Leaving Neverland
(Why Little Boys Shouldn’t Run Big Corporations)
By: Daniel Prokop
Published for Daniel Prokop
By Continuum Australia Pty Ltd, Media Division
Copyright 2010 Daniel Prokop
Cover design by Martin Chatterton
Smashwords Edition
Available in paperback from:
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NEVERLAND:
The imaginary island home of Peter Pan and the lost boys. A place where you never grow up. Michael Jackson’s former retreat. An accurate description of the 21st century and the 20th century, also the 19th century, the 18th century, the 17th century, the 16th century, the 15th century, the 14th century, the 13th century, the 12th century…
Author’s Note:
This book is not intended to be a Rites of Passage, planetary management or parenting manual. The material contained herein is general information and some content is written in a satirical and also amusing way. Even if you consider yourself to be funny and a master of satire in no way is any information contained herein to be construed as advice of any kind (except that little boys in men’s bodies do need to grow up and that contemporary Rites of Passage programs should be run in every high school everywhere).
Covering my ass (cont’d): The author and publisher exclude any liability suffered by any person, corporation or other entity for any loss, damage or injury caused by or arising from reliance upon any statement or opinion made or information provided in this publication. If I have inadvertently missed someone or some loop hole in the preceeding then yeah, the foregoing actually includes you and that too. This book is great and is not a substitute for professional advice.
Not a Spoiler Alert: This book is about Leaving Neverland but in the interests of fairness and transparency, Peter Pan is allowed to argue the case for never ever Leaving Neverland, ever. To assist readers in visually distinguishing my writing from that of Peter Pan, Peter and I have agreed to go our separate fonts. Peter was happy to use the crayon-ahh childish type font but we settled on Peter using Arial and me using Times New Roman (I was brought up Roman Catholic so that seemed logical.) It has come to our attention that some eBook readers and /or devices may not handle this blatant, premeditated and fonting disregard for digital conformity. If this creates any inconvenience, I apologise, Peter doesn’t. (You would have found this out soon enough anyway so it is hardly a spoiler.)
Chapter 1: A Little About Little Boys – An Introduction
Chapter 2: Getting Forked into Growing Up
Chapter 3: The Introduction to Peter Pan *
Chapter 4: Rites of Passage and Growing Up
Chapter 5: Who Wants to Grow Up?*
Section A. Alpha Male vs. Leader
Chapter 6: Bullying is Bull***T
6a) From Alpha to Alpha-bet Males: A Downward Spiral
6b) Alpha Males: Ripping them a Second Asshole
6c) The “FREE” Market & Horse and Sparrow Economics
6d) Time to Re-arrange the Alphabet
Chapter 7: Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Bullying *
7a) In a Sandpit Not so Far, Far Away
7b) Covert Bullying or Having the Last Laugh
7c) Bullying Under Attack
Section B. Blame (Dependent) vs. Independent
Chapter 8: Don’t Let the Plaster of Dependency Set
Chapter 9: RESPONSIBILITY is Not a Four Letter Word
9a) 100% Responsibility and Ho’oponopono
Chapter 10: Responsibility: Not on My Watch *
10a) Laying Blame: Blame Early, Blame Often
10b) Blame Fundamentals Conspiracies and Patriotism
Chapter 11: The 100th Monkey Theory *
Chapter 12: The 10,000th Lost Boy Theory
Section C. Cravings vs. Self Discipline
Chapter 13: Saying “I’ll Wait” can be the Hardest Words
Chapter 14: Instant Gratification *
Section D. Death vs. Death
Chapter 15: You Can’t Take it With You But You Can Try
Chapter 16: Death: Something That Happens to Other People *
Section E. External Identity vs. Identity from Self
Chapter 17: To Mine Own Self Be Me
Chapter 18: Why the Beta Male is the First Loser *
18a) Communication: Disagreeing is not Bullying (but it can be)
Section F. FREE: Peter Pan’s Executive Tool Box
Chapter 19: Ignorance is Way Better than BLISS *
Chapter 20: “To Lie or not to Lie?” A Rhetorical Question *
20a) Advanced Lying Strategies
Chapter 21: Denial, the 51st State of the USA *
Section G: Gosh, Was that the Truth?
Chapter 22: Where art Thou Truth? Too Many Convenient Lies
Chapter 23: The Fracturing of Community
Chapter 24: Harmony in Humans, is More Than Just Singing
Section H: Home Parenting
Chapter 25: Parenting for Perpetual Childhood *
25a) Parenting for Bullies
25b) Maintaining a Child friendly Environment
Chapter 26: ‘Off-piste’ Parenting
Section I. I Will NOT Grow Up
Chapter 27: Growing Up: How to Avoid It *
Sections J& K are resting
Section L. Leaving Neverland
28a) Child to Adult Rite of Passage
28b) Initiation through War or the Military
28c) The Good News
28d) The Shadow of Rites of Passage
28e) Other Life Stages
Chapter 30: List of Rites of Passage Programs
Chapter 31: Source Books and Suggested Reading
Chapter 32: Resources for Personal Responsibility & E.I.
