GOVERNMENT IS DEAD! GOD IS DEAD. VOLUNTARYISM. THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL HAS RISEN. THUS SPAKE JACK OF ALL FREE TRADES. Government died of the Virus of Voluntaryism. Jack On The Greatest Human Potential: Responsible Freedom “A person remains wise as long as he searches for wisdom. As soon as he thinks he has found it, he becomes a fool.” Talmud “How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-actualization.” Erich Hoffer “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson “What humans can be, they must be. This need we call self-actualization.” Abraham Maslow "What humans must be, they can be. This drive I call self-actualization." Jack as Every Man The highest human potential to be actualized in each individual is what I call RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM. ----THE HUMAN POTENTIAL—RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM “Free Will is the Will to be Free.” Every Man Jack My definition of the POTENTIAL that most HUMAN BEINGS are born with and can ACTUALIZE if provided enough time and right conditions (environment and circumstance) is contained in two words: RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM. By Responsible Freedom I mean: First, achieving Freedom from the genetic, evolutionary shaped Family Control Structure as expressed throughout Human History and to date as Parents, Gods and Governments as the Just and Legitimate Ruling Authority. Then, second, taking Responsibility for the Freedom of Controlling Oneself as the ultimate Ruling Authority, and allowing no one else to do so. Once you have achieved Responsible Freedom as your own life then you will probably be motivated to create the environmental Eutopia (Good Place) that provides the conditions that condition those within it to be able to actualize this Human Potential. This is what I want to do with my Free Friends Mutual Aid Community of Intentional Care in New Zealand or elsewhere on the planet. I hope you will join me co-creating this Eutopia on earth where true Human Beings can exist in Responsible Freedom without Gods or Governments. -----“The essence of therapy is the client’s movement from feeling unfree and controlled by others toward the frightening but rewarding sense of freedom to map out and choose his new personality. The therapeutic development is a self-initiated process of learning to be free.” Carl Rogers “Even in an unfree world, you can be free. To be free, you have only to make the decision to be free. Freedom is waiting for you -- anytime you're ready for it." Harry Browne This is about RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM, THE POTENTIAL OF OWNING YOURSELF, of being your OWN GOD & GOVERNMENT-of allowing no-one to CONTROL YOU BUT ONLY CONTROLLING YOURSELF. Is not this topic of interest to you? ALL of us are born into SLAVERY, the SLAVERY OF THE SELFISH GENE & ITS CONTAINER, THE HUMAN FAMILY as the ALL POWERFUL FATHER and ALL FORGIVING MOTHER, Out of this Matrix and Pattern of the Human Family, the Individual Minds within it have the projected the justifications of GOD and GOVERNMENTS to keep its Power Over its Children in tact and increasing. The HUMAN POTENTIAL is to UNDERSTAND THE HUMAN FAMILY RULING SYSTEM and grow up and become your OWN PARENTS, YOUR OWN GOD AND GOVERNMENT. That is the HUMAN POTENTIAL. ----I am a long time AA non-member--not Alcoholics Anonymous but Atheist Anarchist (etymologies: "no god", "no ruler"). I hold all gods as projections of insecurity and governments as unnecessary evils. Don't fight them, just delegitimize and abandon them; and then create Responsibly Free alternatives to them. Seeking Free Friends who live Autonomously, Authentically, as their own Authority, to start up an Anarchist Community in New Zealand. Join me in my Old Zeal for a Land of Liberty? If you value and practice the following 4 virtuous life principles you are a “Free Friend” and eligible to join and co-create this Mutual Aid Society of Responsible Freedom that I hope will include a Co-housing project: 1. No initiated physical force to get what you want and no allowing others to use such with your sanction. 2. Private property. 3. Free trade. 4. Contractual obligation That's all folks is necessary for society to be ordered! --Freedom FROM in order to have Freedom FOR. “Many adults lack freedom not so much because someone has stolen it from them as because they have thrown it away.” Thomas Szasz For me the Potential to be Human is to achieve Responsible Freedom. The first task is to get Free FROM what is living you, owning you, controlling you, so you can live, own, control yourself. What is this "IT" that has all of us under its control from birth and which few of us every come to understand, what I would call the Matrix after the movie of that name? What is this IT that enslaves us, lives our lives instead of us living them for our own self-created ends? This IT can be expressed in two words, Nature's "Genes" and the equivalents