Photo by Kirt Edblom on Flickr
When I was in school, I learned about the gatekeeper. As an aspiring author, I was told the publishing industry basically consisted of five major companies, and if you weren't published by one of those, you might as well forget making more than a penny from your writing, and most manuscripts don't even make it past the "slush pile" unless you're already a famous writer or a celebrity.
Prospects for aspiring filmmakers were just as dire. Unless you had connections with the "big boys," forget it. They're only making remakes and comic book movies these days.
For years, I believed this. Then I heard an interview with a fantasy writer who was making a 6-figure income through self-publishing. This interview changed my life. Not only could I see new possibilities for myself as a writer, but it opened me up to an entirely new philosophy and way of being.
We no longer need to go through the gatekeepers if we want to bring our creations into this world. Similarly, I've seen creatives making a living through blogging, YouTube, and crowd-funding their projects.
What if this applied to everything?
We're told our fate rests in the hands of "they/them" (we could debate endlessly about who "they/them" is—personally I think it's not composed solely of living humans but is more like an entity with teams of minions stacked in increasing layers of complexity like Russian Dolls).
The way the narrative is presented, "they" can shut down the supply line whenever they feel like it and deny us jobs and medical care and access to money and even entry to the grocery store—especially shutting us out of society—if we don't play by the rules.
But what if we eliminated the need for gatekeepers altogether?
What if we said, "Hey, we don't want your stupid society anyway. We're creating our own."
Imagine being able to build a society completely from scratch. Instead of hacking away at the layers of mold and bird crap and rotting wood, you were given a new plot of land and fresh materials. What would you create?
As a creative person, art is naturally where my mind goes first. I'm seeing dance parties under the stars as well as day-time dance parties -- why not? -- surrounded by trees and birds. Campfire writing nights.
And because I've mentioned bypassing the gatekeepers, and because really the sky's the limit, I feel that with the talents and resources of everyone in this village/community/whatever you want to call it, we can combine forces to create literary anthologies, albums, even films (let's do away with the belief that you need a multi-million dollar budget to make a good movie).
Ok, so what about the "practical" stuff like food and houses? The same concept applies! Combining our collective skills and resources, it is entirely possible to grow our own food and build our own houses.
I'm seeing a future where eventually if, say, your computer malfunctions, you won't need to order a new one from Amazon or haul it off to the Apple Store and deal with their BS.
From either the local or neighboring community, you'll be able to find the parts and tech help you need. Can you imagine, never having to deal with Verizon/Citibank/Spectrum/any of these behemoth corporations who seem to exist solely to make our lives miserable (yeah, yeah, I know these companies are only out to make a buck and don't care about actually helping people, but I'd go so far to say these companies go out of their way to make our experience as terrible as possible)?
When millions of farmers, engineers, architects, construction workers, doctors, teachers, cops—in other words, people with skills in just about every area you can think of—finally quit because they're sick of making compromises (and I'm not just talking about getting the shot, I'm referring to compromises on ALL levels—needless paperwork, bureaucracy, protocols, regulations, busy work, etc.) and the old methods like protesting no longer work because these are still system-generated methods, they'll need somewhere to go, right? Somewhere else to utilize their skills in exchange for the ability to provide for themselves and their families.
And so in this way, we'll be able to form entirely sovereign, self-sustaining communities.
Of course, this won't happen overnight. And it'll be messy at first (though once things are up and running, I think things will run more efficiently as a whole because they'll no longer be hampered by cumbersome bureaucratic systems).
Also, I get that the current system has the factories and massive workforces to mass-deliver goods and services quickly and efficiently. But another part of the equation is minimizing our dependence on such systems in the first place. Yes, I like being able to order things from anywhere in the world, but there was life before Amazon.
Plus, how much money have you wasted ordering shit you don't actually need? How much time have you wasted scrolling through millions of reviews which might or might not be accurate and fighting with customer service bots (I'm sure most of them are bots at this point, and the remainder might as well be)?
Imagine freeing up all that energy. And the thing is, we don't know precisely what this new society will look like because we are still constrained by our beliefs of what we think is possible and see everything through the filter of past paradigms and media narratives.
There's no reason we have to revert to some medieval standard of living with sewage in the streets and 99% of the population living as impoverished, illiterate serfs, or that we'll be forced into some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario with thousands of people fighting to the death over a Saltine cracker.
