Foreword, aka Life Sucks Why Shouldn't I Want All the Money I Can Get Before I Die

It seems we're all going to die at some point. In the meantime, is anything worth it?

Our universe has forces that equalize us all with no exemptions, no partiality one way or another. The sun does not care whether it shines on a jerk or a saint. The thunderstorm does not think about dumping rain on a field compared to a city. What matters is how we prepare, and those who emerge on the other side are those who have identified what lasts and acted on their priorities. After everything - everything - has been leveled, what can last is us.

I didn't say that we will last. I said we can last. After all, what are you going to do if you banked on not making it through a hurricane (real or metaphorical), and then you find out...you did?

So. How can we care for us? What builds the resilience of us?

What we at first think are the most ethereal ingredients of care turn out to be the most resilient and visceral, because the less these ingredients originate in material requirements the stronger they anchor us from the top: Listening to ourselves and one another. Being kind to ourselves and to others. Expressing appreciation.

These are not an afterthought or a nicety. They are the impetus for any material care - not the other way around - and they mean survival. When the material, social, political, and financial world around us initiates a melt down, we see it coming and tether to the only thing that will make it through: caring for ourselves and each other.

There is much to be said for love being the most important thing, or Christ, or Buddha - fill in the blank. I am here to discuss something more important than - and the foundational anchor for - any of these: gratitude.

But don't we have to have something to be grateful for? Like money, or youth, or beauty, or health? Don't we need to have something to express thanks? The answer is yes, we need to have one thing and one thing only to express thanks: we only need to have gratitude to express thanks.

We need nothing but gratitude to express thanks.

Without gratitude, we have less than nothing because we cannot receive anything and we lose what we already have. With it, we have more blessings new and old than we can count. Ingratitude is the self-loathing hell home of starvation and poverty, and it is ever sinking into debt. Its walls are the crumbling mismanagement of resources by the love of money. Its members are product and prisoner of exploitation, extraction, and devaluation. Its care hurts worse than any affliction.

Gratitude is receiving in advance of a gift. Gratitude is what prepares us to accept any and every gift being presented to us in any given moment. Without gratitude, we would not be able to pick up a pile of gold if God wrangled every prophet in history and they walked in our door and left it in our laps. Without gratitude, we could have the health of a horse and we would still live lives of misery. Without gratitude, we spit out the most delectable and nourishing meals that then rot in the gutter while we cry in hunger. Without gratitude, we look at our millions in the bank and it is not enough, we must have billions even if it means looting from our loved ones.

Now what if there just isn't any gratitude anywhere, inside or outside us? How can we get gratitude if there truly is nothing, no gratitude, nothing but the painful hostile dearth of ingratitude all around?

Here is how: by getting rid of the opposite of gratitude, and creating a vacuum where nothing can exist but the opposite of ingratitude. Allow me to present a mantra, or prayer, or koan, whatever you want to call it:

no complaint no ingratitude

I could sit in a room with you and shout "no complaint no ingratitude no complaint no ingratitude" at you. I could scream "don't be ungrateful!!" and start an MLM cult, and as well as that might work it's not the best way for it to work. I can't stop you from doing that either, but I'll tell you it's not the way to get the most wealth out of it. We're only on this planet for a short time, and I prefer to use less stupid ways if they're available, so I'll give you how it works best.

Used as a silent prayer, "no complaint no ingratitude" becomes an argument of the mind and creates a vacuum of ingratitude on the inside, that can only fill with nothing but gratitude. Thought begets expression and action. Since this originates gratitude on the inside, we can expect it to externalize in ourselves expressing gratitude - and being able to accept every gift being offered to us. And let me tell you, gifts come in ALL forms and modalities. The creativity is off the map, so there's also zero boredom with this stuff. Hell, it can be fun.

I can't make anyone do this, and neither can you - and making someone else do this is not the point. I can't stop you from becoming the thought police, but again that's not going to get you the wealth you want, and if you wish to use this as harm to another it will not achieve the outcome you desire.

The whole point is to silently say it to yourself, and observe if and how you find yourself being grateful. We're not here to tell each other not to be ungrateful. We're not here to tell each other not to complain. We're here to silently remember how to dispel ingratitude within ourselves, and if we've done that we are creating the worth in our own life that is why life is worth living. Anything other good that comes, well that's gravy it's not the entree.

For me, this mantra (or meditation or whatever you want to call it) has expanded to become:

no complaint no ingratitude no fear no evil

no dysfunction no envy no jealousy no matter

There's a reason it begins with gratitude. Without gratitude, we can't have anything.

It's fairly simple to see what I am bringing about in the vacuum of its opposite: gratitude, praise, love, good, intelligence, satisfaction, ownership, and substance. The things we need to anchor from the top and make it through no matter what happens. So you will see this: <no complaint no ingratitude no fear no evil no dysfunction no envy no jealousy no matter> a little later on, and now you know what it is. You'll also see: complaint, ingratitude, fear, evil, dysfunction, envy, jealousy, and matter. I write it out every time because I like to see every part of my enemy so no part can hide.

The following points are written in the style of an argument of the mind. Imagine your mind as a house for your thoughts, and the ideas below as a VR headset to walk around with. You can take the headset off any time you want, you can check out just a room or the whole place and then see what you think. You might like what I've done and think about getting - or building - your own headset so you can make your home how you like. Or you might just think about it for awhile, or never think about it again. That's on you, but at any rate, thanks for reading.

Next: the premise