For a significant portion of my life, when it came to economic systems, I would think of only two – communism and capitalism. As a devout capitalist, to even look in the other direction would mean adopting communism. And communism would make me think about losing everything I had… and I didn’t want to lose everything I had.
But, as I grew older, I became aware of how little I knew, and it helped me to keep an open mind. The only way to be less ignorant is to learn, and an open mind is integral to learning. Now I hope to always have the pleasure of finding out new things.
Many of the things I’ve found were never really taught to in my education or upbringing. One of these is the wisdom of Buddhism. Buddhism taught me a new perspective on dealing with desires and fears, as well as a highly insightful way to look at existence.
Another thing I found is how important it is to think positive. The world around us is what we make of it. And the power of positive thinking can extend to the future of the world. For, when enough of us are thinking positively about the future of the world, we will have the power to make the world a better place.
I’ve also learned about spectrums, which are ranges of possibilities, like temperature, or color. Much of the human experience is on a spectrum: physical attributes like height, weight, color, gender, as well as mental characteristics, like personality, intelligence, and sexual orientation. Very few things are black and white… most everything is on a spectrum of one kind or another. To think of things solely as being two-dimensional is a mistake, one which I still sometimes make when I am being lazy or ignorant.
As for being a capitalist, I’ve found that there exists viable alternatives between an egalitarian society and a world let allows billionaires horde while billions starve. A mixed economic system, like the capital cap, lies in between communism and capitalism, and it is a way to achieve a medium in between extreme wealth and extreme poverty… a world with the potential to make universal education and health care a reality while eliminating starvation and easily curable diseases.
We may never have a Utopia, but there is no reason we can’t head in that direction.
