Does the GIB tribe have any resources?

Since the GIB tribe is just beginning, it has no financial resources piled up. It is not a business, nor should it become a business in the immediate future. Businesses are too enmeshed with the Myths to be the primary engine of the New Vision. But there are signs that business too is trying to free itself from the limitations of the Myths, so it may be that a type of business springs up that is not limited by Myth-based fears, a business that can helpfully promote the New Vision. Perhaps some of the members of the tribe will have the talents and personal resources to create this new sort of business to help spread the vision.

Although the tribe has no financial resources, however, it does have a nearly bottomless fund of human potential to draw from. The more people who join, who devote some portion of their day to the goals of the tribe, the greater its resources become. Once the tribe has become a networked presence, then any member can throw out ideas and any other member can contribute whatever talents and resources he or she might have to the execution of those ideas.

And, as was mentioned some weeks ago while we were discussing the Myth of Capitalism, the only limit on the collective resources of human beings is the total amount of work they and their machines can do. That upper limit is continuously being raised each and every day. You need to use some of that nearly infinite potential to get your future back.

Tomorrow, we will indicate how you can connect with the GIB tribe, and begin to be a participant in designing the New Vision for a future that heals the wounds inflicted by my generation and opens itself up to your most creative dreams.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today, we try to answer the question, How long will the GIB tribe last?

How long will the GIB tribe continue to exist?

The tribe will continue to exist until human beings grow out of their need for it. That is, it will continue until everyone pretty much accepts the New Vision that makes all conservative Myths evaporate into the mists of history. Or, to look at it from the perspective of the Myths: it will exist until pretty much everyone has given up on the Myths. At that point, hardly anyone will be outside the tribe, so it will cease to be a tribe. The New Vision will have become nearly universal, except for the small group that cannot adapt and evolve. But that group will no longer have the numbers to impose Myth-based thinking on the rest of humanity.

Since, however, the Myths are deeply entwined with human fear, insecurity, and self-protection, it will be a long time before there is virtually no one outside the tribe. Although processes like this can take some time, you should not let it discourage you if this process moves slowly. This sort of gradual motion is one of the two ways in which human beings develop and grow. An new idea springs up, some people adopt it, spread it, and pass it on to their children. Over time, the idea becomes the new norm. This is, in fact, how the Major Myths became the dominant perspective all over the world. It is also how democratic self-government, the abolition of slavery, and civil rights became the dominant paradigm.

On the other hand, once a tipping point is reached, sometimes these movements can happen quite quickly. I believe that we are quite near a tipping point, and that growing the GIB tribe may well be the event that pushes us over it. Of course, you can’t count on that. So it is best to prepare for the long haul, expecting the work of the tribe to continue for several generations. Then, if it suddenly takes off and moves to its end quickly, we’ll all be wonderfully surprised.

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the tribe’s resources.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we discuss the sort of person who belongs in the GIB tribe.

The members of the GIB tribe are diverse; they come from all racial, socioeconomic, ideological, and social groups. What all its members have in common, though, is this: they realize that the last generation has stolen the future of today’s young people, and they understand something must be done to restore their future to them.

Of course, it only makes sense that the majority of the tribe will be made up of those most directly affected by the theft, namely, people under thirty, whatever their other characteristics might be. But there will also be older people like me, who see clearly what is facing our children and grandchildren, feel terrible about our role in creating it, and want to help in any way we can to atone for our generation’s greed and selfishness.

The GIB tribe will not include the Mythers, quite obviously, since their fear-based thinking is antithetical to the creative drive at the heart of the New Vision. They will not be inclined to join the tribe. Indeed, they will become increasingly hostile to it as it begins to grow, and as their world view becomes increasingly irrelevant.

Tomorrow we will look at the future of the GIB tribe, and in particular the answer to the question, How long will the GIB tribe continue to exist?

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we answer the question whether the work of the GIB tribe—namely, bringing and end to the baleful influence of Conservatism—can ever really be finished.

Will the work of the GIB tribe ever be done?

In one sense, the work of the GIB tribe will never come to an end. The pushing aside of Myth-based thinking will be a necessity as long as human beings continue to be susceptible to the irrational impulses of fear. This means that even after breaking the chains of the Myths, the GIB tribe will have to be combatting recurrences of the old fear-based behavior. It is hard to see that the fear responses in human beings will ever fade entirely, so it seems that the tribe’s work will never  be done.