Again, this is the paradigm that has been given to us—this either/or scenario where you must choose between the technocratic urban slave system or filth and misery, when in fact there's room for infinite variation. We won't know precisely what some of these variations are or what they'll look like until we actually experience them for ourselves, as we have no models to base them on.
Now, having lived in a very remote location for over a year now, I can tell you that an occasional change of scenery is nice. So while ideally these communities would be sovereign and provide its inhabitants with a sense of stability, we'd have the freedom to travel to other communities and experience vastly different geographical conditions and cultures if we chose.
If enough disgruntled commercial airline pilots, engineers, and air traffic controllers quit or were forced out of work (I can't imagine that system sustaining itself much longer, but then again, if anything were real, the airline industry should have completely collapsed after 2020), a completely new airline industry could be formed, minus the TSA bullshit.
But in this area, too, there's room for variation. Community-owned ultralight aircrafts could potentially allow for greater freedom of movement while also minimizing the use of resources. Also, lightweight vehicles could more easily escape detection in the interim while totalitarian restrictions are still in place.
In Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, Alexandra—the oldest child in a family of Swedish immigrants—takes it upon herself to tame the rugged Nebraska wilderness and build a farm, even when everyone thinks she's nuts.
This is the belief that keeps her going, leading her to eventual success: “A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.”
As pioneers, we must be able to clearly imagine what we want, even when we have no past models or paradigms to guide us. We then must have the courage to put these ideas into action and to keep moving forward, even when the end goal seems impossible.
We have all the tools we need to create new societies: people, sound global money,access to global capital and the ability to communicate and build communities locally and globally.
So many have been forced out of the system that there is now a critical mass of people who have been red pilled and are looking for something new.
Yes! From my own observations, it seems like the universe operates on principles of balance, and equilibrium is always eventually achieved even if things are lopsided at first.
Inevitably, this will happen in some places - but in other places it will seem like a paradise. It all depends on the mind-set of the people. You can't release people with slave-minds hierarchical collectivists and expect them to function in any sort of order or civility or productivity. The upper level will say "who will do this for me" the lower level will say "who will tell me what to do?". Meanwhile the levies are failing and the power plant is about to go out.
Yet, those who have been practicing free-thinking and innovation (even if stifled by the system) will survive and thrive in the new world. Nobody will be completely self-sufficient, but will have to be responsible for their own food, shelter and clothing. The resources will be available: someone will produce cloth for sale, seeds for planting, materials for building. All it takes is the mindset to 'do' and 'learn' and 'do more' and these resources will create a peaceful and prosperous civilization... that is until the slave-mind collective does what slave-mind collectives always do: raid and steal from the prospering. Then the productive will innovate again, except this time innovate new weapons and fortifications for defense... and here we go again.
Well put. I do agree that this oppressor/slave mentality is very much active in our current system. But when I say, "There's no reason..." I'm just saying there's room for other possibilities in this new system because by definition it's a new system and thus doesn't have to obey the rules of the old or any narratives involving dystopias or utopias. Really we don't know what the future holds; the only certainty is there is no certainty (sounds like a quote from some philosopher in a cave with a beard, haha).
Fortunately @katiecat1111, these days we have more options easily available to us - even though the large publishing houses still control the industry to a great extent - as you've come to discover.
Self-publishing with distribution opportunities have grown exponentially, thanks to the internet and other advances in technology. The old Vanity Press of yesteryear no longer has negative tones associated with it as well, fortunately😎
Absolutely! Yes, obviously it's a lot of work to self-publish and handle the everything that comes along with it like marketing your book, but from what I've heard, publishing companies usually don't do that much promotion anyway, and now at least your success is in your hands.
Yeah! Take that stupid social order! 😀
Loving your positivity on this one! It is easy to get carried away with the fear even in 'woke' circles but when we simply carry out the solution we are already living the solution!
Totally! Yeah for sure, I wanted to give an antidote to all the doom and gloom. Not just to feel good, but because I truly believe it's the most realistic and practical approach. Taking action and being the solution rather than dwelling on scenarios which might or might not happen.
By discarding fear and simply doing what we can, we are living the solution.
It's really that simple and you've iterated sentiments of that perfectly here.
Yes, I think simplicity is the way. Sometimes we make things way too complicated.
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@apshamilton This is really Great Article. I become fan of yours 😍
Thank you!