Scourge III: Thriving in the Age of COVID-19

By Newton Fortuin

My awakening to the crazy world of self-help and recovery from its vice like grip occurred after a quite fantastical and unique experience. One thing I have learned is that you cannot download anyone else's 'system' or 'process' and make it work for you. I think you need to pick through each person's life experiences for the wool to weave your own tapestry. Certainly with the money, time, energy and hopes invested in other people's ego creations I could have weaved the Bayeux and then some!!!

What I can say though is that in a bid to understand my abusive childhood and how different I appeared to be from my family I embarked upon a 20 year quest to understand who and what I was. Yes, I fell, hook, line and sinker for the self-help and personal development game.

More recently, over the last 10 years I have stuffed myself silly with Law of Attraction (loA) type teachings that mainly block out anything negative or 'not of the light' and thus, have given my power away more or less to anyone with a cheering claim or nice smile...

Then, a catastrophe of epic proportions that turned all of the LoA stuff on its head, inside out and doing somersaults occurred!!!!

Essentially I met a psychopath (probably the physical manifestation of all the repressed and ignored negativity and blocked out critical thinking from the last 10 'positive' years!!!).

I sunk every penny into a series of businesses with him, got into a hellish personal relationship with him that involved every kind of abuse and threats etc, helplessly watched him systematically destroy several other people and then once I had withdrawn from him and the businesses despite what was on the line - saw him flee the UK leaving a quagmire of 103 serious problems that escalated into near bankruptcy, over 50 threatened court actions, insurance issues, tremendous weight gain and the utter desecration of everything I believed in...

Essentially 'I' ceased to exist. I became a recluse, stayed away from everyone and everything except what I could not possibly avoid, stopped going out, answering the phone, showering, getting dressed. The only respite from the fireball of pain and stress engulfing EVERY facet of my life was the safety net of suicide. I knew I could kill myself. I longed for absolute annihilation! I didn't just think it, I investigated the subject, formed a plan and came seconds away from carrying it out several times - stopped only by my love for my cats and who would care for them?

Without a doubt the worst aspect of all of the above was the belief I had created and attracted it. I spent nearly a year on a wild goose chase torturing myself further by trying to work out why and how a lifetime of positive thoughts and actions had created a monster and a monstrous situation that took 2 years hard time to resolve and was so permanently life changing...

There wasn't any answers other than the LoA was either horse shit or used wrongly could be disastrous.

I stumbled upon your book which helped as it showed all the guru's in meltdowns of their own, and I started looking at the shadow stuff that was all around me. For 8 months I delighted in oozing out every shred of anger and negative energy that had long been encased in the basement of my psyche until one day I realized that negative energy was not better or worse than its opposite - just different and that both are required for a reasonably happy existence. Duh...

I knew I was in recovery when my critical thinking skills began to creak into action again and I started reading novels. I have emerged back out into the sunlight but armed with self reliance that life goes up and down and around and around and 'this too shall pass...'

I am content to not know who/what is behind everything and to surrender to whatever pulled me through. Forgiveness has and is helping me with all that happened - even the near murderous hatred I feel towards lawyers.

Hope all in yo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newton Fortuin
• Release date: Jan 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311573247

Newton Fortuin

I'm Newton Fortuin, a 56-year-old proudly from the vibrant city of Cape Town, South Africa. I'm blessed with two incredible children: my daughter Rori, who is 36 and works as an OBGYN in Cape Town, and my son Jarrod, a 32-year-old IT analyst at The Palms in Dubai.Professionally, I lead as the CEO of Vekta Innovations, a trailblazing company at the forefront of health and wellness technology. Our flagship innovation, the KineDek, is a testament to our commitment to revolutionizing fitness and overall well-being. Through a mere 15-minute session per week, the KineDek promises users a significant boost in energy and vitality. This transformative technology is offered at our iBoost Studio (iBoost.Studio), where we amalgamate cutting-edge tech with regenerative well-being principles.Outside the boardroom, my passions are as diverse as they come. I thrive in the great outdoors and have an insatiable curiosity that drives me to write on a myriad of topics. From science and philosophy to politics and contemporary events, I'm constantly inspired by the world around me and love to pen down my thoughts on whatever catches my attention.

