Mysteries of the Universe: Nobody owes you nothing

You were born. Maybe you're grown up, or at least on your way. Perhaps you're confused about why you are here, or what reason there is for your existence. Or maybe you think you know. Either way, here you are. By some accident of nature, the combination of dna, timing, & the twinkle in your parent's eyes, you were conceived, born, & are here for a brief time on earth. You didn't ask to be born, & no one told you what you are supposed to do with your life. You did not come with instructions, & there is no link to the manufacturer's website to reference a FAQ.

For most of your early life, your parents or some surrogate cared for you & saw to your growth, protection, & nurturing. But they are really no different than you. They also were born, grew up, & tried to figure out what to do with themselves. For most of the history of humanity, & for most humans that have ever lived, simple survival has occupied most of our waking time & effort. Our basic needs are few, but they demand our attention:

a. Sustenance. We need air, food, & water to live.
b. Protection. Some kind of covering for our personal bodies, a den or structure to live in, & a habitat to protect us from wild beasts, the elements, & other humans.
c. Sleep. One of the most important reasons for a home & a secure habitat is for a place to sleep safely.

That's it. That is all we NEED for survival. Now, there are other things that occupy much of our time & attention, but they are instinctual drives, & are not essential to our survival.
a. We also have a drive to reproduce, & to pair up with a mate to further our species.
b. We also have a need to play, or to busy ourselves with entertaining distractions. But neither of those are critical for survival.

Your parents took responsibility for your survival during your development years. They fed you, clothed you, housed you, & protected you from predators of all types. Perhaps they still help you with some of the basics, or continue to prepare you to live in this life, as their parents did before them. This has been the pattern for all of human history.

We are born wet, naked, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Survival isn't easy. Not only does it require a lot of our time & attention, there are also other elements working against us:
a. Mother nature. Weather, trees, rocks, rivers, & just about everything we see on earth can kill us. Storms bring lightning, floods, powerful winds, freezing cold, & other natural disasters that constantly threaten our lives. Sometimes things we eat or the water we drink is deadly.
b. Wild beasts. Not so much in our current culture, but we are still in danger from sharks, bears, big cats, wolves, & other animals who want to eat us. Not all of these dangers are big carnivores. We are constantly battling disease & bacteria simply to live.
c. Other humans. This has been the greatest danger that individual humans have faced. Other people wish to harm us, or take our sustenance or means of survival. Or, they may wish to enslave us to work for their personal survival.

So here we are, trying to simply live, & have to struggle against these other factors trying to kill or oppress us. Over the millennia, we have developed strategies to overcome these obstacles.
a. We build protective structures to house ourselves in. This gives us a secure place to find protection from weather, rain, snow, & attacks from wild beasts. We store our food & clothing, & provide comfortable, safe places to sleep.
b. We form collective agencies to protect us from aggressive humans. We pool our resources to provide a protective force to deter those who want to rob, enslave, or kill us. We call this 'government'.
c. We work & develop strategies to produce more & better food, protection, & methods of health care. We use the elements & natural laws to develop technology to aid us in our survival.

For thousands of years, we have adapted to our environment, & have used everything to aid us in our survival. None of these things were given to us at birth, but many of the strategies were handed down through the generations. By constantly learning & advancing in our knowledge base, we have come to this most advanced stage of human society. We are interdependent on each other, & have built upon the lessons of the past. We have concocted a complex system of exchange, by which we provide goods or services for a currency, & use that to buy our survival needs. This system has provided abundance & prosperity for a lot of people in this era. Many do not seem to struggle for the basics of survival, like humans did in past times. Food is varied, cheap, & abundant. Houses are plentiful & filed with amazing luxuries like central heat, piped water, & waste disposal. The ease by which the essentials of survival are provided make some people think it is a natural right. They think that the basics of survival.. food & protection.. are naturally provided at birth, & are owed to everyone, simply because they were born. They think they don't have to (or shouldn't have to) concern themselves with their personal survival needs. They think they should be able to give themselves to other instinctual drives, like reproduction & play. But this is an illusion. Our collective knowledge might provide the STRATEGIES for making survival easier, but they are not something given at birth. SOMEONE has to work to provide the basic needs.

The illusion of our current time (and of times past) is that GOVERNMENT can provide these things. Everybody else can work for our individual needs. And as long as there are enough industrious, hard working people who are driven to work, a few can ride along as moochers, dependent on the producing workers to provide their needs. But if & when the moochers outnumber the working producers, the system collapses, unable to sustain itself. This is the great fiction.. the great deception.. that somehow we can live off the labors of others. A healthy, prosperous society has in industrious, hard working citizenry, & extols the virtues of production. A corrupt society in decline tries to leech off of the producers.

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." ~Frederic Bastiat

But the reality.. the immutable law of the universe.. is that 'nobody owes you nothing'. You & you alone are responsible for your own survival. You might link up with others, to better accomplish that goal, but it is still YOUR responsibility to survive.. no one else has that burden. Your parents might give you a start, but they cannot be burdened with caring for you for all your life. So during this short time on earth, you alone are responsible for your life, & those you take on as dependents. Others may help you, as we pool our resources & labors to improve life for everyone, but nobody owes you anything.

 I have called this simple truth a 'mystery of the universe', because it seems to be very profound & mysterious. In fact, a great many people seem to believe the exact opposite.. that their basic survival needs are owed to them. They think that their existence entitles them to full support, even going so far as to support any children they might have & their their old age. They even feel that their leisure time & entertainment should be provided & subsidized by the producing people around them.

It is pathetic enough that a few insane people live in this fantasy world, where they believe all their survival needs should be guaranteed to them for life, but there are allegedly intelligent social leaders who further this deception.. promising free food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, & even entertainment. In some convoluted reasoning, the labors & increases of others are looked at as some kind of collective ownership. They produce NOTHING themselves, yet they feel entitled to what someone else has worked for. Then these entitled thieves have the audacity to lecture us.. the actual producers of everything they consume.. that we owe them.. WE are responsible to not only tend to their basic needs, but we should set them on the lap of luxury, & pay them to deceive us.

This is the basic foundation of progressive thought. It is why that anything they come up with is flawed. The core premise of leftist, progressive ideals are corrupt, depending on theft & dependency to build a society on.

Intelligent people with basic common sense SHOULD be able to see the flaws, & realize that this central tenet of socialist ideology can only lead to collapse, as dependents outnumber the producers. But the appeal for easy living, free stuff, & a guarantee for living is very strong, & is at the root of all scams: Something for nothing. So they indoctrinate our youth, spoon feeding this madness into each generation, until the whole culture is steeped in delusion. They act as though govt has infinite warehouses full of food, houses, clothes, & healthcare, & all we need is the keys to open them up & hand them out. They do not realize that everything that a dependent consumes.. every bite, every drink of water, every item of clothing, the heat for the house, the waste disposal when they flush.. EVERYTHING they use for their own survival, including protection from thugs or invading hordes, is TAKEN from someone else.

The progressive leeches who preach this folly are EXACTLY the same as those they pretend to help. They produce nothing themselves, but only TAKE what others have worked for. And of course, they do not help society at all, but lead us down the road to destruction. No society can survive without industrious, productive citizens working to provide basic survival needs. No society can survive with madness & folly as their basic philosophical ideology. The universe is hard, & life is difficult. Ignoring reality for some illusive dream world helps no one.