I wonder if I made Donald Trump defensive when I auditioned for for "The Apprentice" in 2010. In that audition, Donald Trump listened as I discussed that money, fame and power were limitations and that to be truly innovative, we needed to go beyond those constructs in order to transcend common definitions of success. He asked me : "Do you have a Masters' degree"? Since I sensed he found my philosophy inconsistent with his focus on "MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY" (the backdrop theme song for The Apprentice"), I replied, Well, Mr Trump, sometimes my Master's Degree HAS me"!
Karl Marx wrote "The less you are and the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth"
All that Donald Trump was able to do was to REACT to WORDS that may have made him defensive. I may have caused him distress,or at least I may have made him uncomfortable, because I may have made him QUESTION whether he HAD his money fame and power,or whether his money fame and power had him! At least that may be one explanation for why he seemed, IMHO, disturbed enough by me to INCREDULOUSLY ask if I had a Master's degree.
I believe that I showed that "words are more powerful than the sword"! Yes, it is true that Donald Trump preferred others to be on his show, but perhaps this incident shows that even the wealtiest are defensive BECAUSE, deep down, they KNOW their money, fame and power HAS them.
People like Donald Trump can demand that the offensive, obnoxious (to him?) speaker of words that make them uncomfortable be removed from their future presence, for any reason, but words spoken heard or read will still have the power to remain in their head, and/or subconscious defensiveness will endure, etc.
Those who have loads of money, fame, and power have at least a chink, if not an entirely invisible emperors suit of "no clothes" on, because they are defensive, almost all the time, unless they are continuously distracted, by consuming, drinking, drugs, sex, sports, etc. Instead of AUTHENTIC CONFIDENCE that comes from INTERNAL self esteem, most of those who have excessive money fame and power are missing out on AUTHENTICALLY BEING because they are obsessed with excessively HAVING, and the obsessive increasing, retaining, protecting, etc., of what they HAVE.
Steven Covey says this about being authentic to yourself: "You have to decide what your highest priorities are, and have the courage-pleasantly, smilingly, non apologetically to say "no" to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger "yes" burning inside". I am saying that, for me, at least, the "bigger "yes" is being, (i.e., being my PERSONAL VALIDITY IDENTITY.) Marx says about labor that results in having: "The opposite of labor is PRODUCING (emphasis added) yourself, your being, your freedom, your validity, as opposed to your alienation".
Money, fame, and power (beyond what amount of these qualities is truly necessary for simple, basic survival, of course ) is IMHO HAVING, instead of BEING, and this HAVING is what causes defensivenesss and limitations in terms of AUTHENTIC being. The 1%, etc., for instance, must either distract themselves from piercing, (perhaps intrusive?) words about the difference between being and having, or the 1%, etc., must ignore, or pretend that these words ever were heard in the first place.
This is half heartedly done by saying that the words about having and being came from a Communist,etc., so that the speaker is sufficiently dehumanized to seem like he is nothing, so the words, by collateral "damage", likewize are taken to mean nothing. Or, often, there is a refusal to comprehend the meaning, or it is said that the words were just words, and that only money fame and power were real, because look at what can be done with money, fame, and power!
The 1%, etc., then goes about trying to prove that money, fame, and power is more powerful than the words that seemed to take away money fame and powers' well, power. The 1%, etc., fund foundations, support statism and the paralysis of the bureaucratic status quo, etc., to stop all thinking, including their own thinking and/or reflection from going on, so that everyone virtually sleeps even while awake, and even in their dreams it is hard to dream about being so nightmares and fears of having ensue!
The purpose of this article is to develop awareness that we ALL may be,at best,just PRACTICING to BE, and that most of us are all more expert, close to MASTERING HAVING than we are at even PRACTICING BEING! In otherwords, being alive is a relative issue, and the proof that it is so is that someone, anyone, can make us defensive with words! If some one can make you DEFEND the fact, or make you even question the fact that you ARE alive(i.e., that you ARE authentically BEING) or that you are only RELATIVELY alive (i.e., that you are effectively subsituting HAVING material things in stead of BEING Yourself) then how can there BE any ABSOLUTE ANYTHING?
How can there be an absolute right or absolute wrong, if we are, or can be, made to be even a TEENSEY TINY bit defensive about being ABSOLUTELY alive? The best answer I have come up with, is that perhaps only HUMOR and LOVE can save us from this seriousness! lol And perhaps, just perhaps, there is the possibility of ABSOLUTE humor, and absolute love,(entertaining yourself with self love, perhaps?) that as a side effect reverses all limitations.
It has been shown that attitudinal change CAN ACTUALLY, FACTUALLY make our brains fuction optimally such that there is a retro youth drug effect, PHYSICALLY, and perhaps this retro youth drug effect, namely BEING instead of (or in addition to) HAVING is potentially absolute, wheras having can only, and always be relative. In other words, authentic being can be greater and more beneficial to LIFE, LOVE, AND HUMOR, etc., than all the money, fame, and/or power in the entire world!
Imagine freedom from all relative limitations: social, cultural and communicational, especially when and if we could live, love and laugh spontaneously because we can BE instead of HAVE!
