Effectuating Change: Destroying or Beating a System, vs. USING a System
"Tear Down the Wall!"
It seems to me that a lot of people with very strong ideologies put a lot of energy and effort into wanting to "destroy the system," whatever that system might be.
I get it. Likely they were hurt or excluded by that system, in some way. Or they simply despise the kind of authority that system holds. Or the system denied them having something they felt they had the right to have.
People rarely want to tear down systems that are working for them...
As an observer of the human condition for a really long time, it seems that we often tend to lose sight of the sad reality that many "systems" — speaking primarily to the ones that are forcefully torn down — have a way of rebuilding themselves. That's where the whole "history repeats itself" truism rears its ugly head.
And then we're right back to square one.
It might not be the best example, but just consider "revolutions" in smaller developing nations. Everybody hails the "success" of the revolution that overthrew some megalomaniac dictator, and five years later one evil oppressive dictator has simply been replaced by another.
And maybe we need look no further than the Cryptosphere... started as a way to get away from banks and large organizations, yet it is increasingly dominated by banks and large organizations.
Of course some people aren't necessarily dead set on destroying the systems they don't like, instead they scheme endlessly to beat (or "game") the system, usually by some means of deception or exploitation.
It often turns into an uphill battle, and you end up with a lot of people being angry at you and calling "abuse" against you.
And do you end up getting what you want? Perhaps... in the short term. But if there are enough people who are aware that you're a "system abuser," chances are somebody, somewhere will take steps to plug the holes you're exploiting, and then you're right back to being angry with the system you don't like.
Personally speaking, I have primarily chosen to use systems, in service of trying to deeply understand how they work — regardless of whether or not I philosophically AGREE with them — so I can get inside them and gain from them to the best of my ability... on my terms.
I remember taking a business law course while at University, and one of our guest lecturers was an IRS (tax) agent who pointed out that we all should really learn as much as we can about how taxes work, so we can use every possible legal means to pay as little as possible.
He then pointed out that most people don't, they just complain about their "high taxes" whereas if they just applied that same energy they put into complaining to instead learning, they'd end up paying much lower tax!
This from someone who worked as a tax collector!
The more I think about it, the more it feels like a reflection of how many people are, in the world: Eternally complaining about things, rather than trying to understand them so they can get what bests suits them from what's available.
Of course, I'm likely more patient than most; no illusions that change will be effective or immediate... things tend to take time. And that's OK. I don't need it to be immediate... I'm quite content to wait for the chickens to come home to roost, so to speak.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2024-03-05 01:45 PST
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