On Sunday my wife got up early and cleaned the whole house and made me breakfast, carnivore Eggs Benedict (that's just Eggs Benedict with egg whites where the English muffins usually are). I have to say I rather enjoyed the pampering of that, while I read and programmed and messed about on my phone, all the morning chores, coffee, breakfast, tidy. Just got done without my input.

Suffice it to say that this is a rather unusual occurrence and was meant and taken as a special treat and early payment for a favor I'd not yet conferred but that I would be doing soon. You see my wife had a plan for Sunday. This past Christmas my brother came to Vermont to visit us and my parents for the holidays. He came with his dog and a trunk full of gifts carefully prepared by his more thoughtful half who stayed behind at their home, to stay focused on her work renovating houses (she's a tough chick).

Among these many goodies nestled in my brother's Subaru was a vial of home grown Psilocybin mushrooms. These mushrooms where the gift prepared for my wife. It was these mushrooms that were the object of her plans for this past Sunday, and the reason she spoiled me in the morning.

You see she took all of the mushrooms. 3.5 grams of communion with God.

My task, among all the other things I'd planned for myself that day, was to keep an eye on her and help her if things started to go sideways (which they did but only for a few minutes before she crossed the threshold of her ego and emerged from the other side reborn.)

The details of her experience are her's to tell to whom she wishes and not mine to disclose. Instead I'd like to ruminate on some of the topics we discussed that evening when the veil of the divine lifted from her senses and we sipped tea and read and conversed in dim light.

In particular I'm taken by the idea that we called (for lack of a better term) "the middleman". Let me contextualize a little bit.

Consider this: You exist. You have needs. They are obvious to you. You feel hunger and thirst. You desire sex and are at times aroused. When you are too cold you seek warmth and when you are too hot you crave the relief of a dip in cold water. When you sit for too long you become anxious and are compelled to move your body and when you exert yourself too much your thoughts turn to soft beds and hot food. When you observe a perplexing phenomenon your curiosity percolates. And when the answers you seek prove elusive and your mental fortitude wains you become frustrated and are compelled to take a break. You don't need to think about what to think. You need not weigh what you should want. Without effort your needs and desires are clear. Your work is to fulfil all those needs, while at the same time maintaining an emotional equilibrium and sense of worth.

How often do we stand in our own way in this work? "All the time" say I. And the chief obstruction we place before ourselves is the middleman.

Suppose you are suddenly in a new place, with no money and no contacts, no society to lean on. You are hungry and tired so you need the basics: Food, shelter, water, warmth.

What would you do? Most people would probably perish, myself included (a sad comment on our present culture).

But suppose you're of particularly stark constitution and you manage to scrounge together what you need. How would you have done that?

Would you wander into the woods with a resume scratched into a piece of bark and ask a squirrel for a job in exchange for acorns to trade for food? Probably not. Who even would you trade the acorns to? Society, money, commerce and trade, all these are meaningless in this new place

Probably you would set about building a fire, assuming you know how to start one with friction. Then you might build a simple shelter from the materials around you, something sufficient to keep the elements off you while you sleep and reflect heat from your fire. Then if you're not already too tired you may begin looking for food. Gathering it from plants around you or taking it from the lives of animals you can catch and kill. Concurrently with your search for food you may locate some water to keep you hydrated

This would be a brutal existence on your own, but were you to meet another like you, (lost, alone, but cooperative). The two of you could work together and delegate the work and share the rewards. Up to a point adding more companions would only improve the quality of life for each of you supposing you each understand what the others are doing and how those things relate back to the survival of your group. Congratulations you and your new friends have re-created what many consider to be the way humanity existed for the bulk of our history (the tens of thousands of years before agriculture).

Given enough time you and your friends and your offspring and their offspring, and so on and so forth might become large enough that any one member of your group doesn't necessarily know every other member of the group. They may be walking around this place you've established yourself and meet another and not know their name, or their face or have any no idea what they do. Suppose now that you are the one meeting this new person who you know to be in your group but who you don't know. This might feel very strange for you but probably not because in our real world this is the situation in just about every interaction we have with people. Now if this new person doesn't say anything to you and they don't have anything you want or need you can safely ignore them, and they you if the reverse holds true that you don't have anything they want or need. But suppose you're building a house and this new member is carrying a bunch of wood perfect for house building. What might you do? You might say to the fellow,

"How have you gotten all that nice wood? Where can I get some?"

And if he's a kind fellow he may tell you.

"I got this wood from that clump of trees over there. They're good trees for wood."

And you may desire this wood and so thank the fellow and go off and collect some for yourself.

But suppose instead this fellow says.

"I got this wood from that clump of trees over there. I'll sell you some of this wood if you like"

What in the world has this man just said?