* These are the Chapters that have been written and contributed by Peter Pan - yes, that Peter Pan.
A Little About Little Boys - An Introduction (by Daniel Prokop)
The Global Financial Crisis was proudly brought to all of us by the little boys in designer suits that convinced suggestible authorities that they should be left in charge of the banking cookie jar. Of course they helped themselves to our cookies because “self regulation” to a child means “quick grab every cookie you can while no one is looking.” The only real surprise is that people are surprised at all the missing cookies.
Different little boys were left to play in a warm, deep bathtub called the Gulf of Mexico. They had some very big and expensive toys to play with. These boys said that they didn’t need any supervision because their toys were so safe that they were prepared to bet their workers lives on them. Apparently, their claim was more than enough to satisfy their pals in bathroom security. Unfortunately the boys played a bit rough and the biggest toy broke, sinking to the bottom of the tub and spewing up to 60,000 barrels of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico for 86 days. They made a mess that is an ongoing environmental nightmare.
The naughty little boys didn’t even say “Oops” at first. Their first response was “What oil leak?” and then “Oh, um… right, a plan to stop that trickle? Gosh what a good idea! Have you got an Emergency Response plan without walruses drawn all over it?” It was not an isolated or unprecedented incident. There are many examples where similar childish behavior has created messes that rarely get a column inch of international press coverage, especially when they happen in remote or poor places like the Niger Delta, Ecuador or Papua New Guinea.
It is rare that the overgrown children that often run big corporations are flushed out of their ivory boys clubs and separated from a sycophantic crowd. They are not used to being held accountable for their salaries or the preventable human and environmental suffering caused by the operations they are vastly overpaid to run on a take no responsibility first and take no responsibility last basis. Apparently, when you run a corporation that has an economic output greater than most countries you expect to be treated like royalty, only better. (In 2008, ranked by revenue, 65 of the top 100 world economies were corporations¹.) Under critical public scrutiny they cannot hide their callous lack of compassion for the great unwashed, the workers, the common folk or as the Chairman of BP refers to them - “the small people.” They also do not seem to have much regard for the environment: “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”
If you are alarmed, pissed off or just concerned with what is happening in many parts of the world then this book is for you. If you think that it is time to say “Just drop the cookies and back away from the jar,” then this book is for you. If you are interested in a solution for Leaving Neverland that can be rolled out rapidly using the existing education infrastructure then, yup, this book is for you.
We live in an adolescent society where Peter Pan is hailed as a hero and growing up and taking responsibility is seen as bad, boring, even stupid. Why would any culture worship perpetual childhood? If there are no adults then who will take responsibility for the environment, for ensuring a fair and equitable financial system, for keeping people safe, for helping those not able to help themselves, for keeping communities strong? Oh…
Never growing up seems more the norm than the exception. Little boys wearing expensive suits and adult bodies should not be allowed to run big corporations. They shouldn’t be allowed to run governments, armies, religions, small businesses and charities either and just quietly, they make pretty shabby husbands and fathers too. Mankind has become Pankind and whilst “lost boys” abound, there is also an alarming increase in the number of “lost girls.”
Finally, finally, the appalling arrogance of spoilt über boys and the avoidable suffering that they have caused is generating a global wave of anger and frustration and about time too. We can ride this wave of frustration right into growing up and right out of Neverland.
It is time for us to grow up. It is actually that simple. As healthy adults working together we can create solutions to the social and environmental challenges that we face. Some of the little boys that have not been playing nice will have their big toys taken off them and some of them will be told they need some ‘time out’ in special sandpits called prisons. We can expect quite a few tears before bedtime, some impressive tantrums and that some of these perpetual boys will try to take their bats and balls and play in places where no one can stop them. A few are going to become very, very angry and quite vicious, well, even more vicious.
The difficulty with the solution, of course, is that growing up is much easier said than done. Just shouting “Grow up!” or “Act your age, not your shoe size!” does not work, though you are welcome to give it a try.
Fortunately there is a timely solution to the growing up conundrum that lies at the heart of this book. There is a vehicle for achieving the transformation from being a child to being a young adult which has been road tested for tens of thousands of years. It can be done many different ways and it can be made accessible to everyone. The vehicle, the catalyst for growing up that traditional societies all relied upon is called a community based Rite of Passage.
A Rite of Passage is non-denominational and is simply a supported event or ceremony that marks the transition from one life stage to another. There are many stages that we pass through on our life’s journey. Most life stage transitions do not happen on their own without help from people who have already crossed the threshold. Without Rites of Passage many people, me included, can get stuck. The stage of life known as adolescence is particularly sticky, so to speak. Some people never escape adolescence. Some corporations will never even try.