On the other hand, if human beings were to evolve beyond the need for irrational fear, then the Myths would disappear altogether, as morning fog dissipates in the heat of the rising sun. Under those circumstances, the tribe would no longer be a tribe, since everyone would belong to it. How can a non-existent tribe have any work to do?

Today we will discuss how the GIB tribe can help you to do the work that represents your special contribution to the world.

Being part of the GIB tribe can help you to do the work

Being part of the tribe can help you do the work best suited to you in many ways.

First of all, you will find a shared commitment to the same goal among members of the tribe, who will likely spur you on to greater creativity by encouraging your work and giving you ideas for improvement.

Second, being a member of the tribe may inspire you to turn the work of your life in part, or entirely, toward the aims of the tribe. This may give you all sorts of new ideas for using your particular talents in ways that you had not previously imagined.

Third, the other members of the tribe can collaborate with you on your projects, if your work is susceptible to collaboration. This can multiply your voice and your output exponentially. Imagine having who knows how many extra hands, hearts, and minds available to you for a few minutes a day! How much more could you generate than you do now?

Fourth, you may meet people whose own work aligns with yours and form symbiotic relationships. Such connections can be a real shot in the arm for creative people. One person’s idea sparks a responsive idea from the other, which in turn reignites the first person’s thinking, and so on, in a long stream of productive output.

These are just a few benefits that can accrue to the work that is most satisfying for you. I’m sure you will be able to think of many others on your own.

Tomorrow, we will answer the question, Can the work of the the GIB tribe ever be finished?

Until tomorrow, then.

Today, we begin to discuss the specific action of the GIB (Get It Back) Tribe: how it is dedicated to breaking the hold of the Major Myths of Conservatism and set the nation on a course that is aligned with the future, rather than dead set against it.

How the GIB tribe will shrink the influence of the Major Myths

If you want to see a world that will be welcoming to your dreams and to your children’s aspirations, then you will want to join the GIB tribe—because one of its principal aims is to break the hold of the Major Myths of Conservatism and create a New Vision that is free of the curse of fear and open to the infinite potential of human creativity.

The GIB tribe is dedicated to bringing this New Vision into being, an activity that is in itself creative, positive, and empowering. As the New Vision comes into being, the old vision, the fear-based, uncreative view of a world filled with danger, competition, and evil, will begin to vanish—not by conflict or conquest, but simply because the benefits of the New Vision will spread with the growth of the tribe, leaving the old vision little sustenance.

Now the Major Myths of Conservatism may prove impossible to eradicate, since the fear they live on seems hard-wired into human beings. But the GIB Tribe aims to shrink the habitat of the Mythers, until they resemble a species permanently on the verge of extinction: a few examples of it may always be around, but it doesn’t have the vitality to increase its numbers or expand its territory.

Tomorrow, we will explore the way in which the GIB Tribe can help you to do the work that is most suited to be your contribution to the world.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we just want to make a tiny remark about the way in which belonging to tribe assists your efforts to become a creator.

How a tribe helps you to be a creator

Having tribe members as partners in thinking and imagining is an inexhaustible fund of new material for you to work with.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will see how a tribe can make your individual voice exponentially louder.

How a tribe magnifies your voice

As part of a tribe’s internal conversation, an individual’s ideas and creative output will be taken up by the others and projected outward as the collective voice of the tribe makes itself felt, both in the virtual world and in the actual world.

This solves the age-old difficulty that discourages many from taking the creator’s path: the world’s lack of interest in the work of the creator. How many profound creations have be lost in the din of history, never to have an impact on anyone simply because they were never noticed? In the common efforts of the tribe, however, creative output is gathered up immediately into the ongoing conversation and collaboration. You start making a difference as soon as you start sharing with the tribe.

It is also true, of course, that a creator needs solitude. Every creative person needs time and quiet to do the work. The writer or the theoretical scientist has to be alone with his thoughts and imagination for the words to pour forth. The inventor has to be alone in his lab trying things out. The individual who wants to create a balanced and worthwhile life needs to be alone to figure out the fairest distribution of responsibility and freedom in their daily activities.