derived from them, Nurture's "Memes", the cultural programs akin to the genetic ones transmitted through the structure of the Human Family. The "self-absorbed" Genes and their Memes are our Dictators, and direct our lives for their benefit and not our individual minds/selves. Gods and Governments are the Memes that the Genes drive and the result is our Inhumanity, our stunted potentiality, of poverty and wars, rather than the fulfilment of our potential to live peacefully and prosperously when we understand and step free of this invisible cage of Genes and Memes. You can break free of this Matrix, the unacknowledged prison you are caught within. Only then can you be free FOR and fulfil your Human Potential. ---The topic to be discussed at today's Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup is: Do we need government for social order? My answer as an Anarchist, is a resounding NO! What most inhibits Humans from actualizing their potential for Responsible Freedom is the belief in the God of Government. Most I discuss this with tend to justify government as necessary for social order, by which they mean to control criminals, that is, to protect the good from the bad. When I ask them if they suddenly discovered their government had disappeared would they act any differently, that is, without the threat of being punished by a legal system, would they turn into criminals and rob, steal, commit acts of violence? Everyone i ask this of tells me, "No, but others will." When I tell them everyone, that is, the average person like them, answers as they do, it generally does not get them to think differently. What I want them to understand and admit because it is true, is that the vast majority of people do not initiate physical force to get what they want and do not for very good self-survival reasons. So their distrust of their fellow humans is not based on reality but on a set of beliefs they have been taught since birth and they tend to perpetuate as adults. The foremost imprisoning belief they have been taught is they unquestioningly need government. And the basic propaganda the Power Elite dispenses is that government is needed for protection--people can not be trusted to control themselves, there must be a central authority otherwise criminals will take over and the innocent will be enslaved. And yet as i point out most of us do not initiate force. BUT we do allow it to be initiated in our name if we believe in government, that is, legitimate, sanction, support government intentionally or unintentionally. For government is the legally justified monopoly of the initiation of physical force--and that is in fact morally unjustified as most of us prove in our everyday actions. We do not justify us or our neighbors doing this yet we do justify a small percentage--politicians and their police--to do this. It is time to take control of our lives and allow no one to act violently in our name. Join me in creating the conditions for Responsible Freedom. Abandon the belief in the god of government, join me as a Free Friend, trading our self-values. Jack at home in Auckland and the rest of the Universe too. ------ GROWING THE SEED OF WHAT YOU MUST BE INTO WHAT YOU CAN BE--THE HUMAN POTENTIAL ACTUALIZED “What Humans Must Be, They Can Be. This work I call Self-Actualization.” Every Man Jack “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” E.E. Cummings, American poet The Human Potential Movement (HPM) begun in the U.S. in the 1960s, informed by psychologists like Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May, I consider holds the most Wisdom for how and why persons on the planet may realistically live their lives most fulfillingly for themselves as well as for others. The HPM model of the Self-Actualized, Fully Functioning Human Being as articulated by Maslow, Rogers and May is for me the true “Spirituality” that will appeal to those who are able to face Death without resorting to Gods and disembodied Souls—non-material imaginary projections. I believe Human Beings have the potential to become their own Gods and Governments. I think it is only by doing this that we can create the conditions for peaceful and prosperous Humanity. This revolution in Human Interactions can be best understood by considering the Human Being at birth as a Seed. Like a Seed, we are each born as an Original Form that contains within it complete all the various transitional Forms and the final Fulfilling Form we can become if Circumstance (environment, conditions, time) permits. In order for this Original Form to Fulfill itself, it must be Informed of its own Form from Birth. This can only be done by an Informative Environment providing the Conditions of Responsible Freedom. Only in such a non-conforming Space can a Form grow into and Fulfill itself as it was born to do by enacting its Autonomy and Authenticity to become its own Authority. If we are fortunate—and it seems only 1% of us are—then we will have the enabling “Ground” (circumstance) to grow