Declining Powers
Published: Sun, 03/17/24
The change to state pension age was announced some time ago, so I can’t claim to have been taken by surprise. However, waking up on my 65th birthday yesterday does make me aware of this shift in expectation. It used to be thought that 65 was old because you had just become a pensioner. Now, I am not officially old for another year, who knew that the secret of eternal youth was so simple? Perhaps I should also be glad that the government is being realistic about it’s liabilities and is managing them sensibly by taking measures such as raising the state pension age. On the other hand the government seems to be able to find the spare cash for sending money and weapons to keep a proxy war going in Ukraine. Oh, and don’t remind me how much was wasted on flu a couple of years back.
Not so long ago we might have expected that improving technology and greater prosperity would mean a lowering of the state pension age and earlier retirement for those ready to take it. Of course a great many people have been able to take early retirement because their occupational pension made this possible. However, even these pensions are now getting harder to access and I am told by those in professions such as the military that current retirement benefits are no longer nearly as attractive as they were.
I am aware of my declining powers. I can have a few weeks of almost feeling invincible, working hard for long hours, martial arts training, and engaging with our lively four year old. Then I will crash with various health problems for a few days and recovery takes a little longer than it used to. I was supposed to be teaching a seminar in Salsibury last Saturday. The previous weekend I had taken part in a martial arts seminar in Hull which lasted all day on Saturday, I had a great time and felt fine. The following Friday morning I was sick, managed a bit over an hour’s gardening, and then went home and slept for over 18 hours. I only really started feeling right again last Wednesday. Yes, I need to be a bit careful and pace myself. However, I am not a pensioner for another year, so legally I am not old yet. However, I am seeing why 65 was considered the qualifying age when the pension was introduced in the first decade of the
20th century. One is not finished at 65, there are just limits on what one can cope with on a daily basis. At least I am not old enough to be president of the USA for at least another decade.
Since I have never actually had a proper job, not for more than a year or so anyway, retirement doesn’t really mean anything to me. Receiving a state pension will top up my income and give me more flexibility in some ways. However, I can’t see my handyman business disappearing while I am still fit enough to make, improve, and repair things for my clients, I just want to do less of it. I really need more time for writing and teaching, which has been constrained in the past 4 years. I do intend to repay my government subsidy and full time child care (Iduna goes to primary school this September) by being more prolific in my output.
The disappointment which I feel is not in my getting old, it makes no sense to resent the inevitable. Rather I am saddened by the apparent decline of the Western world. Then again, just as each incarnated soul has a life cycle of birth, growth, maturity, age, and death, so must each civilisation. Maybe there is no more to be afraid of in the end of empire than there is in personal decline and death. Yes, there is regret, pain, and the humiliations that go with declining powers and that is okay. A new generation will be ready to build their world as they see fit, hopefully learning from the best of the old and avoiding some of the more obvious errors.
Perhaps the most important thing I can teach my daughter, and maybe share with others through writing, preaching, and teaching is that the world is governed by beliefs which control minds and thus behaviour. We may call it religion, entertainment, psychology, or propaganda. Whatever the name, those who would control the world have been manufacturing and enforcing beliefs for all of human history, albeit with different levels of sophistication.
In our modern world narrative mind control has become a highly sophisticated science which is practiced as powerful occult magic. Narrative mind control is also an illusion and once you see through it you are not affected the same way. None us can fully escape the effects of narrative mind control because the world is dominated by propaganda and previously hidden agendas. However, as we recognise the efforts of the elite to control the narrative the worst emotion is frustration with those who have not yet woken up. Yet, everyone has to awaken in their own time, which should teach me that patience is a virtue. What I can do is consciously examine my own beliefs and decide which ones are really not serving me, or the wider world. Obviously some beliefs are based on direct experience of reality. For example, there is not much point in deciding not to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
On the other hand there are two theories of illness: Germ Theory, which suggests that transmissible viruses cause illness and must be treated with drugs and prevented with vaccinations. Or, Terrain Theory where disease is caused by toxicity, deficiency, or stress which makes most pharmaceuticals irrelevant to health, and often more harmful than beneficial. The Covid ‘pandemic’ was only possible because of a widespread belief in Germ Theory. Those who believe in Terrain Theory treated the whole idea of Covid 19 with the contempt it deserved. If enough people had refused to accept the ‘Germ Theory’ justification for the tyrannical measures which were imposed in the cause of saving the world from Covid then the whole sorry business would just have fizzled out in a few days.
True freedom isn’t about fighting anyone, liberation has to begin in your mind, and the first stage is acknowledging your beliefs and questioning them.
As already stated, I cannot make anyone wake up before they are ready. However, I can make some disturbing noises to rouse the wakeful, and be there to encourage and support when the dream state finally dissolves. All my life I have been blessed, or was it cursed? With insight which has made it hard for me to be fooled or manipulated for any length of time. I want to give something back, while I still can.
regards
Graham
PS At my age doing martial arts is like the proverbial dog walking on its hind legs. The remarkable thing is not that the dog does it well, just that he can do it at all. However, I am still planning on teaching a seminar on the 6th of April in Tickton, East Yorkshire https://iceandfire.org.uk/tickton06042024.html
Graham Butcher
21 Beaver Road
Beverley East Yorkshire HU17 0QN
UNITED KINGDOM
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