But the product of your creativity, once shared with the tribe, immediately gains comment and begins to circulate through the thoughts of the other members. After all, the entire group belongs together because they share the same interest. So naturally, anything that addresses that interest in any way is going to be taken up and spread throughout the tribe.

And this is the way your voice gets magnified. When the tribe speaks to outsiders, it will speak with a voice is that partly yours, since you have helped to shape the tribe’s attitudes through your creative work. But it will also be a voice that is much louder and more conspicuous than yours alone.

Today we will treat the topic of joining a tribe such as the GIB Tribe.

What does it mean to join a tribe?

Seth Godin, the author who has written so much about the work, has also written extensively on the concept of the tribe. See, for instance, his little book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (New York: Penguin, 2008). A tribe, as he sees it, is a group of people who connect over a particular interest or way of viewing  things. Joining a tribe indicates both that you stand for something and that you want to align yourself with others to promote what you stand for.

A tribe is a group of people who share a common viewpoint, or see a common problem they want to solve, or imagine a common object they want to create, or participate in a common enthusiasm they want to deepen. They discover one another through social media or other virtual forms of communication, then coalesce into a “node” of activity related to their interest. Finally, they connect to other similar nodes that have coalesced around the problem or interest, either in reaction to the forming of the first node or independently.

The tribe is an exclusive entity: there are people in it and people out of it. In the case of the GIB tribe, the people potentially in it are young people who need to reclaim the potential for growth and creative living that has been stolen from them by the previous generation, together with older people who are capable of seeing the plight they have visited on their children and grandchildren. The people outside the tribe are Mythers, people of all ages whose world view is dominated by the fears that animate the Major Myths.

The tribe lives by keeping the fire at the heart of the group burning brightly, while at the same time handing off a bit of the flame to other groups that want to circle around the same fire. Around these fires, the members find warmth, companionship, intellectual stimulation, and creative encouragement by interacting with the ideas of others. And they develop a collective voice with which to speak to those who do not belong to the tribe.

On Monday we will explain how belonging to a tribe can magnify your voice.

Until Monday, then.

But we also found that society as it is now constituted neither makes it easy for people to find the work that is their own nor makes it pleasant to do the work that is their own.

Today we begin to talk about how you can join together with others to change the world so that society will not only value the work that is each individual’s special contribution, but will also encourage everyone to find and do the work that is their own. The discussion begins by introducing the notion of “distributed power.”

What is distributed power?

Jeremy Rifkin has coined the term “distributed power” to describe far-flung, non-hierarchical networks of creative synergy that are emerging all over the world. His book The Third Industrial Revolution describes how “nodes” of interest are popping up everywhere to solve problems. Then, once they are up and running, they connect both literally and figuratively with another node working on the same problem. (Jeremy Rifkin, The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011].) Each successive node incorporates the successes of the previous ones, but adds new creative solutions of its own. As the network spreads, the replication time speeds up. The whole process is like the growth of a crystal, spreading in all directions and building on the structure that has already been laid down

This is what the Get It Back (GIB) tribe is aiming at. We need nodes of young people all over the country working on the political strategy, connecting to other nodes, spreading the strategy throughout the under-thirty population. (We explained some time ago that the older generation is too mired in the Major Myths of Conservatism to be a principal mover in breaking free of them. This does not mean that there are no oldsters at all who will be helpful, just that youngsters will have to provide most of the energy.)

And it’s not just the political strategy that needs this sort of networked transformation. This kind of creative evolution needs to be applied to a massive effort of replacing conservative Mythers everywhere in society, with the goal of moving the world away from Myth-based fears and toward a New Vision of expanding creative projects among more and more people—as far as we can see into the future.

Tomorrow we will discuss what it means to join a tribe.

Until tomorrow, then.

Many people seem to believe, however, that what we’ve described is some sort of dreaming that can never happen in reality. They think people who talk this way are imagining some sort of non-existent utopia in which everyone achieves all their dreams.

Today we refute this objection, and reveal the true nature of the world as it could be.

Doing the work does not imply utopian fantasies

Nothing we’ve said about doing the work that is most suited to you implies any sort of utopian dream. People of the older generation seem to object almost reflexively. “It just isn’t possible that everyone could be able to do the work that really belongs to them instead of making a living.” Who said anything about not making a living? The suggestion is only that people should make a space in their lives for doing the work, along with their other areas of responsibility. If they find after a time that they want to shift some of their time from other areas to doing the work, they need to rebalance their lives. But no one should imagine that this suggestion is an excuse for shirking responsibilities.

