I've long considered the idea of a consumption tax to be an end-all, be-all solution to the troubled Internal Revenue Service of the United States. So when Alan Greenspan first floated the trial balloon in March 2005, he felt that some form of national sales tax would spur significant economic growth. Moreover, by removing any restriction on the amount of money any individual could earn and only taxing what is spent on consumption (minus essential foods), the economic powerhouse of America would serge significantly. Greenspan warned, however, that the government would face "significant problems" in economically transitioning to such a system. (1)
I hadn't given the idea of a consumption tax much thought until reading an article by Nathan King from his blog site Hopewalking. The article doesn't have anything to do with economic limitations per se; however, it is about individual hesitation and "Why Waiting to Act Is a Recipe for Failure." (2)
In the article, Mr. King states that "the path to joy is creation, not consumption." (3) Thinking about his statement, perhaps I have been paying a consumption tax all along, not in dollars and cents but in clogging my knowledge management system with consumptive behaviors.
Such consumptive behaviors can include "The Collector's Fallacy," (4) a process of gathering quotations and verbatim notes from books and articles without giving additional thought or effort in transmuting the information to knowledge by merging the contents with things we already know.
We can also fall prey to a "Processing Fallacy," (5) the idea that we need to process our notations as quickly as possible, moving from our collecting inbox to our knowledge management system. Falsely believing our archive will reach a "critical mass" and spew forth volumes of renderings for publication. Getting "critical mass" becomes our mantra, and we collect pieces of disconnected dreams, never knowing we passed critical mass with our first note. Because without foremost being curious and developing the idea as profoundly as possible before moving on to the next concept, we leave behind us an empty inbox, but at the cost of a heavy tax.
All a system should demand is some relationship between words on a page and thoughts in our minds. The connection is not required to be defined or articulated by anything or anyone other than ourselves.
We need to find peace in processing a single note. These short and subtle forms of expression are necessary for our approach to avoid becoming bogged down and crowded with thousands of half-baked messages referencing other half-baked ideas with no chance of creating anything but gibberish on a large scale.
Bob Doto refers to our larger practices, such as "blog posts, videos, articles," and even "inviting your friends over for an impromptu slide show" (6), as an "off-ramp" to relieve the pressure of consumptive behavior. However, I recommend a more discrete method to ease the strain. Express those remarkable thoughts of creation while processing a note or idea and see if the joy of creation is worth earning upfront without restriction versus the taxation of collecting, consuming, and processing the bare minimum.
Written February 21, 2023
Footnotes:
Standard and Poors. (03-Mar-2005). "Today's Headlines."
Soltani, E. (2018, August 20). Why Waiting to Act Is a Recipe for Failure. Retrieved from https://www.hopewalking.com/blog/why-waiting-to-act-is-a-recipe-for-failure
Ibid
Tietze, Christian. (20-Jan-2014. The Collector's Fallacy. Retrieved from https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/.
Chapman, Ev. (10-Aug-2022). The Problem With "Processing" Your Notes (& What To Do Instead). Retrieved from https://evchapman.medium.com/the-problem-with-processing-your-notes-what-to-do-instead-cdb27e5b19c8
Doto, Bob. (30-Sep-2021). Don't Burden Your Second Brain, Too. Retrieved from https://bobdoto.computer/Burden-Second-Brain