I’m not suggesting buying Greenland so that you can corner the Rare Earth Market.
I don’t think that a hostile take-over of Iran to secure the last of the Middle-East’s Oil is a good plan.
I don’t even think an “Icarus style” James Bond take-over of the Sun is the next big thing…
The next big commodities to be fought for are Silence, and ultimately Consciousness.
Our Children’s Children have had their futures sold out from underneath them. The way they date, the way they communicate, the way they play have already been bought and sold.
None of their lives will ever be private again.
So many young people will never own their own homes, they have stopped having children, they’ve even stopped believing that “Work will make you free” (The Nazi death-camp slogan, that Maddison Avenue and Corporate America really quite admired…)
Ricky Gervais jokes about how proud our young people are to be marked out by a Mental Health issue. He laughingly says, “when we were kids, you were either Normal or Mental” and that was that!
You didn’t like it to be pointed out, but these days everybody wants ADHA as an attribute and puts it on their CV. We are starting to see the value of Neuro-divergent minds.
In a world where the workforce has been drilled for generations by the schooling system to be worker drones, now companies being led by the likes of Apple, are actively searching out the “different” folk, and seeing the true value of creativity.
Creativity
Creativity has been wrung out of the schooling system.
Any teacher will tell you how the budgets for Art, Music and Theatre have disappeared. (Along with the playing fields and gymnasiums.)
We only focus on Science and Maths.
The reason for this sole focus is driven by our governments.
The most profitable sectors in society are the science driven ones.
The more profits, the easier to raise taxes, and so to keep the Pendulum of the Government swinging.
We all love Sports and the Arts, but we’re forced to pay for them ourselves as the profit-led government see them as frivolous niceties, that they are not prepared to fork-out for. Like some short-sighted 1960’s grumpy parent, the purse stays firmly closed, and we are forced to make our own entertainment.
Salaries no longer cover niceties like a house.
They barely cover food and heating for some people.
For the young who no longer can look forward to owning their own place, they are now having their remaining income mopped up by “experiences.”
“You can’t afford to have a complete life of happiness anymore, but we can sell you some small slices of what your parents and grandparents used to enjoy!”
You can spend a few days in an AirBnB anywhere in the world and pretend that it’s really “your life”
You can go to the hallowed halls of Dubai, and stay in a super-rich high-rise hotel and watch other people pretend to be super-rich too.
(It’s rare that the actual super-rich would ever consider walking amongst you however!)
Super-rich
What do the Super-rich do with their money?
They buy themselves an Island somewhere – somewhere that YOU can’t get to. They don’t want you to be messing up their nice quiet lives.
Silence then is the next big commodity.
(Space has always been a commodity – buy fortunately we sill have quite a lot of that – although somebody seems to claim ownership of everywhere!)
When life gets too hectic for me, I go out for a walk in nature.
Why do the Super-rich buy themselves a Yacht? Sure, as it sits in a marina somewhere, it’s a wonderful status symbol, it’s also no doubt registered in the Caymans so they don’t have to pay any tax on it.
When the revolution comes, they can pile their friends and family aboard and sail away to their island strong-hold, but they can also go out to the middle of the ocean and live in silence for a while.
Drink and Drugs
Why are retreats becoming so popular? …Silence.
People are beginning to make the connection between deteriorating mental health and getting out of the Rat-race.
For the poorer amongst us, the traditional retreat was into a bottle of wine a few nights per week. We now see the detrimental effects that has on out bodies minds and wealth. Fewer and fewer young people drink.
Drugs are still a popular way to “get out of your head” – the ubiquity of Cocaine, cheaper prices and better, more sophisticated distribution chains have brought it out into our High Streets.
People take Cocaine, because it makes them feel alive for a short while, and it makes a dull life look more fun. (and then it doesn’t anymore…)
But more and more people will be turning to, and then away from these types of recreations as has happened with alcohol and smoking.
I watched an interview with a very intelligent and erudite man recently, he threw out a very flip comment “it’s a great way to kill time…”
He was talking about journaling or writing music or some such thing.
It’s interesting to note, that this man has made his fortune, has past his prime, and now is killing time for what? I guess he means killing time until time kills him?
What’s it all about?
This brings up the question, that comes round and round again in every adult’s life. “What’s it all for?”
We are trained to believe that our forty plus years of fruitfulness should be applied to somebody-else’s dream project; to a factory, to a business, to a chain of stores, to a car manufacturer, to the food or drugs industry and on and on the list goes…
Eighty percent of us get co-opted into somebody-else’s dream as a way of “buying” our own dream.
Twenty percent of us, strike out on our own, to make our own dream.
If things go well, we draw the Eighty percent in behind us to support our dream!
The Eighty/Twenty rule is well known throughout business and science.
But there’s also a tiny percentage of us who seep out of the cracks in this model, who in short, don’t want to be extruded through this machine.