Americans will begin to see the possibility of doing the work when they can see through the Myth-induced prejudice that a responsible person needs to labor excessively just to make enough money to survive. There is no necessity to have so many people toiling all their waking hours at making a living. We could decide that society needs everyone to have some time for doing the work, because their creative activity is far more beneficial to society than any labor than can be remunerated by mere cash. And we could, if we wished, make it a responsibility for every citizen to do some of the necessary chores of society, so that they do their fair share of the work that society needs to get everything done.

If doing the work seems like a worthwhile way to spend part of your life energy, and if you agree that the current state of society doesn’t afford most people the chance to do the work, then you are going to want to play a role in changing the current state of society into a future state that embraces doing the work.

Starting tomorrow, we will begin to discuss a way of joining with others to move the world toward a new future, a future in which more and more people get to do the work, and in which the creative activity of all these people changes society’s fundamental orientation from fearful reactivity to fearless creativity.

Today, we discuss a problem that many people have when they first hear about finding the work that is their unique role in life: they wonder how good the work has to be, and often this stops them from even trying to find it, because they are afraid they will not measure up to some abstract standard. Let’s attack that question right now.

Some people wonder whether the work has to attain the level of genius in order to make an impact. Again, this concern arises from the influence of the Myths. Everything that is created in freedom is in some sense genius, even it only serves to make you a better creator, and even if no one else notices what has happened to you.

Perhaps these people are more concerned about achieving notoriety than in doing the work. If you crave notoriety, you are probably not doing the work. Being noticed is not creative, unless you are creating a personality in order to be noticed. And then the work is acting, which you should probably get on with instead of trying to make yourself noticeable.

If you are a good enough actor, you will be noticed by someone. Even if you never become a star, there is a good chance that one of your performances touched someone somewhere and made his or her life better, more beautiful. And that sort of influence on the world is what flows from the work that is truly yours, whether or not you are aware of it.

You don’t really need appreciation in order to know you are doing good. If you are working hard at the work, then you will be doing good. It’s almost the definition of doing good. And by a strange law of reciprocation that seems to exist in the universe, appreciation will begin to come anyway—almost as soon as you no longer need it.

Tomorrow we will investigate whether the work implies utopian fantasies that are unrealizable.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today, we discuss the most important aspect of the work: is it possible for the work to change the world?

Can the work transform the world?

It is all very well, some may say, for people to pursue their passions, but what is it about the work that can make the world a better place than it is now? The answer to the question is simply—everything.

If the work for you involves erasing even the minutest portion of the image that has been etched in place by the Major Myths, then you are helping to build a world in which more and more people can do the work that is their own creative contribution to humanity. This alone is a revolution in human activity.

Recall that until a short time ago, most people made their way in the world as the slaves, servants, lackeys, or dependents of the wealthy and the powerful. Of these people, servants suffered the least, generally speaking, inasmuch as they received a habitation, a wage in some cases, and, in particularly good circumstances, some consideration for their wellbeing from the masters to whom they devoted their lives.

In nineteenth-century America, as we began to eliminate slavery, we also pioneered a new system of labor that included social mobility. It was a sort of capitalism, but not the unrestrained, heedless free-marketeerism that dominated much of the twentieth century. It was a restrained capitalism, in which the capitalist moderated his expectations of immediate profit in order to pay his workers enough for them to put some money aside and become capitalists themselves.

Why would capitalists forego extra profit by paying workers more than the bare minimum they can obtain?

For two reasons. First, so that workers can afford to purchase some of the products being made by capitalists! There are many more workers than capitalists, so if you rely only on capitalists to purchase your products, you are limiting your customer base unnecessarily. And if you yourself can enlarge your customer base just by foregoing some short-term profit—it’s pretty much a no-brainer.

