Manifest of Enough

This is the entire manifest, stated by Eline at the end of the documentary. She hopes it will allow further conversation about what responsibilities the next generation and the babyboomers have together.

I stand here before you today with a story you might not want to hear. And you ask me who I am?

….Well let me introduce myself,

I am the privileged and the fortunate.

I am the 10 percent.

I am everything that caused the destruction of humankind, and everything that may solve it.

I am better, more educated, more privileged than the 99 % of this planet.

Not even, because I chose it, but because I was born into it.

I stand before you, a human, a Homo Sapien,

A millenial.

lazy, narcissistic and lover of avocados.

a snowflake that will drip with the sun.

Self-righteous: a Guttmensch.

A child of the 90s and an adolescent of the financial crisis.

a millenial.

I vote left, but pay right.

I eat vegetarian, but still pollute.

I take public transportation, but cannot resist the temptation to fly.

a millenial. a hypocrite.

We are all hypocrites. Homo sapiens have the unique capability of living comfortably with their contradictions, for centuries.

Then what is it that we can do to make us be better to ourselves, and the planet?

...To the earth, that gave us everything, even every particle in your body.

It even gave us the idea of money, a product of our own imagination.

And we managed to collectively agree to believe this myth and generate wealth and powerful institutions

The financial sector, is the vascular system of the world. What the financial sector sells is trust, trust in the future, and in 2008, the world lost it, collectively.

Causing the greatest destruction of imaginary wealth to date.

So now they come up with all sorts of ways to convince us, especially Millenials, to trust them again. The system plays on our needs to always want more, and better.

It is a story as old as humankind itself.

If you have a small television, why not get a bigger one?

Why not get a bigger house, another car, just like your parents did? Isn’t it our task to become better versions of them?

Meanwhile, perverse incentives parasitize the system. The truth is most investors and trading bots don’t care. And are not designed to care. The ideology is the bottom line.

In a way, one could say it is an honest and clear approach.

What is the stock market not but a mirror for our greed?

Since 2008 we learned this, but soon forgot, and tried miraculously to use the same system with a spanking NEW flavor, a mirage of a sustainable economic future.

There are some signs of a turn in the tide.

With impact investing, green equity and green bonds.

Indeed, it is oh so tempting, to color your investments green.

Meanwhile, we must be wary of the perils of FEEL GOOD CAPITALISM.

Which is: investing and expecting the same return, feeling good about yourself, without asking too many questions about impact or the sustainability of the system.

These well intentioned acts give an end to our worries, and compensate our history for our massive wealth accumulation at the expense of others, colonial slavery included.

Us millennials, often blindly buy into this feel good bullshit.

We need to question the reasons for our demise, a morally corrupt financial system, which works with a pyramid of return, which forces us to demand endless growth with a knock on effect.

Every bank is a part of this scheme.

This system of return forces us to demand and be addicted to the idea of endless growth.. The idea that the pie, infinitely gets bigger. But this is not true, the pie CANNOT get any bigger, only our imagination can.

It is our imagination for more that needs to be stopped.

We are all prisoners of this imagination, the systemic pressure of return. We are held hostage by the profiteurs for whom the system has worked.

I am also a prisoner, because I became aware of the walls

around me.

But as an investor, I am also a profiteur.

We are all prisoners and profiteurs.

We are prisoners of the thoughts of our institutions, our friends, and most importantly our parents. We are prisoners of their expectations and high standards of life.

We need to find the key out.

We must accept a new reality,

a reality where climate change is real,

a reality where inequality is real,

where our chances for survival are…. different.

We are at the point where an wealthy older generation has to decide to what extent, they REALLY FEEL solidarity with us before they die.

To ask themselves, what planet are they leaving behind their children?

And what capabilities and capital they are giving us to fix it.

In the US alone 68 trillion dollars will pass hands from the babyboomers to the millennial generation.

A sublime gift, but also a sublime challenge.

How do we utilise the same capital and resources, with different ideals and tools?

Will we succumb to the same old human destructive tendencies?

Millennials stand blindfolded in the dark.

I don’t have all the answers, but we can find them together.

We must enlighten ourselves and come together.

But who am I to say that?

Don’t we all just want to be different?

A Guttmensch has no other option than to fail in his or her revolutionary task, to constantly be a few steps away from achieving his or her goal, an infinite striving for something better.

It makes life exciting and worthwhile.

I am no different.

I am a Guttmensch, but not a salon socialist.

With my investment portfolio I have tried to balance the needs of the world with my own.

But honestly, I haven’t 100% succeeded. I too, am an investor, and have sought to create positive impact and return on my investments.

It is a tricky balance, and in the current system impossible to succeed. And yes, I also face an uncertain porcelain world, with uncertain job opportunities and environmental catastrophe next door.

We stand here as the children of paradise, but we must know that it is vulnerable like a porcelain vase.

To my parents I must say:

I love you but I will never be like you.

I never can be like you, and I never will be.

And to my children I must say:

‘I give you my love but not my thoughts, for you have your own thoughts. And no, you are not going to get new clothes or toys, you are only going to get second hand.

Parents and children, brothers sisters, mothers of other mothers, fathers of other fathers, let’s build a table together where we can talk with each other. With a cup of tea and a cookie.

To counter this bizar overtly decadent and greedy world.

Let us ring the bell for a new era, an new rebellion, a new standard, an era of Enough.

Because the most radical thing we can do is to stand still and say it is all enough. Because this earth is enough.

What we have is enough.

We are enough.

I have enough,

I am enough,

we are enough.

Enough enough enough.