Book preview

Scourge Book III:

Thriving in the Age of COVID-19

Newton Fortuin

Copyright ©Newton Fortuin 2008

Published at Smashwords

Scourge

Book I

The Demise of Critical Thinking in the Age of The Secret

Book II

Belief Orientations behind the Great Recession

Book III

Thriving in the Age of COVID-19

These books are available in most eBook reader formats

at

Smashwords.com

Please Note

This is a continuation of the previous books which provides the necessary context for this instalment.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Arduous Road

The World that Was

The Wanton Beast

Posteriori Logic

The Duplicitous Mind

The Difficult Path

The Reality Condition

The Cure

Escape From Freedom

The Double Edged Sword

Lucifer’s Law

Theomania

Perverse Positivity

On Shaky Ground

Purposeful Living

Living in Reality

The God Delusion

Reactive Religion

Paradoxic Bliss

The Law of Suffering

Be with the Storms

The End of Anguish

Higher Consciousness

Self Centeredness

Complex Imperatives

Spiritual Oblivion

Formula for Disaster

What is Missing?

Mania of Great Reforms

Temple of Sand

The False God

Dogmatism in Action

Demise of the Soul

Intellectual Arrogance

Scientific Stalemate

Transcendence

Higher Counsel

Blessing or Curse

The Devil in the Detail

Divergent Paths

The Emptying Glass

Restoring Balance

Conclusion

Epilogue

Copyrights Issues pertaining to use of Extracts

Bibliography

Introduction

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

~~~

[Helen Keller]

In the face of utter destitution, how can we yet find the strength to live a happy, productive and meaningful life?

After having experienced the most depraving human circumstances in a Nazi concentration camp, and yet remained optimistic about life, Viktor Frankl is perhaps the best qualified to even venture such an answer. In Man’s Search for Meaning he wrote the following.

…

How can we say yes to life in spite of pain, guilt and death?

After all, saying yes to life in spite of everything presupposes that life is meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable. And this presupposes the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive. In other words, what matters is to make the best of every given situation. Hence I speak of a tragic optimism, that is an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of human potential which at its best always allows for: turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; deriving from life’s transistorizes an incentive to take responsible action.

It must be kept in mind, however, that optimism is not anything to be commanded or ordered. One cannot even force oneself to be optimistic indiscriminately, against all odds, against all hope. And what is true for hope is also true for the other two components of the triad inasmuch as faith and love cannot be commanded or ordered either.

To the European, it is a character of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to be happy. But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy. Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation. i

Chapter One

The Arduous Road

The World that Was

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. – [Gandhi]

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world's food production must increase by fifty percent to cater for growing future demand. One of the primary reasons for this is the dramatic effects of climate change, this directly resulting from increasing burning of fossil fuels.

What is not commonly known is that this was further exacerbated by as much as 75% by the US and European Union’s use of the existing food supply for conversion to biofuels to substitute the dwindling natural oil supply (that was before 2008 when oil prices was at an all-time high). This considering that at the current increasing rate of consumption, the oil reserves would be depleted in only a few short decades (perhaps 50 years), and that very soon, this entire demand must somehow be catered for by other means.

Despite this unsustainable state of affairs it is noteworthy that the US has consistently been the only nation refusing to comply with world fuel reduction protocols, indeed being the only nation not willing to even sign them. This considering that America uses more than a quarter of the world’s energy—four times more than China, the next biggest user, but with a more than four times larger population.

This attitude is also reflective of the average American's unwillingness to reduce their per capita fuel spend, in particular their unwillingness to use smaller more economical vehicles. However what is so poignant about this state of affairs is that the world food supply now has to directly compete with the need to fill up our tanks. Indeed, so much so that the demand for feeding our machines has reached the point where it is beginning to outstrip that of feeding humanity. The future predicament this spells is that all the arable land currently available in the US will only support around seven percent of the country's fuel needs.

The question therefore is: if biofuels is indeed to be the future solution to the fuel crisis, would there be any land available on which to feed humanity?

The moral issue which consequently would arise for anyone who wishes to indulge their fetish for horsepower is, in doing so, whether one would be burning away precious sustenance that otherwise could have fed a starving child. This being a particularly distressing reflection on today's reality, where if it is to be dictated purely by supply and demand, would spell an impending social catastrophe unprecedented to anything that has gone before.

Regardless of how we are yet to deal with such a definite near future specter, the ideal should be that one be able to indulge such passions if one has the reasonable means to do so. But the objective reality nevertheless is that the world in which this once was a foregone reality, is dramatically coming to an abrupt end before our disbelieving eyes.