The second reason for paying high wages was so that the worker could eventually become a capitalist himself, and possibly help his erstwhile boss to grow both businesses. Why cut off a source of potential creativity by not giving it the resources to grow? There might be an unknown number of new businesses or spinoffs in the creative ideas of the workers, but if they never have the means of realizing those ideas, how can they benefit anyone? If the original capitalist was decent in his relations with his workers, and if he encouraged talent and welcomed new ideas, he wouldn’t have to worry much about competition from a worker-turned-capitalist, because he would have cultivated a friend as well as a new capitalist by his friendly and supportive behavior.

This digression on nineteenth-century high-wage capitalism just shows how powerful the Myths are. They can even block out a way of seeing things that had once existed and thrived. So, by chipping away at the edifice locked down by the Myths, you would be joining with millions of other people to remove the blinders, to open up new ways of relating to one another. In the nineteenth century, we created a new system, based not on servitude, but on restrained capitalism. In the twentieth century, the restraints came off capitalism, and the Myths projected this unrestrained capitalism as a highly regarded virtue. It doesn’t have to be this way; it wasn’t that way once; it could easily stop being that way now. And you can help by doing the work that comes from your true self, your creative core.

Tomorrow we will address the question of whether you need to be a genius of some king to have the work you do make a difference.

Until tomorrow, then.

Does the work have a time limit?

People often ask, “How long do I have to keep doing the work?” This question arises from a misunderstanding based on the notion that work of any kind is drudgery, and that work stops when a goal is attained.

First of all, the work is not drudgery. The work is the activity that is at the center of your life. You would do it all the time if you didn’t have to eat, sleep, maintain your health, maintain your relationships, and exchange your labor for a paycheck. It makes no sense to think of the work as something you want to put behind you. Anything of that sort is not the work, since it is nowhere near the center of your being.

Second, the work doesn’t ever stop, no matter how many goals you attain. Can you ever create enough beauty? Can you ever create enough usefulness? Can you ever create enough art, music, philosophy, and the like? Can you ever stop becoming better—that is, more creative? The work is your default activity, what you go back to doing automatically when the other things you must do are done. Work that stops when the goal is attained is an obligation. The work never stops—and you wouldn’t want it to.

Until Monday, then.

Today we will see that the work always produces results that matter—even if they are not what we expect to happen, and therefore appear to us as not mattering.

Does the work have to “matter”?

Many people worry about whether the work that is best for them will “matter,” that is, will make a big difference in the world. This concern derives in part from a misunderstanding of reality promoted by the Myths.

If the world is a place of competition and conflict, in which struggle is required in order to get one’s own selfish way, then of course it makes sense that you will see your life in the context of fighting with others for everything—including recognition, influence, and admiration from others. But if the world is not really that way—what then? How do we see our life activities if cooperation rather than competition is the fundamental reality? If sharing our talents rather than hoarding them is the basis of daily life?

We don’t really know what the world will look like to people who have left the Myths behind, but we can make some educated guesses simply by saying what it won’t look like. And what it won’t look like is what it looks like today.

It will be (and actually is already) impossible for the work NOT to matter. The work is creative, useful, and beautiful. Even if the products of that work do nothing but help you to become a better person in any aspect of life, it will have added that much more to the store of the world’s joy. And that alone is worth doing, even if no one else notices.

But other people will notice. How could they not? As you send more creative ideas into the world, as you send more beautiful and helpful things out, how could people refuse to be attracted to someone who continues to shower them with little (or big) shining stars during their daily life?

Being noticed is nice. It feels good. But even if it doesn’t happen in such a way that you notice your being noticed, there can’t be any doubt that you are being noticed—even if those who are noticing you don’t know it! They may only be aware that their day has been brightened a bit. You may not be aware of their awareness. But it’s a fact, and you can count on it if you keep doing the work.

Tomorrow we will extend this observation a little bit, and ask, Does the work have a time limit?

Until tomorrow, then.

But how do you find the work that is specially yours? That’s what I want to talk about today.

How to find the work for you

There are many ways you can find the work that is most suited to you. It can just hit you like a thunderclap one day. Or it may creep up on you slowly over years, until one day it dawns on you: you actually love the baking that goes into making dinner every day, but you couldn’t see it before because you really hate cooking the rest of the meal. And then you may know that you need to go into baking in a serious way.

Unfortunately, many people never find the work. They get locked into habits and patterns of behavior, co-opted by taking a job early in life and having a family before they are mature enough to have considered who they really are and what activity would make them most happy. How can they find the work that they should be doing?

