The competition myth – part 1.

Competition is a requirement for advancement, innovation, and progress. It makes people ‘better’ if they engage in it, while in the commercial world, it also drives down prices. We are imbued with the certainty that competition is good. “Winners are grinners” as the cringeworthy saying goes, and shame upon the feckless, lazy losers. Competition is fine, in a game. It provides a dopamine hit. Training and taking part can be physically and/ or mentally beneficial. All of human existence does not have to be, and should not be, a binary game of win or loss.

The anxiety/ depression epidemic of modern life is sticky, and growing because there is no way to actually ‘win’. Thus, we must all be losers, all the time.

On a personal level, competition is a way to win things. We are absolutely sure that ‘things’ must be won. Those who do not win things are losers. Being a loser is bad, and so everyone must win. This is a zero-sum game, in the context of each game. The trick is then, to find things which one can win, so that one can be a winner. Then we must enter the hierarchy of what is deemed to be things which are worth winning. Winning at things not worth winning, is losing. It’s a waste of time, or at best, may generate pity from winners of superior things.

Overcoming

I’m going to suggest that winning has its roots in a much gentler and more meaningful word, overcoming. The need to overcome obstacles to physical sustenance and health, to mental, and emotional well-being is what we were doing before we needed to compete with each other. If we need to compete with each other, then the “abundant mindset” stuff is all nonsense. If we are overcoming obstacles so we can have a better experience of life, then it’s all good.

Enough is where the idea of this newsletter, this contribution, started. I’m quite sure that the illusory, whimsical, ephemeral, ethereal (somebody stop me!) nature of this unmeasurable, and unknowable thing is the source of the river of anxiety that flows through modern life. There is not only scarcity but also the binary and mathematical impossible idea that everyone has an even enough chance of being a winner. It’s a lie. A big fat lie, and it causes myriad damages.

Fear

Fear is at the root of scarcity; it’s just a logical conclusion. If we are not already afeared from the proximal experience of the availability of resources, then we are made fearful by the marketing and propaganda spewing from all the purveyors of ways to demonstrate our winningness. We are to be in debt most of our lives and stretch our credit to its limits and beyond, of course, we are, ‘everyone’ does, and ‘everyone’ knows this is “normal”. If we do not, then we are losers, right?

Enough… how much is that then?

I have an odd existence. I am (now) blessed with more than adequate resources. I am not ‘rich’, but apparently, I am by comparison to almost everyone else. I know this, from this website. I have a relatively simple set of needs which are currently extremely well provided for because they are simple, and because the level of financial wherewithal required to provide them, is (now) available. I’ll come on to why this is “odd” in a moment.

I have the opportunity to help people with their lives using my knowledge and experience of things financial, psychological, and philosophical, as well as considerable lived experience. I help those who are “poor” and those who are “rich”. This manifests a dichotomous conundrum; the “poor” are sure that if they were “rich”, then all would be well, and the “rich” don’t think they’re rich enough. Thus, everyone is striving for a level of winning which none of them can define. This, I suggest is because of the brainwashing effect of the acceptance of consumerist capitalism as “normal”. Winning can be purchased, and there is always more winning that can, should, and must be purchased.

We have long since left behind the idea of ‘enough’ in our lives, having been scared witless by the scarcity marketing demanded of constant growth. This is nothing new. it’s been going on since we developed agriculture. An example springs to mind, Vikings. A population involving violent hierarchy and the attendant need to demonstrate power and influence through the display of rare artefacts and decoration. Yes, I know this is a simplified description, and by no means just adhering to our (well, my anyway) horny-hatted cousins. Raiding sources of rare metals and stones was OK for a while, but eventually, the need was for land which could support this growing population, and with the available technology, the land which could do this was becoming increasingly short in supply. Hence, the Daneland, and settling for most of East Anglia.

Colonisation is not colour-based; it is also a function of horned headgear ??.

Is $1m enough?

Who knew that one could have an out-of-date kitchen, after a couple of ‘seasons’? I found this out recently while watching the Netflix show ‘Beef’. Fast fashion, as worn by the cohort of young people concerned about plastic pollution. ‘Just two quick examples. It’s never-ending. Actually, it is, humans will end.

I know people who are concerned that they will only be able to leave $1m for each of their children. You may be one of them. The individual psychology behind this notion is the cause of its necessity. Everyone must win more, have more, all the time. Profits must be at least maintained (if you’re a loser that is) and really should be increased. The cost of everything must increase, and the expectations of each generation for comfort and luxury likewise. The capitalist system is cannibalistic. Businesses (and all organisations for that matter), grow, and these are the winners. However, all the others also want to be winners, so they must act, according to the laws of scarcity and constant growth, to pick at the seams of the current winners until they burst, and then losers may feed upon the carcass, and become winners. Rinse, and repeat.

It's all very well for artificial and temporary constructs like companies to have this happen to them. All the time however, the population of the world grows, the land, in case you thought it was endless, becomes denuded and quite a lot of it will soon be under water. The seas are plundered and poisoned, the air less breathable, and the temperature ever more inhospitable. Is $1m each going to be enough?

What’s the point?

These newsletters are meant to be thought-provoking, and an outlet for my thinking. They are a contribution and a vague stab at being part of a legacy. I’ve written about the effect of ripples before and this is a notion I cling to, that somewhere ideas I’ve had may cause an improvement somewhere, at some time. I have no goal for them, but I must think, and I must disseminate my thinking it seems. This is a (hopefully) timeless facet of ‘me’ beyond my physical reality. I don’t have children, and I hope to outlive my sheep and chickens, so I cannot take the biological route to possible immortality.

For this edition, as a headline/ soundbyte, I think the idea is, to stop trying to win all the time and stop trying to rank winnings in terms of the most winningness. If you become a very rich person, with an exalted title, and of great influence, you will just be part of an ever-growing list of such people. The same goes for winning sports medals etc. People who loom large in my consciousness as being seminally influential are unknown to the vast majority of people. Fame is afforded to very few, truly lasting fame. Billions of people have come and gone, how many are truly famous in a good way?

I commend the idea of overcoming, rather than ‘winning’. It’s a less stressful, more meaningful way of thinking. If we all “took a yard out”, slowed down a bit, set our aspirations of ownership and outward ostentatious ownership at a level significantly below our credit limit and allowed ourselves to enjoy ‘enough’, even if what it takes to have ‘enough’ increases over time, I think we’d be fine. Also, we wouldn’t all be losers, because the need to win in the scarcity game, would diminish.

?