our Being up and out of and through our various transitional Forms into that Final, Fulfilling One of the Integrated Human Person. This is the True Human whose Family is Humanity and who Faces Life and Death without the Co-dependency of Gods and Governments but only with the Interdependency of limited Humans who willingly need and depend on each other through Voluntary Trade of Personal Value. However, if, as the 99% show, we are sown into a disenabling Ground, then we will grow up Deformed to Conform to the Status Quo of whatever Power Elite group we are located within. We will grow up to believe in and thus perpetuate our slavery to the Gods and Governments we project out of our rejection of taking complete Responsibility for our Freedom. The Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup is intended to provide the GROUND of BECOMING for those who are want to be RESPONSIBLY FREE and KNOW THEIR GROW and GROW THEIR KNOW. The HPM is for those who are courageous enough to want to see the Cage they were born within and forced to conform to and deform themselves in doing so. You can Reform your Deformity by becoming your own God and Government. Just DO IT with a little help from your Free Friends such as Maslow, Rogers, May and me. ------To close, here are the 15 Characteristics of a Self-Actualizing Person. Do you live all of these? If not, do you want to? Take the Red Pill and you Will, Freely and Responsibly. Characteristics of Self-Actualizing Persons Central to the lives of self-actualized people is a set of values that Maslow called the Being-Values, or B-Values. 1. They are realistically oriented and not threatened by the unknown. They have a superior ability to reason and to see the truth. 2. They perceive and understand human nature. They accept themselves, other people, circumstances and the natural world for what they are. They able to learn from anyone and are friendly with anyone, with no regard to stereotypes. 3. They are emotionally intelligent and feel no need for crippling guilt or shame. They tend to be serene, characterized by a lack of worry. They are self starters, are responsible for themselves, and own their behavior. Work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason. 4. They are unflappable and retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortune, all the while remaining objective. 5. They have a great deal of spontaneity and have no unnecessary inhibitions. 6. The self-actualized person can be alone and not be lonely. 7. They are honest and seek justice for all. 8. They are autonomous and independent. Thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention. Their ethics are autonomous and they determine their own inner moral standards. 9. They have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and appreciate the best aspects in all things. However they resist conformity to the culture. They determine their own behavior and have their own views on people and events. 10. Moment to moment living for them is exciting and often exhilarating as they live their life to the full. Vibrant moments are frequent and peak experiences not unusual. Peak experiences are moments when one sees clearly what before was hidden or obscured. 11. They seek wholeness; they are able to merge opposing views into a third, higher synthesis, as though the two have united; therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict. Self-actualizing people retain their childlike qualities and yet have a far-seeing wisdom. 12. Their intimate relationships with specially loved people tend to be profound, sincere and long-lasting, rather than superficial. 13. Their sense of humor is philosophical rather than hostile. They can laugh at themselves but never make jokes that hurt others. 14. Self-actualizing people enjoy an inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything they do. Their creativity is original, inventive, uninhibited and since they see the real and true more easily - valuable. 15. Self-actualizing individuals are motivated to continual growth. They are also aware of their primary goals in life and are devoted to fulfilling them, both for their own benefit and as service to others. -----Choosing to Take the Red Pill (The Matrix movies)--see our new group photo https://www.resourceforyoursource.com/8_freed-trader (below is from a page on my website) "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Goethe “The symbol of all relationships among men…who neither make sacrifices nor accept them…is the trader.” Ayn Rand From the last scene of the movie The Matrix, Neo speaking to “The Matrix”: “I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what You don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without You. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.” To be FREE FOR, you must first be FREED FROM. Most are NOT Free From their Genetic-Cultural Ties that Bind, Blind and Strangle. Bacon's "Nature to be commanded must be obeyed" is not acknowledged and understood. The GENE-MEME MACHINE, the Real MATRIX, controls us without our knowing it. Once you understand you will NOT Host the Ghosts of Gods, Zombies of Governments, and Parasites of Banksters. This is about declaring yourself a SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL, a FREED and FREE TRADER by virtue of cutting the Cord to your DNA DICTATOR (AKA, the Selfish Gene/Meme), the Originating and Real MATRIX that made the Hollywood movie and the Empire of the U.S.S.A. It means tying your Freed Loose End to Another's with a Knot of Conscious Care--limbically tying your Life Line to another cut Free of Gods and Governments. "Trading Beyond the Matrix" means that You are ready to Freely Invest and Trade Yourself--your Self-Worth in exchange for Another's Value. For what we Exchange with each other is Each Other--not money or goods and services. But only Freed and Free Traders can Trade this way. Are YOU One of Them? Do YOU want to be? -----Government as God--The Cage You Have Locked Yourself Within and Cannot See There are two Cages HumanUnKind has locked itself within since Consciousness began arising in Individuals, God (Many or One) and Government (from Kings to Democracies). But since the "Death of God" announced by Nietzsche circa 1900, Government has taken over as the number one Belief most obstructing our Human Potential. Have a view of this video that puts images to the Anarchist Larkin Rose's eloquent and accurate poem on the true nature of Government as God. I look forward to your responses here. -----I am a HuManTheist, that is, a person who sees Humans as potential Gods. WE are the GODS we worship. Look into the mirror to see the miracle of you as a Separate Self, smile, and then become Responsible for your Freedom, accept the terms of the Human Condition, its terminals of Birth and Death, and the ultimate Value it gives that once and only Journey between as the Great Adventure of Life. Because Death is Necessary, make Life Sufficient. Live the Truth of being Terminally Well rather than dying the Lie of being Terminally Ill. Rather than “transcending” or trying to escape, avoid or deny the Truth of Being Human, accept it and act it out as the Unique You that your truly are when you are actualizing your Autonomous, Authentic Self and becoming your own Authority. This Self-Actualizing ever ongoing work at Being YOU and expressing your True Form and informing it with the Wisdom necessary to DO your BE is what therapy or the process of becoming your own Form is. It is the Informing necessary to Reform your Deformity that happened because you had to Conform to your Gene/Meme Dictates (Parents, Culture, Society, Ideology, Nation). This is what the Human Potential Movement (HPM) and our Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup (AHPMM) is about—helping your Reform your Deformity to Conformity to finally express your True Form by Informing it with the Wisdom of the HPM. What the HPM does is help you get Free to Do your Be. As Carl Rogers spoke it, “therapy is the self-initiated process of learning to be free.” Here are some others on this theme: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Goethe “Then what is freedom? The will to be responsible for ourselves.” Friedrich Nietzsche “Freedom is the prevention of control by others of yourself.” Lord Acton I call this “FreeEaching”, which is what I will be doing with the Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup (AHPMM). I put it this way: There is no freedom for until you are free from. I help you locate – and then, if you choose, help you break – those links of your genetic and cultural conditioning that control you. Then you can control yourself and choose to create new linkages with other individuals living the Human Condition freely, responsibly, empathetically and knowledgably. ----I would like start with the 48 page chapter six, “The Humanistic Approach” from the textbook, Theories of Personality-8th Edition by Schultz and Schultz, a very well written psychology textbook, that covers the two main psychologists from the HPM, Maslow and Carl Rodgers. You will find this source material here on my Google Drive: http://bit.ly/2iLWGXl Please have a read of it and let me know what you think of it as our first reading to UNDERSTAND and EXPERIENCE. Remember, this is NOT AN ACADEMIC nor SPIRTUALIST Meetup, but a group dedicated to UNDERSTANDING & EXPERIENCING what I consider the core of the HPM that is TRUE SPIRITUALITY, that is, based on ACTUAL HUMAN NATURE scientifically evidenced and supported. “The term humanistic psychology was first used by Gordon Allport in 1930, represented in this section by the works of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Their theories emphasize human strengths and aspirations, conscious free will, and the fulfillment of our potential. They present a flattering and optimistic image of human nature and describe people as active, creative beings concerned with growth and self-actualization.” “Abraham Maslow