What he's done is he's just offered to be a middleman. He'll give you some wood and save you the work of cutting trees if you give him something that he values the same. He's just invented commerce. So you might take him up on that offer, thinking to yourself "Well I have plenty of extra rocks I've collected so I'll offer him some rocks for his wood and save myself some time and labor"

But the fellow doesn't want any rocks. He wants meat. You don't have any meat but you know a good hunting ground where you could kill a deer and get some meat for the fellow in exchange for the wood. The trouble is that hunting the deer will be just as much work if not more work as just going and cutting some wood from the same clump of trees as the fellow with the wood. So instead you choose to go do it yourself.

Ah but the troubles aren't over for you. As you bid the fellow farewell and say "Thanks for the offer but I'll just go chop some wood for myself". He stops you and says

"You can't go chop that wood yourself. Those are my trees and only I can chop them."

What the hell? What does he mean they're his trees? Isn't everyone just a lost soul trying to make it in this strange new place and nothing here belongs to anyone but rather is just there just you are all just there?

"No" says the fellow, "Everyone in the group agreed before you came along that those trees are mine and no one can cut them but me."

So now what can you do? Must you go and hunt some meat to get the wood you need for your house? In this case you must, and so you're off on a circuitous quest to obtain wood, by first hunting some meat.

So you go to the hunting grounds you know about with your bow and set down in some brush to await a deer. When you do this another fellow, different from the last who you don't know comes along and greets you.

"How are you?" says the fellow.

"Well" you say. "I'm hunting some deer to trade the meat for wood to build myself a house."

"Ah" says the fellow. "You cannot hunt the deer in these woods I'm afraid. All these deer and even these woods belong to me, only I can hunt the deer here and cut the trees. But if you give me some grasses to make for myself a thatching I'll give you the meat you need."

Son of a ... You can't even hunt in this good spot for hunting because some other fellow owns the deer there.

So you go off in search of grass to trade for meat to in turn trade for wood with which you can build yourself a house.

So you go to where you once noticed a fine field of tall grasses perfect for thatching to collect them to trade to the fellow who owns the deer. But as you go to cut the grass yet another new fellow who's name and purpose in the group you don't know stops you to ask you for what are you cutting his grasses.

"Your grasses? You mean to tell me that you own these grasses like the other fellow owned the deer and the fellow before owned the wood?" you ask incredulously.

"Aye" says the grass fellow. "All these grasses as far as you see them are mine, and you cannot cut them."

"But in another pasture I have some yaks that eat the grasses I have there. And they are in need of shaving" says the grass fellow. "If you come to my other pasture and shave my yaks with that knife you intended to cut grasses with here, I'll give you permission to come back here and cut as much grass as you wish."

So you agree and follow the fellow to his field of yaks and proceed to shave the man's yaks. After you finish the grass fellow thanks you for your hard work and gives you permission to cut his grasses. Which you do and you take the grasses to the deer fellow and give them to him. Upon receiving your grasses the deer fellow launches an arrow over your heads and kills a deer and tells you, that you may take your meat from that deer.. So you butcher the deer and pack up all it's meat and bones and make your way to the wood fellow.

"I have your meat now" you say to the wood fellow.

He greats you happily and takes the meat you give him, giving you permission to cut wood from his trees in turn. You cut the wood you need from his trees and carry it back to your camp to begin constructing your house When you get to your camp the sun is setting and you must wait to build your house tomorrow. Sitting at your fire contemplating your day you realize that your quest to build a house is incomplete and barely even started although you've put in a huge amount of effort You've take a very long and indirect path to fulfilling your needs and it makes you feel that things are not fair. The Grass fellow had to do nothing, he only owned grasses and yaks. The Deer fellow did nothing he only shot a deer for you. The Wood fellow did nothing he only owned the trees. You however had to shave a yak, cut a field of grasses, butcher a deer for meat and cut trees for wood. You start to think to yourself that if you owned something you could save yourself work by trading it for the things you need like wood, and soon thatching like the deer fellow needed.

So you go to the group and you ask that you be given something to own. They all agree that since you've collected lots of rocks and you know where to get good rocks that you should own the rocks. This is good for you. You continue in life owning the rocks and trading them for things you need. But eventually you grow tired of endlessly trading your rocks to get something else, to get something else to finally get what you need. So you go back to the group.

"We all own something and it has made it easier for us to get what we need because we can trade what we own for that which we need." you say to the group.

The group all murmurs in approval of your apt summary of the system in place..

"But we've all noticed that at times it's hard to find a fellow to take that which you own who also has what you need." You say. "Often times many trades are needed to get what you need from that which you own and the work is nearly not saved because of the long chain."

Everyone in the group nods in agreement.

"So perhaps rather than this business of trading one thing for another for another. We can all just trade what we own for one thing which no one owns. Then you can make a single trade for the one thing and then trade that for what you need."

