KNOW… How to embrace CHANGE!
Can rethinking success lead to wisdom??
If… Learning is a change of the neural patterns in the brain… THEN … a change in one’s actions and thinking can mean that some form of learning has taken place.
Can a Narcissist change? I am still not sure…?[much more about this in ?Dive Deeper]
But living through Covid in Thailand I really began to look at how I defined success in the past and what fed my Shadow Self.?So I began to really explore the concept of greed.
What would change if I redefine success?
I really began to focus on the concept of greed. For many who lived through the 80’s,the initial thing that comes to mind whenever I think of ‘greed’ is the “greed is good!” speech in the original Wall Street that Michael Douglas gives to a bunch of shareholders. Unfortunately, I think that this was the battle cry of the last 40 years of shareholder capitalism - certainly in the 80s and 90s it was insanely out of whack Not to mention all the corporate gouging in 2022). It is this same greed we saw that made massive amounts of money during Covid while millions of people have died and hundreds of millions have been injured and impacted and hundreds of millions or billions have been put into poverty.
Where does desire come from?
As synergy would have it, in late 2021 I came across an excellent video by Luke Burgis that talks about mimetic desires. He presents it in a very logical and educational way. He asserts that we look to others to see what is ‘worth’ desiring and then follow suit. Most would agree this certainly applies to childhood. Given the rise of influencers, social media and fake news I would also include adults.?
He talks about thin vs thick desires. Thick meaning those desires that have built up over the years and are related to our core beliefs. Whereas thin desires are here today and gone tomorrow like leaves in the wind. He concludes that in order to get real control of our lives we need to reflect on what desires we need to keep and what to let go.
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Can we categorize greed??
Money greed is an insatiable desire to continually make more and more money. The ‘How much is enough?’ debate.?In other words it cannot be a satiated desire. Or is a sign of true wisdom making it a satiated desire by strictly defining what your money needs are versus wants?
Power greed is an insatiable desire to not only keep power, but want more and more. And this is basically the history of military wars and business wars over the last four or five centuries. And ultra right-wing politics in the early 2020s, wanting more power. True fascism is wanting complete and total power over others.
Fame greed is the celebrity status or the celebrity ranking of always being in the limelight, always being wanted, always being needed, always getting the accolades,?always winning the awards. And of course the lifestyle that goes with being a celebrated celebrity. This also includes the new crop of social media influencer wannabes as well as high-profile politicians.
Status greed is similar to fame but it's for the non-celebrity. It is the quiet billionaires, it is the Jeffrey Epstiens, it is the low-key politician, it is the entitled masses or groups that think they should have status above everybody else. It is also the class or social status mindset that is at the bottom of all racism in every country.?Whether it comes from clans or tribes or cliques or caste or anything where there is a ranking of one group that is supposedly better than the other - that is status greed.
Envy as an indicator:
In an Organizational Behaviour class recently we had an interesting discussion between envy and jealousy. Can you explain the difference?