The concern here is not for instance whether one owns a Hummer if one has the financial means to do so, or that one can afford to run it on a daily basis. Rather, that one uses it daily in bumper-to-bumper traffic instead of an appropriately sized economic alternative.

Beside that one has no regard for the waste one is causing, what it truly is symptomatic of is a lack of self-worth and what one therefore wishes to project about oneself. Underneath its outer trappings, what it ultimately is suggestive of is an insecure ego wishing to compensate for its inadequacies by flaunting a gas guzzling monstrosity. For this reason obesity, and doing one’s daily business in an oversized vehicle when it is not required, is to a large extent symptomatic of the same wanton state of mind responsible for the dire circumstances we are currently finding ourselves in.

_______________________________

Note that this was the situation pre 2009 and that a price war has brought the price of oil dramatically down. This is foreseen as temporary but does show the monopoly major oil producing players have because of the current over-reliance on oil.

_______________________________

According to a University of Utah study, a staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material – that's 196,000 pounds – is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles.

_________________

Biofeuls can be regarded as a viable alternative if it utilizes the surplus food supply and does not compete directly with it. This however is impossible in a free market economy. If pure market economics are to dictate this would be unlikely and would result in reduced spend of food producing products, the result of which likely will rapidly increase the price of all raw food commodities.

Furthermore, while other nations are also using biofeuls, the US is cited in particular because of their reluctance to sign protocols to reduce greenhouse emissions as well as putting in place measures to reduce motor vehicle emissions. The US also is by far the greatest per capita user of energy. China ultimately will become the biggest user of all energy resources in the foreseeable future and its current demand is the biggest single contributor to the current crisis. However the extent of Chinese use is more a factor of population size than per capita spend on energy as is the case in the US. In fact the Chinese per capita spend is relatively low when compared with other nations. Nevertheless the solution to the current crisis largely depends on how China and India, the two most populous nations on the planet, deal with their own potentially significant future energy requirements.

The Wanton Beast

If depression is creeping up and must be faced, learn something about the nature of the beast: You may escape without a mauling. – [R. W. Shepherd]

If your opinion about the discussion until now is that I am preaching or am being overly pessimistic, I have to be honest and confess that I was preaching only in as much as I was preaching to myself.

Like the rest of humanity I too aspire for what is good and beautiful in life, and often acquire what I dearly want without truly having the financial means at the time. Hence I do make debt in order to satisfy my whims and wants from time to time.

This is not necessarily a bad thing as it does afford one an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of life while the opportunity does afford itself. The issue here is not that our passions be curtailed, but rather that they be managed in a sustainable way that they may be indulged well into the foreseeable future.

Then again, irrespective of how we may plan for the future, the future has a course irrespective of our attempts to control or predict it. At the time I thought my debt was manageable but because of the unexpected downturn I too now am finding myself in somewhat of a financial predicament, so too having to make incredibly painful financial decisions to keep the proverbial ship afloat. As a consequence I together with much of humanity am finding myself in the very same precarious global economic boat.

The real issue therefore is not that one refrains from debt. Rather, that one not make debt in the delusional belief that, because of the positive vibrations you are sending to the universe, you would be immune to the negative consequences which may result, particularly if you are already heavily indebted.

And in spite of my previous concerns about the current energy crisis, I’m confident that a solution will be found. My optimism being implicit in my belief in the ingenuitive human spirit itself that caused the crisis. Rather that, if the future solution is at the expense of our collective humanity as biofuels is promising to be, it surely will not be a sustainable, and most certainly not a worthy solution at all.

The greater issue therefore is the curtailment of insatiability that the resources which are yet at our disposal reasonably sustain us well into the foreseeable future. However the mindset today is overwhelmingly driven by the desire for abundant riches that every animalistic whim be unreservedly indulged.

Putting the doom and gloom scenario painted before into perspective and bringing it back to the thesis of this work, it is about the very clear parallel between now and the period before the great depression. As intimated, it was particularly about the prevalence of swindlers and fraudsters and how The Secret is indicative of the greater uncritical consumerist mentality that tends to develop during periods of sustained economic euphoria.

In short it was about how a collective consumerist psychosis is prevalent during such consumptive periods, and that it provides an ideal opportunity for the brazen exploits of unscrupulous swindlers.

Posteriori Logic

To find yourself, think for yourself – [Socrates]

Mindless insatiability certainly is what is feeding the current day flood of prosperity religions.

However when claims are made that anyone can attain