On Cat & Dog Taxes - & Other Mammalian Border Crossing Requirements

How Being A Substacker Might Save the World From Itself

This post was at least partially inspired by the following - from fellow Substacker

The Uncreated Light

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And inspired no less so by a note from Substacker

Hamish McKenzie

Many of my posts are inspired by the work of my fellow Substack’ians - ideas are free - so is my Substack - and tyranny cannot defeat ideas.

But beware all who enter here - the following post is necessarily more obtuse - and off the rails - and incomprehensible - than some of my others.

When writing such as the following - flows into my awareness - as if from some other realm - I take down the words and the concepts before they can get away.

These ideas can seem weird - even to me - but they also ring true - which is more than any of us can say about most of the stuff floating around in our human awareness of late.

CRAZYTOWN IS TOO GOOD A WORD FOR WHAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING

THE CONCEPT - DIGITAL - OR INTERNET - COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

On the esoteric subject of daring to enter where angels fear to tread - the cloud realms of TikTok and Cat Taxes.

Or, as Kamala Harris educated us to understand - that never, never land of our imagination where all of our files now reside.

How I learned to enter into the hellish realm of TikTok where new generations have held forth.

And as we cross the borders to enter into these realms today - what is required is a “cat tax”.

Lest we feel too superior - some of the most trending Substacks are entirely composed of “cat taxes”.

And if you believe I have forgotten my “Cat Taxes” - not a chance - except they are my “Studio Dog Taxes”.

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As we older generations know all too well - the cloud - or internet - or available internet real estate - is considered to be limited - scarce enough to be as valuable as the real thing - that feet-on-the-ground - knock-on-wood - “soil and forest choked” stuff - we consider real estate.

And social media has become - in the minds of our younger generations - as knock-on-wood - boots-on-the-ground REAL and as valuable - as the real thing is in the minds of any land and wealth obsessed billionaires.

I first began to think of it this way due to some comments from our Substack founders - Hamish McKenzie and Chris Best.

The manner in which these two men view the world - and the internet - is changing the world - and the internet.

They regard the internet with a POV which incorporates such ideas - often foreign to us elders - that this internet is far more than a mental construct - and not at all imaginary - but instead represents the expanding field of Cloud Commercial Real Estate.

So new is the concept of Cloud Commercial Real Estate - that my spell checker threw a tantrum as I tried to type it out.

As I have lived with a genius commercial real estate guru for most of my adult life - the leap to seeing social media as a new territory - where borders are staked out - and as zealously guarded and defended - as any piece of real property - is quite natural.

And it is an indication that we as humans are ready to take the next leap into our evolutionary future - where our conscious awareness is the new frontier - where what we think and feel becomes as powerful as what we do with our boots-on-the-ground.

So as a terribly old - and out of touch Tennessee grandmother - I dared to enter this new commercial real estate kingdom where consciousness and imagination are the currencies.

FROM XENOPHOBIA TO DANTE’S INFERNO

After successfully surviving the Land Of Twitter during the pandemic - I grew thoroughly disillusioned with the cultural zeitgeist there - and have grown even more disillusioned with the Musketeer’s X.

One might say that I began thinking of X as a land of Xenophobia.

And if X was Xenophobia then TikTok and Instagram and Facebook had to be Dante’s Inferno.

After these realizations - I began to think even more outside the box than is my usual habit.

And when we humans begin thinking outside of the box - we exceed the normalized and everyday things we take for granted - the very things which shackle us to the enslaving - and enslaved - matrix of our civilizational insanity.

SHIMMERING LIKE A MIRAGE

I began to see the metaphorical imagery and supposedly fictional reality of the works of our greatest literary and artistic geniuses as at least as real as the “boots-on-the-ground” - “knock-on-wood” reality of commercial real estate.

Now this is considered to be dangerously insane territory to our city fathers - those who jealously guard and defend for themselves the rights to the most valuable commercial real estate.