Everyone in the group agrees this is a good idea and you all decide that people should trade what they own for one thing that no one owns to make it easier to trade at all.

This system works well and you've invented money. Good job!

Now rather than taking long paths to trade one thing for another for another you just trade for money and then trade your money for what you need. What a great system.

Suppose some generations pass like this but now once again you are a new member in this group and you don't own anything. You want to build yourself a house so you go to the woods where the wood fellow stops you from cutting his trees.

"You need to give me money before you can cut my trees." He says.

"But where can I get money if I do not own anything?" you ask the wood fellow.

The wood fellow thinks for a time and then speaks. "You should go to the group and ask that they give you ownership of something that you can trade for money. Then you can trade your money to me for the wood you need"

So you go to the group and ask that they give you something to own so you can trade it for money. But there is a problem. Everything is already owned. No one can give you anything to own with out giving something up themselves. So the group thinks for a time and decides that although you don't own anything, you still own yourself and you can trade yourself for that which you need in the form of work. So you go to a fellow that owns much and has traded it for much money, you say to the fellow.

"Have you any work that I might trade to you for money?"

And the fellow thinks for a time and realizes that he has the money and the resources to never work again. So he sets you to work, cutting his wood, and mowing his grasses, butchering his deer and shaving his yaks. You do all the fellows work and give to him that which he owns for him to trade. Work he in turns sets you to. In return he gives you some of the money you've gotten for trading that which he owns. This money you can trade back to the fellow or other fellows who own things like him for that which you need to do your own work.

Finally, once you've done your fellow's work, traded your fellow's goods, gotten a portion of your fellow's money, traded it for some good's of your own. Now you can do your work to fulfil your needs.

Now you can be happy if you have the time.

You can see where I'm going with this. Money is the middleman. Ownership is the middleman. These road block to nature. They're middlemen. They're antithetical to humanity.

These middlemen exist everywhere. Commerce is the low handing analogy.

Look at food and poop.

You might be thinking to yourself. But I don't have any impediments to pooping. When I feel the call I go sit on the toilet and ba-da-bing ba-da-boom poop complete and problem solved. Well you're wrong.

What really happens is this:

  1. You feel the need to poop (and probably pee too)
  2. You go sit on the toilet and poop and pee into fresh water.
  3. You flush the poop and pee and water into a) a septic tank. b) a sewer
  4. Energy is expended: a) the poop and pee and water sit in the septic tank and slowly decompose though never fully, and eventually the waste is pumped into a truck and driven to a water treatment facility b) the poop and pee and water run into the sewer which carries it via pipes and pumps to a water treatment facility
  5. More energy is expended: At the faciliy heaters, pumps, chemicals, lots of infrastructure and a large group of workers all coordinate to clean the water that was dirtied in step 2. Separating the poop and pee from it.
  6. The poop and pee is finally "processed" best case scenario: the solid waste taken from the water is composed commercially and sent to the dump because it has too many chemicals from step 5 to be of use as fertilizer. worst case scenario: the solid waste is sent directly to the dump to be buried and finally decompose slowly.

In this system steps 2 - 6 are all middlemen. An alternative exists.

  1. You feel the need to poop
  2. You do your business into a container containing a carbonaceous organic filler material to absorb liquids and mask smell.
  3. When your container become full you empty it into a pile containing other organic materials in an appropriate ratio of carbonaceous to nitrogenous organic materials, covering the pile with more carbonaceous organic filler (for smell)
  4. In 2 years the waste is turned into fertile compost that can be spread on gardens, pastures, orchards and flower beds.
  5. The food grown with the compost is eaten by you to become poop and pee once more.
  6. No energy was wasted on things like transporting the poop or heating it or "purifying it"

Much better right? You can read the Humanure Handbook by Joe Jenkins if you think that's cool. He'll tell you all about it.

The society we live in has placed these middlemen everywhere for use to be hamstrung by. For most of us, we're so accustomed to dealing with them we don't even know you can get around them, or worse don't notice them at all. But usually can. Need something but don't have money? Try and forage it. Can't forage it? Barter for it? Can't barter? Then unfortunately you're screwed and you must interact with the money-middleman If that upsets you then be cognizant of the freedoms you give up that force you to deal with more middlemen.

I can go on for days listing middlemen. What organic, humanely raised meat? Go to a local farmer. But wait he can't sell it to you because in order to use money (a middleman in it's own right), he has to go through the USDA (a big fat middleman). So don't mess around just trade the farmer for some meat. Or better yet, trade him for a calf or a kid or a lamb or a box of chicks and raise your own meat.

As humans we know what we need intrinsically. We just waste a lot of time and energy and happiness searching for the middleman who will give it to us. Life is out there, you just have to take the shortest path there.