“Believer”… you may think of something like a religion. So we usually have a bad image for the word “believer” as it reminds us of people who believe something easily without doubting it. However we all believe something, don’t we?
Well, all of us must be using electricity and paying the bills regularly. I know there are so many electric appliances around us in the present society.
As for the electricity bill, you must receive it from an electric power company and pay the exact amount that you are asked for, don’t you? Sometimes one may wonder about the amount that they used for a particular month, but they don’t usually mind to pay it. Indeed, we are obedient, aren’t we…? We don’t usually doubt the billing amount. Also we know that if we don’t pay it, the electric power company could stop the electricity supply. So we usually accept the situation as we have no choice …Yes, we are believers of the electric power company (gods of electricity).
As I just said, we tend to believe things without doubting…Well, let’s have a close look of the word “信者 (believer)”. Surprisingly, it turns into the word of “儲かる (making money)”. To make money, there is no way other than increasing the believers. I think that it can be applied not only for the electric power company but also for the other social systems including public institutions. Well, as for the general companies, I guess that it’s same as them trying to do their best to increase their believers (fans). If the number of their fans doesn’t increase, they can’t make more money, can they?
Also, when it comes to the annual pension that is usually deducted from our pay every month, we believe that the time when we will receive it will definitely come in the future. So even if the amount that goes into the accumulated fund always goes up a little at a time, we stay with it. But the age that we can start receiving it may be increased to 68 years old soon…Oh my god. In addition to this, by the time we get to receive it, we all may not exist...maybe. Anyway, we are so obedient that we don’t complain about these things. In many ways, we are the believers…, aren’t we?
Well, there is actually a common point between us who become believers. It is that we don’t “see” things properly. We don’t look carefully at the contents of those bills. I suppose that there are a lot of people who use credit cards and so on, but many of them don’t have a close look of those billing statements, do they…? Nowadays it’s often provided online, so more people tend not to see them, I guess. There is less opportunity to see these in the present days.
Although going back to the electricity subject again, we don’t look at the electricity meter at all either, do we? It’s the one on the wall outside of your house. We are never concerned how it works…
Suppose that one day you were told that the electric power company would change your electricity meter…After they changed it, you found out that the electricity bill seemed to be more expensive…So you looked at the new meter and the counting system seemed to move faster…Is it your imagination? Well, you don’t always see the meter anyway, so we never know even if someone adjusted it. Because we are believers and don’t have any doubt. We may not be aware of it. Believing is a kind of scary thing… blind belief…and blind acceptance.
But nature is different. It’s always open. Nothing will be hidden behind it. So if you believe nature without deep thoughts, we’ll be in big trouble. It gives us, who became believers of this social system, the right stimulation. Why don’t you sometimes go out and experience nature …?
We can’t keep having the blind belief…and blind acceptance of our society, can we? Does this society continue having more believers? Does it continue taking advantage of us?