I’ve been inside the machine, and it almost destroyed me.
I was lucky enough to find Qigong in my thirties, and started on a less trodden, more alternative path.
I’ve been organising a day of practice for my students recently and struggling to get decent numbers to attend. (I’m fighting against half-term holidays and no doubt the generally shortage of funds that so many students seem to experience.)
What fascinates me however is the general lack of interest there is in depth.
When I started my journey, I would do anything to get onto a Qigong course.
I’d mortgage myself up to the hilt (as I did to study Medical Qigong..) just to get close to the subject for a short time.
People don’t seem to have the application they used to.
I think this is another damage done to us by the digital life.
People feel that they can “get all the information they need” from a five minute Youtube. (I was told this by one of my potential students just yesterday!)
Something that I’ve just “scratched the edges of” for over thirty-five years of hard work and application… and you hope to get the essence from a podcast!? Good Luck!
And So?
So, what do we have here?
We have the “highest level” members of our society seeking silence in a beautiful quiet space.
We have our youth realising that their community and silence has been bought and sold.
We have business people taking their whole company away to play games and have gong baths!
The Market is ripe for a chain of quiet retreat spaces…
(Oh yes, it’s called the Monastic orders… Trappist, Carthusians and many Buddhist sects…!)
But we don’t want to have to join a Brotherhood or a Nunnery.
We want to have a normal life, with big bits of quiet embedded into it.
My son has a job where they say, “if you work and finish a project, before it’s delivery date, then you can take the rest of the time off…”
In practice we know it’s a lie. We all suspect that if you walk away from your desk to “find yourself”, that there will be somebody else sitting (or standing as is so popular these days!) when you arrive back.
There’s another issue too. If you actually DO find yourself, you’ll never want to go back to that desk anyway, as COVID has so graphically shown us!
So, there it is, YES – I am discussing the possibility of monetising the Qigong retreat.
To be honest, Dr Pang (The founder of Zhineng Qigong) started it with his Medicineless Hospital!
He had over two hundred and fifty thousand people come through his centre to cure themselves.
They all went through a twenty-four day programme (As described on my website www.24days.org )
They didn’t say “Oh I’m sorry Doctor Pang, my busy schedule will only allow me to come for a weekend!” – They dedicated themselves to this “month-long” healing process, they gave up everything to be there and soak themselves in the process, in an exceptionally deep and healing space.
Let’s do it!
I have a template for this business.
I genuinely think there’s money to be made from this “Alternative hotel chain.”
I’d start with one on every continent, they’d be both big and small at the same time – there would be room for lots of people, but designed in such a way that you could have complete stillness and silence too.
Fundamentally, you could also become a member of the family.
Family has fractured and spread in such a way, that we now rebuild our families in new ways. (My recent visit to Mexico showed me in no uncertain terms that I have a HUGE family there, and across the globe, rebuilt around Zhineng Qigong.)
If you want to invest fifty million dollars in getting this empire started, please don’t hesitate to call me. I’d be happy to sacrifice my life to become the father of this part of the family.
Seriously, the fight for Silence is only going to become stronger and stronger. The reason for this is that more and more people are receiving the message that the real last frontier of discovery is Inside themselves and NOT going to Mars… (Yes Elon, just f*ck off there and leave us all alone will, you! P.s would you mind leaving me a sizeable cheque, before you set off… I have a plan to fix the World in your absence!)
The more the texts from the likes of Siri Ramana Marhashi, Alan Watts, Sadhguru, Jed McKenna, Byron Katie, Nisargadatta Maharaj and Thich Nhat Hanh circulate, the more of humanity will begin to understand that the journey to the centre of you is the only game in town.
Answer the following, “This journey is best undertaken in … a) an office or b) a beautiful retreat centre in nature!?”
(Well, the actual truth is that it shouldn’t really matter where you do the work, but I think you can give yourself every help possible!)
The Journey
The search for Consciousness isn’t actually a journey, and it’s not something that you have to find. It’s already here and you’ve always been IT.
That aside, I couldn’t jump you to the end of the journey and I certainly wouldn’t do, even if I could. It’s the “Journey” that gives it such value and the personal discoveries can be the only way.
I’m not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last!
We’ve been retreating to mountain-tops for some silence from the beginning of recorded time… you just have to look at the sacred Daoist and Buddhist mountains in China that have been inhabited for thousands and thousands of years.
Mark my words, the next “quiet” boom industry will be catering for Silence and people who are searching for Community, Family and ultimately Consciousness. (It’s already happening in Portugal; you can’t swing a cat without hitting somebody who wants to start a retreat centre. I should know, as I’m one of them! Please also let’s stop all this cat swinging anyway -poor creatures!)
As always, if you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this essay, please don’t hesitate to open your cheque book and write Jeremy a cheque for fifty million of your finest United States Dollars…)
Hao La! (Means Everything is Good Already! – in Chinese…)