is considered the founder and spiritual leader of the humanistic psychology movement. He was strongly critical of behaviorism and of psychoanalysis, particularly Sigmund Freud’s approach to personality. According to Maslow, when psychologists study only abnormal, emotionally disturbed examples of humanity, they ignore positive human qualities such as happiness, contentment, and peace of mind. We underestimate human nature, Maslow charged, when we fail to examine the best examples of humanity, society’s most creative, healthy, and mature people. Maslow’s personality theory does not derive from case histories of clinical patients but from research on creative, independent, self-sufficient, fulfilled adults. Maslow concluded that each person is born with the same instinctive needs that enable us to grow, develop, and fulfill our potentials.” “Rogers proposed a single, innate, overriding motivation: the inborn tendency to actualize, to develop our abilities and potentials, from the strictly biological to the most sophisticated psychological aspects of our being. This ultimate goal is to actualize the self, to become what Rogers called a fully functioning person.” ---Hello to all new members of Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup! Hello Fellow Humanists and Free Friends Now and To Come, Welcome to the Auckland Human Potential Movement Meetup (AHPMM) group! This is Jack in Auckland CBD, just a month here in New ZEALand bringing here my Old ZEAL (noble passion) for the Love of Wisdom and Freedom and for the Wisdom and Freedom of Love. I am pleased to have you join this group and hope I can act as a Resource to your Sources concerning the Human Potential Movement (HPM) begun in the U.S. in the 1960s and carried forward into 2017 by Self-Actualizers like me. I will be announcing our first Meetup to take place probably within the next 30 days. Please give me some suggestions where you think might be our best meeting place conducive to quiet, calm dialogue with much active listening. Also, if you would like to mention our group to others who might be interested in joining, the more the merrier! Here was my Meetup Welcome Message to new members, I am not sure if you could read it? Become your own God and Government! The Wisdom of the Human Potential Movement enables you to take back the Power you have given away. Live Autonomously, Authentically, by your own Authority. I have the books, videos and understanding of them to help you do this. Welcome to Responsible Freedom. I could not put many words into the Startup format to explain what I would like our AHPMM to be, so will do so here to some extent and much more on the meetup web page in the future as well as my own websites and Facebook groups/pages. Also, I will be putting a very full range of books and articles on and by authors I associate with the HPM onto my Google Drive that you can download at anytime for free and freedom’s sake. Also, I will be giving you links for videos and audios by and on the main mentors of the HPM. A good place to describe what AHPMM is intended to be about is to quote the Wikipedia article on the HPM: “The Human Potential Movement arose out of the milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement took as its premise the belief that through the development of ‘human potential’, humans can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment. As a corollary, those who begin to unleash this assumed potential often find themselves directing their actions within society towards assisting others to release their potential. Adherents believe that the net effect of individuals cultivating their potential will bring about positive social change at large.” I agree with every word of the above. And, for the most part, when I hear the HPM‘s main mentors such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Fritz Perls, Erich Fromm, Thomas Szasz, et al – these are the ideas that have informed my own form of the HPM I call Responsible Freedom. I will end this email by copying below what I think is one of the best descriptions of true Humanist and Self-Actualizing persons. I live this way. If you do too, that is wonderful and we will be mutually supportive Free Friends. If you do not yet live this way fully, but want to, then our group is intended to create the growth conditions for you to fully Self-Actualize your "God Within". Eric Hoffer has well expressed the challenge: “The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of irrevocable extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter. Thus the renunciation of the self is felt as a liberation and salvation. How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.” See you soon. Jack of All Trades and as Every Man. ----Here is the quote: Characteristics of Self-Actualizing Persons Central to the lives of self-actualized people is a set of values that Maslow called the Being-Values, or B-Values. They are realistically oriented and not threatened by the unknown. They