We have already indicated how this is to be done some days ago when we discussed the link between Creativity and Freedom. You need to be unceasingly creative. In whatever little time you can manage, you need to resist fearful responses, grab onto some new idea, and work with it. The more you do this with different types of ideas—pictorial images, verbal sequences, musical sounds, logical arguments, real or fictional stories, imagined experiences you could bring about, descriptions of sporting events—the greater the likelihood that you will find a creative activity you would gladly do forever if you didn’t have to stop to eat, sleep, and take care of the other necessities of life. That is when you know you have found something that could be the work for you.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will try to mark out the characteristics that make the work different from other activities.

What distinguishes the work from other activities?

The work has certain characteristics that distinguish it from the other things you do during the day. First, it has to be creative and active. That means it should engage you in developing some idea that is new to you. (We discussed this a few days ago, when we explained how to become freer and more creative.) You must focus your imagination on something that does not yet exist, and try to devise ways to bring that idea into existence.

Second, the work is be deeply enjoyable. This means that when all is going well, you lose track of time and even forget your surroundings while doing it. Of course, this feeling cannot be sustained all the time; there are stretches of creative activity that are torturous. But when the work is going well, it is a peak experience.

Third, the work has the potential to help or delight others. Doing the work for yourself alone is ultimately self-centered. If you are producing something truly useful, beautiful, and enlightening, everyone deserves a chance to be uplifted by it. Even if you are creating your own life—working on becoming freer, more loving, a more loyal friend, a more compassionate mate—the rest of the world deserves to benefit from your creation, the new you. Making yourself freer also makes you more beautiful. And next to utility, beauty is the most potent solace available to us mortals.

And finally, the work is not mere entertainment. Entertainment is passive and uncreative: you watch a TV show or a film, you play a game where the rules are well established, you eat what someone else has prepared, you talk about gossip that does not make you think anything really new, but only the same old things about different people. There is a place for entertainment, just as there is a place for passivity. It can restore our repleted resources. It can show us something that is new to us, and that we can use as the beginning of a creative activity. But in itself it is never creative. The difference between entertainment and creativity can best be summed up in a simile: it is like the difference between playing a video game and inventing it.

But today we’re going to discuss a preliminary difficulty before we get to talking about the work proper: a misapprehension about work and remuneration caused by the prevalence of conservative Myths in the culture around us.

Remuneration and work

The Major Myths have made it very difficult to see that work does not have to be remunerated labor. In our Myth-based culture, so many people hate what they do for a living that many people assume work has to be disagreeable. This is confirmed by the exception: When people say, “If you can find a job that you enjoy, you’ve got it made!” they take it for granted that the rule is not finding a job that you enjoy. The delight with which many people greet quitting time is reminiscent of children rushing out of school at the end of the day. Most people seem to believe that work is just disagreeable toil.

This certainly isn’t true. Many people pour lots of work into activities they do not get paid to do: hobbies, sports, recreational pursuits, gardening, home repair, volunteering, and so on. Doing these things out of interest rather than duty, enjoying the labor and the fruits of the labor—isn’t this just as much work, only without the depressing negativity? And the contrast in attitude can be astonishing. The difference in demeanor could’t be more striking between someone engaging in work he or she enjoys and someone trading unpleasant labor for money.

Given the current state of society, it is probably the case that the work that is most satisfying and meaningful for you will be located outside the sphere of wage labor. Which is just to say that you will have to do it during your “real life,” when you are not earning money. You will have to start to think in a new way about how you spend your life energies. (This is the beginning of becoming the creator of your own life.) If you must exchange work for a pay, and if you can’t do the work at your job, then you need to create a new space in your life for it. In addition to putting your daily activities into slots for job, relationships, health, and recreation, you need a new category for the work.

Tomorrow we will discuss what distinguishes the work from other activities.

Until tomorrow, then.

We also ventured the opinion that it will not be the older generations of Americans who manage to shift the needle far enough into liberal territory to get the country back in progressive gear after nearly half a century of conservative foot-dragging. My generation, the baby boomers, have fought themselves to a standstill—and almost none of them will change their spots now. As Aristotle says, a habit once adopted is very hard, or impossible, to change.

