Taken from a 2011 column I wrote, titled “Automatic.”
There are certain things that one does, without even thinking…luckily! Take breathing as an example. If you had to concentrate on every breath, be aware of every need to increase your breathing or slow it, by the end of the day, you would be so worn out, that it would be impossible to continue. That is, if you didn’t die from asphyxiation during the night. Some things we do without even thinking, and that’s how life is. Walking, talking, breathing, thinking, looking, laughing, etc., are so natural, that we never even think about how marvelous the human body is. Most of the things our body does automatically, were learned from infancy and childhood. Children, by age two, have ceased to need diapers, and this has been learned from parents, so it becomes automatic. Children can easily learn a foreign language, if parents speak one, and children copy everything a parent does, automatically. That’s why it is easy to see an adult who has copied their parent, and the parents were a good or bad influence. We cannot escape our childhood, either good or bad.
Even dogs can learn to do things automatically, such as not to poop or pee in the house, and to defend their owner’s property, which is a great thing dogs can learn. Cats are so totally different than dogs, aren’t they? There are countless accounts of a dog saving a child’s life by pulling it away from a car, or saving from drowning. Many times, a stray dog will adopt a train station, and stay there the rest of its life, greeting passengers, and living off of treats. I love dogs, and maybe that’s why a dog, spelled backwards is God? A highway northwest of Denver, was adopted by a dog at a crosswalk, it stayed there for the rest of its life, and that crosswalk is named after him.
We learn to type, act, play music, drive, use good grammar, and table manners automatically, after we train ourselves to do them. Public speakers learn modulation (variations of pitch, pace, and power), and use it in their speech automatically, if they become good speakers. As past president of a Toastmaster’s Club, I always taught my members to use modulation automatically, even in their daily speech. One of my members, was manager of a piano store, and I bought one for my daughter Melissa. The sounding board cracked almost instantly, and my member would do nothing about it. A total loss. I quit the club! I wonder if Toastmasters is still in existence? Pastors and preachers use learned modulation automatically, if they’re successful in their trade.
One of the things we learned from childhood, is money. Money buys things, we work for money, and wages are paid in money. We price things in money, buy and sell in money, and most save in money. Thieves steal money, and you may go bankrupt for lack of money. George Bernard Shaw, not one of my favorite authors, once said, ”Money, is indeed the most important thing in the World; and all sound and successful of personal and national morality should have that fact for its basis.” Whatever that means. How about, “God made bees, and bees make honey. God made man, and man makes money?”
Even though the money of all nations has been corrupted and printed to virtual worthlessness, and backed by nothing other than thin air, we still use the term ‘money’ for the currency of all nations. The only true ‘money’ around anywhere, is gold and silver. The rest are there, because of ‘legal tender’ laws, which forces citizens to use the no real value ‘money,’ to do business, and for that matter to price gold and silver in those no real value currencies. There is nothing else to price anything in, other than a nation’s currency. If a currency goes down in purchasing power, or value, the prices of everything goes up in direct proportion. To quote the title of this, it’s automatic. There is nothing you can do to stop this ‘automatic’ devaluing of all currencies in the world, and throughout history. No government in history, has ever balanced its budget, stopped printing its currency, and stopped prices in that currency from endlessly going up, till the ‘money’ is of no value.
The U.S. dollar, has lost 95% of its value or purchasing power, in the last 75 years, and that is reflected in prices of everything, including gold and silver. Had you been saving in dollars, your savings would have lost 95% of its purchasing power, but if you had saved in gold and silver, you would have defeated inflation, with no government meddling or forms to fill out, nor inheritance taxes, if you decide to leave It to your kids. It’s all so simple!.
-Don Stott, don@coloradogold.com