But, perhaps what they cannot comprehend is that the commercial currencies of human creativity and imagination - that real estate existing in the metaphysical and metaphorical realms of human consciousness - are even more real than the pay dirt they devote their lives to.

And it is by thinking along the lines of Best and Mackenzie that my awareness of all this expanded with warp speed.

And it dawned on me that I would need an ambassador to help me cross the jealously-guarded and dangerous borderlands of this new territory.

If I was going to light out for this territory I would need my “Cat Taxes” - or in my case “Dog Taxes” - as I am terribly allergic to cats.

As the fates would have it - I have known several great dogs in my time - animals who have taught me much about the power of the conscious awareness of living beings - both my own human awareness - and their own dog or mammal consciousness.

And the limitations of my own human xenophobia began to break down as I glimpsed the fully expanded world of consciousness shared among human and animals - especially among mammals.

For me our civilizations - these “knock on wood” - empires of dirt - which tyrants and businessmen and politicians salivate over - began to appear less real - and less valuable - shimmering instead like a mirage.

THE CLOUD REALMS - AND THE EMPIRES OF DIRT

And as anyone could well imagine when we begin to break free of the domesticated thinking which binds us to the matrix - our fuses - those entities which protect our enslaved nervous systems from breaking free of the matrix - begin to blow.

These fuses blow - one right after another - until we tumble amazed - and with blown minds - into the real actual wilderness of the human mind.

If taken to far - and if mistaken for something else - this blowing of fuses can lead to madness - but if used as the fiery furnace - the heated and pressurized - crucible of creation - it becomes way to break free of the matrix.

The territory of all the poets and artists and composers and troubadours and shamans - who have found it necessary to break free to imagine and to create.

For these creative souls the currency trafficked in by the great stewards of the empires - seems no more than an ephemeral part of an Empire of Dirt.

There seems to be a missing link between the sort of consciousness required to deal with both the solidness of that “knock on wood” reality - and the supposedly less real realm of consciousness where we need “cat taxes”.

In other words the so called reality of such political theorists as Machiavelli seemed to be trapped in a tragic and lonesome wilderness - trapped within an empire of dirt - like a fly in amber.

And the realm of creative imagination - and of engaging with others via our conscious awareness - begins to seem as real as that knock on wood - EMPIRE OF DIRT.

So to get back to brass tacks reality - for those like me who are reality challenged - I will discuss how this all applies to our current Substack land.

The genius of Substack land is that each Substacker owns their own digital or creative or imaginary territory.

In this territory each creator is responsible for his or her own content and is the owner of this content - until AI comes along and appropriates it that is - but that is yet another essay.

And as the creator and owner of a territory - we might be seen as the commander-in-chief of our own realms.

One where the content creator-in-charge can choose how to present and manage this realm.

I am assuming that those who run Substack are fully aware of how critically important their work at Substack is.

They seem like reassuringly regular guys - but maybe they don’t really understand how free speech and free expression and imagination are the master keys to being released from that proverbial prison of the matrix.

And these master keys are viewed as supremely dangerous weapons by our civilization.

Dangerous - as it is human consciousness - which is the supremely dangerous idea.

These master keys - handed out by that rounder in the iron mask - are the keys to escaping that matrix the city fathers have used to entrap us all.

But we are not supposed to know this - so please don’t tell anyone else.

So all you TikTok’ers - and Instagramm’ers - and Facebook’ers - are welcome here - but BEWARE ALL WHO ENTER HERE as everyone on Substack is responsible for their own kingdom.

Amazingly, no animals were harmed I the writing of this post.

For those of you who like to be entertained while creating y’all’s Cat Taxes - I recommend the following

https://vocal.media/beat/bob-dylan-s-20-greatest-gospel-songs

Cat and dog taxes now due and payable - and predictably - they are everywhere across Substack land these days.

To all those who are interested in setting themselves free - please see the work of a real actual shaman who writes here here on Substack -

Psychotherapist and the Shaman

The Return of Shamanism

And, as always, may our creator bless everyone who is hard at work at bringing peace - compassion - wealth - and health - back to our world.