Therefore it will have to be the younger generation—those leaving school and entering into their own lives with enthusiasm, with dreams, and with hope in the future—who must adopt liberal and progressive values en masse, and put them into practice. They will have to do so in great enough numbers to break the stalemate between left and right in this country. And they will have to put those values into practice in their daily lives, so more and more of their contemporaries can see by their example that, on the one hand, fearful conservatism is just plain wrong for decent human beings, and on the other hand, that creative progressivism is just plain right.

Over the next few days, we will be talking quite generally about how a young American can start building a life that contains fulfilling work, loving family relations, and continuous personal growth, while at the same time being one of many individuals whose lives make up the antidote to the conservative fearfulness that is blocking all progress.

It begins with an idea that we have shamelessly lifted from  Seth Godin, a business, marketing, productivity, and self-awareness expert who has written many books about doing the work. (Just a few titles of Seth Godin’s books are: Poke the Box, Purple Cow, Linchpin, and Tribes. Just enter “Seth Godin books” into any search engine and you’ll find them.) The work isn’t just any sort of labor. It is the special sort of work that can give your life, and the lives of others, satisfaction, joy, and meaning. Everyone deserves to have this sort of work in his or her life. It is a tragedy that so few people actually have work that inspires them.

Of course, in order to find this kind of work, you need to practice a bit of ancient Greek wisdom—namely, Know Thyself. It means figuring out, if you don’t already know, what work provides you with deep satisfaction, and maximizing its place in your life. This is a difficult, but not impossible, path to navigate. It is hedged in with all sorts of limitations arising from other desires you might have. For instance, a desire to be a CEO by the time you are thirty could well interfere with the deeply satisfying work of tutoring disadvantaged children. Women are especially prone to this sidelining of the work for the sake of other, admittedly pressing, desires and responsibilities. The desire to have a family still detours many women from the work they would find most fulfilling.

So we are going to spend the next days trying to give you suggestions about how to find and maximize the work in your life.

Before starting, however, we have to clear up some misperceptions of the role of work in our lives, misperceptions that many of us have picked up from the ambient delusions of the Major Myths that permeate our society.

After the weekend, we will clear the ground by explaining how our general attitude toward the concepts of work and remuneration tend to keep us stuck in a way of life that is neither creative nor fulfilling. In other words, we will explain how belief in the Myths prevents us from doing the work of our lives.

Until Monday, then.

From the beginning of our project, we have seen that the central force holding together all the conservative Myths is Fear. In the past few days we have shown that the force best suited to overcome Fear is Creativity.

Today we want to make a pivot to a consideration of how liberals and progressives can incorporate the force of creativity into their lives and move the whole nation further and further away from the Fear that motivates Conservatism.

From the beginning, we have noted that the older generation, the baby boom generation, my generation, is hopelessly locked into a battle between the Fear that motivates Conservatism and the Benevolence that animates Liberalism and Progressivism.

It is our opinion that the older generation will never be able to settle their standoff. Too many of them have succumbed to the Major Myths of Conservatism. Too many of them have drunk the Kool-Aid. Too many of them have come to believe that the Myths that keep them bound in fearful blindness actually protect them from their fears. Their contemporaries who are not captives of the Myths can only push back enough to keep the Mythers from overrunning the nation. They balance out the Mythers, for the most part, but cannot push them back into the decidedly minority status they had between the Great Depression and the Republican Revolution.

It will be the great task, therefore, of the younger generation to push Conservatism back into minority status, from where it can no longer block the nation from going forward toward  greater justice, more equality, and exciting progress.

As we move into a new topic in the days ahead, we want to let our readers know that we are now turning our attention mainly to the younger generation, our nation’s great hope for beating back the regressive tide that has risen far higher than is good for America’s political health.

With the younger generation in mind, then, we will close out our consideration of Fear and Creativity, and point out once again that young people will have to take up the sword of Creativity in order to beat back the hordes of the conservative fearful.

So we address these last remarks about Creativity directly to the younger generation:

As we have gone over the Myths that have beset your parents’ generation, we have found repeatedly that there is one element missing from the Myth-laden view of life. That element is Creativity.

Creativity is the force that you will need to master in order to get back the future that has been stolen from you. Creativity is the power that you need to break through the stasis of the Myth-generated world-view. Creativity is the tool that will tear down the walls erected by the Myths and let the light of a new world vision in—a vision in which your opportunities are not limited in the ways that the Myths insist on.

