I haven’t held a job or “earned a living” in nearly 5 years. Instead, I’ve founded or co-founded multiple startups while running Copiosis mostly full time. This has allowed me to “check out” on mainstream, corporate life: the hustle, the pace, the consumption, the 9-5, bosses, office politics, butt-kissers, etc.
It’s been a wondrous, priceless experience. Money has faded into the background of life priorities. Not so much because I don’t need or want it, but because I realize money accompanies the abundance that is the state of our lives. It is not something to clamor for…
Most wondrous though has been the slow, soft, gentle, disconnect from commercial life. It has effected me psychologically, emotionally and physically well beyond my day-to-day work activities. I feel fortunate to have reconnected to the stream of natural rhythms that are lost when you focus on daily and quarterly objectives, weekly meetings and pleasing the boss. Those were the reality of my corporate life, which I gave up back in 2008. You can give it up too. If you do you’ll never look back.
Peace awaits us all
Natural rhythm is slow. It’s deliberate. It’s gradual and gentle. It doesn’t take no for an answer. It’s sure in its Undeniable inevitability. No need to rush, I’m going to get my way, it says. Coming into that flow, that stream of undeniable, inevitable action – where you rediscover intuition and inspiration as realities – feels like coming home, waking up from the Matrix. Choose your metaphor. It just feels good.
I visited a farm recently in Southern Washington. A gentleman farm. Chickens, an orchard, vegetable garden, and compost bins, near a rolling shallow, wide river. The skies were threatening an electrical storm, but they held off as my friend Don took me on the tour, let me admire his handiwork at building composting turners and chicken coops, then let me pick my fill of ripe, juicy peaches, firm, sweet apples and small, succulent plums.
Don, like me, hasn’t had to “earn a living”, but for far many more years than I. A peace surrounds him that comes with long periods contemplating. After the tour and picking, he and I sat on the porch. Lightning shot across the clouds, loud claps of thunder blasted our ears – it was that close. Heavy rains began to fall moments after we settled in. What struck me at that moment was how beautiful the world is, how amazing nature is, how we are taken care of by it, how wonderful it feels to move at its pace – including growing my companies – and how right it feels not being plugged into commercial society.
Incredible nature, incredible future
I live in a community where there is so much food it literally is falling on the sidewalk. Fruit from neighbors’ trees litter the ground, chickens abound. My fiancé’s own garden puts out way more food than we can eat ourselves. Sharing is so natural because otherwise earth’s abundance would go to waste here.
Don and I marveled at this natural abundance. I wondered at my own surprise at how mysterious it is that I can pluck a peach from a tree, eat it, and in that experience experience earth’s abundance directly, paying no money for the experience, without needing to drive to a grocery store, knowing exactly where that peach came from, how it was grown. Don agreed with me: the world is abundant.
Don says: “A man who plants something has hope for the future.”
I agree. For those who know, who are connected to nature in the way I’ve rediscovered, the future is bright. I feel that way because like that man, I am planing something, an idea, that will grow – I suspect, based on results so far – into something incredible.
Abundance is ours, scarcity is a lie
- There is so much food on this planet, there is no reason why people are having to pay anything to get it.
- There is so much well being on this planet, there is no reason why people need “insurance” to access medical care.
- The source of textiles are so abundant, there’s no need for money to create clothes or housing.
- Humanity is so naturally generous, there’s no reason why we can’t get as much education as we need without having to pay a dime.
What limits all these? Think about that for a while.
Nature is having her way
Abundance; it is the state of the universe. It is the basis of the new reality emerging from the likes of movements such as The Venus Project, The Zeitgeist Movement, Charles Eisenstien’s work and many, many others. Even Google’s recent decision to pursue something called “algorithmic regulation” is a nod to this abundance. The most recent technological move: ethereum. Though premises underlying the last two may be flawed (acknowledging I don’t know the details of either), they still may lead to us all realizing the abundance that is our real reality.
Bye bye scarcity, hello reality.
The one percent is catching on too. That’s encouraging. There is so much momentum for re-embracing abundance it seems an undeniable inevitability. Diligence and attention are still required on the part of groups like us at Copiosis, those doing the good work to increase momentum for embracing this abundance. It’s all part of the gentle, gradual, soft movement forward that is nature’s will. It is why I can relax and continue doing what I do.
No need to rush, Nature says, I’m going to get my way.
Thank you Perry, for taking the time to write this beautiful and inspiring post. I’m going slow down and plant a peach tree! So good to see and read about the connections you have made that I too am making, and see them overlap, knowing that that is how is is working, how the I’s remember the We. And that we are the natural world. Nature gets her way.
Love it Erica! Let’s keep growing and expanding together. It is making a difference!