Toward A Breath-Based Economics

A new way to visualize our basis of exchange.

First:

1. Take a deep, natural breath, INHALE and EXHALE, and feel yourself relax, eager to dive in.

2 . On your next INHALATION, when you reach the natural capacity of your lungs, inhale a bit more, filling your chest and feeling yourself expand to accommodate the additional air. HOLD this breath for just a second or two, noticing the feeling of it in your body before LETTING IT GO, EXHALING.

3 . When you get to the natural end of this EXHALATION, force out a bit more remaining air in your lungs, and PAUSE a second or two, feeling the sensation of vacuum in the body before LETTING GO, INHALING again.

Notice that letting go at the extremes of both the inhalation and the exhalation initiates a natural return to a sort of baseline, from which a bit of effort on your part can be exerted to move air either into or out of your lungs.

Consider the following:

• Breathing is a natural and necessary process which every living individual practices non-stop from the day we are born until the day we die.

• At any moment, as long as one's respiratory system is working properly and one is in the required oxygen-rich atmosphere, there is ALWAYS air available for one's next inhalation, and likewise, there is ALWAYS room available to receive one's next exhalation.

• The planet's built-in life-support systems have done all the Operating System and Wetware design-and-build required for excellent delivery and distribution of the atmospheric resources upon which our lives depend. The cycle incorporates the continual flow of air in and out of the lungs, a constantly repeated delivery of fresh oxygen to the blood and to every cell in the body, and the delivery of carbon dioxide out. We are breathing for every cell in the body.

• We are each productive members of the Global Life-Support System, processing CO2 for the plants, just as they process O2 for us.
  

• Breathing is done continually, naturally and regularly, with no thought at all. No attention is necessary for systems to operate beautifully.

• The simple application of attention to our breathing can be revealing and therapeutic. This is done regularly in practices including sports and fitness training, yoga, meditation, hypnosis, visualization, and physical analyses and therapies of all kinds.

• There is a natural capacity which our lungs have, a maximum space for holding air in and letting air out. We can, through practice and conditioning, increase that capacity.

• One cannot inhale and exhale simultaneously. One is either inhaling or exhaling, or holding the breath somewhere in the cycle.

Exploring my own breath during meditation has led me to identify BREATHING as an excellent model for the way a healthy, vibrant, natural economy might function.

There are 3 categories or states of being in this Economic Model: Receiving, Holding and Releasing.

State A - Receive; Collect; Gather; Increase; Get; Grow; Inhale; Inspire; Expand; Attract

State B - Hold; Have; Store; Contain; Maintain; Stay; Remain; Neutral; Wait; Stasis;

State C - Release; Decrease; Distribute; Share; Diminish; Give; Exhale; Expire; Contract; Repel

A breath cycle might be illustrated in this way:

a - b - c - b - a - b - c - b - etc.,

i.e. Inhale - hold - Exhale - hold - Inhale - hold - etc...

• Consider that this is the way we process all things which move through our lives, in that we receive them somehow, we have them for a while, and we release them when they no longer suit us.

• In this economic model, the most valuable assets are forests, trees, green oxygen-producing land, and carbon sequestering resources. This seems much more reasonable than gold or some other standard, the value of which fluctuates from individual to individual and from market to market. Everyone needs air/atmosphere all the time.

• Also, in this model, there is no such thing as borrowing, credit or debt. One is always in the state that is natural in their own flow cycle, either receiving, holding, or releasing. No individual's state is better or worse than another's, and no one's state intrudes or relies upon the state of any other individual in the system.

• The oxygen-producing resources of the world may be regarded as a Commons. Each living individual has ongoing access to one Share of that Commons, and may hold no more or less than any other individual. One Share entitles the holder to a lifetime supply of fresh air to breathe.

• More than this: we expand the idea to incorporate access to a lifetime supply of whatever it is one is needing/wanting, and a "waste"-stream which receives that which one no longer wants or needs.

Here then is an opportunity to notice and discard an economy that struggles to compel the production of unwanted merchandise by unwilling labor and marketed to resistant consumers with limited resources.

A Breath-Based Economy encourages each individual's natural calling to be the impetus of creativity and trade, providing access to the world of resources based on desire, by an enthusiastic market and inspired producers.

You are hereby invited to accept your Share in the Breath-Based Economy. Breathe easy! We are rich! Enjoy!

Stephen J. Bushman