The change from Fear to Creativity is a profound paradigm shift, comparable to acquiring the ability to fly. A creator is not fazed in the slightest by things that a fear-filled person thinks impossible.

It’s time for your generation to become creators, and to do what my generation finds impossible: change the world forever.

Tomorrow we will begin to show how you can use your power of Creativity to make a brand new world that will make Conservatism utterly obsolete.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we will discuss the link between creativity and happiness. The bottom line is: you cannot be fulfilled if you are not creative in some way. And the more creative you are, the more fulfilled you are.

Creativity and Happiness

It’s sad to think how many lives are wasted because people don’t know this secret. Even in an affluent in society like that of the United States, the vast majority of people live their lives vicariously by trying to absorb the creative activity of others. They immerse themselves in entertainment, in spectator sports, in reading, in having pre-packaged experiences—in short, they spend their time consuming. They wouldn’t have to do this if they spent just a little time creating something in their own lives, even if it was just a new way to behave.

If you’d like a more theological explanation of why human beings must create in order to fulfill themselves, Dorothy Sayers provided it in The Mind of the Maker, a book first published in the 1940s. (Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker [New York: HarperOne, 1987].) Sayers believed that where the Bible speaks of man being created in the image of God, it means that humans were made to be creators like Him. If that is so, then it stands to reason that refusing to exercise the capacity that makes us most like God will frustrate us, and lead to an unhappy existence for us.

So by aligning yourself with creativity, that is, with the Force of the future, you also prepare yourself for happiness, that is, a life full of creative activity that will be a continual solace, joy, and wonder to you, to your loved ones, and to the human community.

Tomorrow we have one more word to say about the crucial importance of Creativity for anyone who wants to be free of the Major Myths of Conservatism, and who wants to live in a world that is no longer hobbled by the conservative mindset.

Until tomorrow, then.

Today we are going to describe a two-step practical plan for increasing your creative capacities, because, as we said a few days ago, Creativity is the force that is going to make the future different from the past.

Practical plan for becoming free and creative

If you are going to align yourself with creativity, the force of the future, you need a plan. Here is your simple two-step program. Follow it repeatedly and you’ll find yourself advancing exponentially in both creativity and freedom is no time at all.

Tactic 1

Use your feelings of fear or defensiveness as detectors for an opportunity to be creative. When you sense yourself beginning to react fearfully, stop for a second and ask yourself if it is safe for you to refuse the dictates of the fear. (An aside: you have to make a critical judgment here; never refuse to avoid or flee from a situation that could result in physical or mental harm.) If it is safe, reject the fear. So, for example, if someone insults you and you normally fly into a rage at such times, try something different, like engaging the person in an exchange about your shortcomings—even if you have to put on an act pretending that you are really interested in the critic’s opinion of you. Even if the critic refuses to engage you, it will become clear  to you that you don’t have to do what you’ve always done in the past—and that is a crucial discovery on the journey to freedom. There is no sadder statement than “That’s just the way I am” to those who know the inner freedom humans can attain if they will only learn to reject the influences of unnecessary fears.

Tactic 2

Take every opportunity that presents itself to be truly creative, that is, to grab a new idea, hold it in your thoughts, and begin to make it real. Every time you hear or see or imagine something that strikes you as out of the ordinary, write it down or jot notes about why you think it is out of the ordinary, and spend at least a little time trying to figure out an action plan to bring this out-of-the-ordinary thing into reality somehow. These are the habitual motions of a creator, and by doing the motions until they become a habit, you can become a creator too. It’s just like learning to ride a bicycle.

Now since you have latched onto something that appears new to you, there’s a good chance it’s related to some limitation of yours, a limit that you may have to face while working with the idea. You will recognize whether or not you are approaching a limiting belief by the reluctance you have to continue creating your vision. If you should come up against such a thing, go back to Tactic 1 and work through it until you create a way around your reluctance.

That’s all there is to it. Keep cycling through these two tactics and you will be breaking through your fears and creating new stuff all the time. That’s the power you’ll need to break the influence of conservatism on your life and create a future that conservatives can’t even imagine.

Tomorrow we will discuss the relationship between creativity and happiness.

Until tomorrow, then.