have a superior ability to reason and to see the truth. They perceive and understand human nature. They accept themselves, other people, circumstances and the natural world for what they are. They able to learn from anyone and are friendly with anyone, with no regard to stereotypes. They are emotionally intelligent and feel no need for crippling guilt or shame. They tend to be serene, characterized by a lack of worry. They are self starters, are responsible for themselves, and own their behavior. Work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason. They are unflappable and retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortune, all the while remaining objective. They have a great deal of spontaneity and have no unnecessary inhibitions. The self-actualized person can be alone and not be lonely. They are honest and seek justice for all. They are autonomous and independent. Thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention. Their ethics are autonomous and they determine their own inner moral standards. They have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and appreciate the best aspects in all things. However they resist conformity to the culture. They determine their own behavior and have their own views on people and events. Moment to moment living for them is exciting and often exhilarating as they live their life to the full. Vibrant moments are frequent and peak experiences not unusual. Peak experiences are moments when one sees clearly what before was hidden or obscured. They seek wholeness; they are able to merge opposing views into a third, higher synthesis, as though the two have united; therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict. Self-actualizing people retain their childlike qualities and yet have a far-seeing wisdom. Their intimate relationships with specially loved people tend to be profound, sincere and long-lasting, rather than superficial. Their sense of humor is philosophical rather than hostile. They can laugh at themselves but never make jokes that hurt others. Self-actualizing people enjoy an inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything they do. Their creativity is original, inventive, uninhibited and since they see the real and true more easily - valuable. Self-actualizing individuals are motivated to continual growth. They are also aware of their primary goals in life and are devoted to fulfilling them, both for their own benefit and as service to others. Maslow's writings tell us much about the nature of wisdom. The selfactualizing people that Maslow describes focus on concerns outside of themselves; they like solitude and privacy more than the average person, and they tend to be more detached than usual from the dictates and expectations of their culture. They are inner-directed people. They appreciate the world around them with a sense of awe and wonder. In love relationships they respect the other's individuality and feel joy at another's success. They give more love than most people, and need less. Because they take an independent view, they can see situations and problems more objectively and consequently they tend to be creative and make valuable contributions to society. One reason that a person does not move through the needs to selfactualization is because of the hindrances placed in their way by society. For example, education can act to inhibit a person's potential (though also of course it can promote personal growth). So can other aspects of the family and culture act to condition and funnel an individual into a role that is not fulfilling. To escape this conditioning, a person has to awaken to their situation, to realize that their life could be different, that there are changes that can be made in the direction of self-actualization. To promote our personal growth, we can learn to be authentic, to be aware of our inner selves and to hear our inner feelings and needs. We can begin to transcend our own cultural conditioning and become world citizens. We can help our children discover their talents and creative skills, to find the appropriate career and complementary partner. We can demonstrate that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life, and that if one is open to seeing the good - and humorous - in all kinds of situations, this makes life worth living. The path of personal transformation is primarily a process of becoming aware of, facing up to and taking responsibility for one's thoughts, feelings and actions, and then expanding this self-realization by communicating with others, retaining integrity whatever the response, and further enhancing the quality of communication with ever-increasing empathy and understanding. Through understanding others better, we can recognize their essential goodwill, however misguided it might have become, and begin to recognize the spirituality of humankind. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1uRyCh_4ndjR0tDUDBLMDRTdHM/view?re sourcekey=0-OcWNOWx_zN6V1NUZEIaxKA