Let It Be

Eckert Tolle, one of my favorite writers and spiritual teachers, points out that the nature of the Universe consists of both expansion and contraction.

We are born, we grow up. We age, we die. The tide goes out and comes in. At the most basic level, we breath in (expansion), we breath out (contraction).

Can you imagine breathing in and then holding your breath forever? What would the result be? Physical death.

Humans by nature resist the contraction phase of just about everything. For some reason we think we should always be expanding. We believe we should do more, be more, have more, create more.

Can you imagine how the contraction phase of any natural process creates room for the new? The tide cleans the beach. The forest fire creates a clearing that allows a new plant species to emerge. Even catastrophic events (from our perspective contractions) can make way for tremendous progress. The suffering endured during these times in whatever form makes way for something new and different to emerge.

Let me frame this in terms of the economy, because by now I am sure you know where I am going with this story.

Our society (government, citizens, etc.) is operating under the collective belief that only economic growth is desirable. In its view, contraction, or recession, is always bad. There is very little deeper questioning about what kind of growth is desirable, and little or no distinction made between healthy and dysfunctional growth.

A child outgrowing their clothes and moving on to the next size is a healthy expansion. My weight going from 130 to 150 is definitely not. Cancer is expansion of cells that is so rapid it sometimes can't be stopped, until the supporting organism perishes.

In my view, the debt and consumption driven growth supported by greed and an insatiable desire for more that we have seen over the past 20 years or so is a bit like a cancer of the economy. The clearing out that was supposed to happen (if the government had not bailed out failed banks and corporations) was a natural clearing mechanism that would have cured the system of its cancer, making room for new, healthy growth. This growth would have been (and still can be) an opportunity for real capitalists to take advantage of the opportunities that arise when the game is no longer rigged.

The powers that be (namely the congress, FED, Treasury, and giant financial institutions) made sure the needed contraction didn't happen. They fail to understand that Main Street would survive without Wall Street in its current form. Main Street would survive without an intrusive, parental government. The very cause of Main Streets' problems swooped in as the "savior", obscuring the fact that the "savior" was the cause of all this distress in the first place.

Bad things shouldn't happen. People shouldn't be unemployed...ever. Economies should always grow, regardless of the source or nature of that growth. The sun should always shine. The tide should never come in. You shouldn't ever have to breath out.

Really? Because the fact is that bad things do happen. People are unemployed. Economies do contract. We have cloudy days, and dark nights. The tide comes in and you have to breath out.

Does this mean our government shouldn't help those that can't help themselves in times of need? Of course not. But it certainly will not be able to perform that function if it bankrupts itself trying to make sure our economy permanently expands.