If I knew that our solar system was packed with living things (at least in the way we choose to define the term “living”), would I feel as compelled as I do to encourage us to devote xx.xx% of our resources toward populating the cosmos with living things from Earth?

The WordPress front page displayed a link to a blog entry titled, “Off the Couch and Into the Streets.”  Rarely do I feel compelled to comment on a blog entry but I added one to Coleen’s:

Your blog entry popped up on the front page of WordPress, and the title “Off the couch and into the streets” caught my attention because I’m looking for a fun way to lose some extra weight. Thus, my expectations were different than you might have expected when you wrote this blog entry.

The Occupy [your locale] movement, Arab Spring, and any/all protestations against the common/established social structure are perennial, which usually fall under the label “counterculture.” I encourage you to feel and act differently, supporting your subcultural beliefs no matter how much you may feel crushed/oppressed by the common culture under which you live and socialise.

Having grown up during the 1960s global counterculture movement, my perspective, as a child at the tailend of the Baby Boomer generation, has taught and continues to teach me that those who protest will encourage others to act in less obvious, newsworthy manners, to effect longterm change.

I’m glad you have a job which gave you the flexibility and courage to join those who wanted to voice their displeasure with the current state of our common culture [one] day on the streets of Denver. Hopefully, through your job and with your friends, you can be the change you want to see today and into the future.

How do we express ourselves daily?  In other words, do we carefully consider the words we use in social exchanges?

Saying I am the “99%” or I am the “1%” or any other label automatically establishes an artificial barrier.

Reminds me of taking the Myers-Briggs personality profile test as a requirement of working in a certain department at a company full of a variety of personality types, including conformists and nonconformists.  After taking the test and, with another person who had gotten the same personality profile, saying that the test results were bogus, was informed that those who received that particular personality profile were prone to say the test results were bogus.

I feel the same way about the Occupy movement.  The participants brag about how diverse and unlabelable they are — yet, they quickly chant about the “99%” and the “1%” without blinking a self-conscious inner eye.

Another commenter said, “It’s like telling a child “You just like to argue” and the child keeps saying “Nuh uh!”.”  The same goes for those who are being labeled by the diverse Occupy movement participants.

To be frank, when I hear the Occupy movement chants through mass media soundbites, all I can think is, “Well, what if I’m one of the 1%?  So what?  Didn’t I earn my place in this financial position by saving (using the old adage of “pay yourself first”) and spending wisely?  Sure, some of my Nike shoes or my wife’s Kathy Lee Gifford designer clothes were made using kids paid ‘slave wages’ but I stopped buying those items after I found out about their manufacturing sources.  The University of Oregon and Stanford University, home to some students who have protested, didn’t refuse Phil Knight’s donations nor did the students refuse to attend those universities.  Regis Philbin, a person apparently beloved by many, didn’t stop being Kathy Lee Gifford’s friend.  I don’t have all the time in the world to investigate the raw material source and manufacturing location of every item I buy but will make reasonable changes when I find out.  Some parts of me are just as susceptible to instant gratification and buyer remorse as anyone else in the 1% or 99% (i.e., all seven billion of us).”

That’s why using or not using labels is important to me.  Also why I lump us all together into the label of “seven billion of us.”  We’re in this thing as one.  One planet, one global infrastructure, one solar ecosystem.

How do we train ourselves and one another to seek rewarding goals that limit destructive and detrimental effects on others, regardless of our entrenched differences?

This time of year, I look out the window and bare trees expose the view of row after row of shingled suburban rooftops.

The mortgage on my house has been paid off.  The majority of mortgages for the rooftops out there are probably still being paid for.

Shall I blame or thank the finance/banking industry for suburban sprawl that makes my skin crawl?

Shall I adjust my view to show myself the people occupying those suburban boxes are paying taxes that support the roads that allow me to drive to unoccupied parks and forests set aside for my enjoyment via local/state/national proclamation and financial support?

If, as one person said, the rich have enough money to pay for half the population to control/kill the other half, where does that put me?

Well, I know where it puts where I want to be.  I want to be one of the rich and when I get there, I don’t want to have to redistribute my wealth unnecessarily.  I admit I like having the total population of my species at my control.  I want to be Phil Knight and say, “Yeah, so what if my products have been made in sweat shops?  My personally-directed donations are creating a whole new crop of those who will rule from the top”.  If I’m going to be labeled as part of the 1%, I want to be Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Pierre Omidyar or Vladimir Putin, not a homeless person as part of the poorest 1%.

Tiny leaves float through the air outside the window.  A woodpecker hops up and down tree limbs, presumably looking for hidden insects to munch upon.

Both public and private money has given me the time to sit here and make these comments.  It’ll take 100% of us to improve our conditions, if we so choose.

Yes, our global economy is not perfect and never will be perfect.  It displays characteristics of both an open and a closed-loop system, subject to the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Can we show how unselfish we are and share our wealth, of knowledge and financial gains, accordingly, while some of us compete against each other in the chess game of life to make things better for our descendants?

Live happily in the fact that today’s 1% will not be tomorrow’s 1% nor will today’s 99% be tomorrow’s.

If you don’t like what’s going on, take the opportunity to change it.  If you don’t like accumulating massive debt to pay for a college education, find a company that’ll hire you for your current skills/talents despite the lack of a diploma.  I did.  But I eventually got around to completing a bachelor’s degree just to prove I can (and got my company to foot the bill – hey, I wasn’t born yesterday – which set me up for a career ladder promotion that wasn’t interesting to me, but that’s another story).

Nothing is set in stone, except perhaps your date of death, and even that fades with time and exposure to the elements.

Think the members of the U.S. Congress who sit on a supercommittee can cut over $1T from the U.S. government budget and make everyone happy?  Wanna make a bet?

If it was me, I’d spread the cuts proportionally to those who are expected NOT to vote in the next election.  Hey, it’s only fair, is it not?  The U.S. is a democratic republic where lawful citizens have the right to participate in electing legislative, executive and some judicial representatives.  Those who choose not to participate, or vote, get less of the government pie to eat – isn’t that one of the tales we learned in kindergarten?

We’ll see what we see when the time comes…