The onset of puberty in adolescence means that there is a lot happening physiologically for young people and emotionally the flood of hormones can at times short circuit reason. A lot happens for the parents of teenagers too. The parental pedestal crumbles and we are suddenly parenting adolescents that have the same or more body mass than we do. Parents play a huge role in either assisting or hindering young people to leave Neverland. An assisted Rite of Passage or self initiation? It is our choice, and leaving young people to self initiate has not worked.
In the western world, it seems that most adults don’t want to grow up but have lost the joy and freedom of being childlike and in a desperate attempt to stay young forever have achieved eternal childishness, rather than eternal youth.
Most people would agree that badly behaved children shouldn’t be allowed to run corporations the size of countries or in fact anything larger than a sandpit built for one. And yet it happens, frequently. Too often errant corporations have been given the benefit of the doubt or of public disinterest or of public disinformation or all of the preceding. This book delightfully skewers some of these corporations, looks at how we got to where we are and explores the differences between an overgrown child (Peter Pan) and a healthy adult (non-Peter Pan).
The behavioral differences between Peter Pan and a healthy adult are vast and the differences in terms of responsibility, accountability and the use of power are the keys to restoring balance. As well as my own personal journey out of the Neverland of corporate life and my experience with contemporary, community based Rites of Passage this book includes regular commentary by the pin up boy for people who refuse to grow up, Peter Pan (yes, that Peter Pan).
In the interests of fairness and transparency Peter argues on behalf of a never ending Neverland. Peter urges the children of the world to rise up and drive the last adults into the sea. Actually, it’s not as dramatic as that, but Peter has been busy upgrading Neverland Classic into the expanded and modern Neverland 2.0.
Peter shares his strategies for never growing up. These strategies have helped him fly from one highly successful corporate career to another. “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Bullying” is one of Peter’s favourite chapters. He also offers advice for parents on how to parent for perpetual childhood. I find Peter’s strategies amusing and they would be hilarious if they weren’t actually so close to the truth of daily experience.
How many more GFCs or BP Gulf oil spills do we need before we finally decide that it is time for us to leave Neverland? For our sake, for our children’s sake, *ffs, we need to leave and as the Neverland departure lounge fades into the distance, the little boys (and little girls) that are behaving appallingly will be replaced by adults and we can start to live happily and co-operatively ever after. * ffs = for our future’s sake.
¹ From revenue data compiled by Josh Morgan at Gnock.com http://gnock.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/topecon_rev.html
Quotes:
"The BP president said yesterday that the
company would survive. That's like someone running over your dog and
saying, 'Don't worry, my car is fine.” —Jimmy Fallon
“Even amidst tragedy there is laughter, sometimes farce. The degree of farce depends on who is running the tragedy.”—Daniel Prokop
"The oil company said it was the rig company's fault. The rig company said it was Halliburton. And somehow, each time they passed the blame, Goldman Sachs made a hundred million dollars.”— Bill Maher
“Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!” — unknown
Getting Forked into Growing Up (by Daniel Prokop)
This is a good place for me to introduce myself. I am a migrant, a script writer, a comedy show radio host, an inventor, a parent educator and a stand up comedian. I have been a laborer at the Port Kembla Steelworks, made pizzas, cleaned toilets, washed my hands, washed dishes, even worked at McDonalds (it’s ok, my kids know). I’ve picked kiwi fruit in NZ, put myself through University and worked on a turkey farm where they were doing artificial insemination. Personal development: been there, still doing that. I am also a father of two children and a husband and we all live together which is a bit nuclear.
I’ve been around the block a few times, nearly fifty times if you call one year a block. I studied little boys in their “natural” corporate environment, from within the belly of an oily beast. The beast was the biggest corporation in the world at the time. Hint: the logo looks like a scallop shell. It was a huge, big budget sandpit where I played at a senior level for 13 years, which still surprises me. I owned a franchised business in a major shopping center and employed twelve staff for 9 years (okay, that one still surprises me too) and I have worked for a harm prevention charity. Three vastly different sandpits all linked by similar childish behavior, some of it my own.
I have seen the infantile and puerile celebrated, watched bullying and irresponsible behavior rewarded and worked in environments where growing up was verboten (forbidden). We live in a world where the “hood” from “childhood” is frequently never replaced by the “hood” from “adulthood.” I think the child’s hood gets a bit whiffy if it never gets changed.
In this book, I’m going to talk a lot about growing up and I don’t want readers thinking that I am suffering from ‘Less like Peter Pan than thou syndrome.’ I successfully dodged growing up for a long time. Peter Pan and me, we used to be tight, we were Bro’s, well, we lived in the same big house, the house of Neverland. I was happy to stay in Neverland forever but at the age of 32 I got forked. I had been told to “get forked” a number of times before this but being young; I mistook it for abuse rather than good advice.
My fork came out of nowhere. I had just picked up Beth, my girlfriend, from the international airport and at some point on the kiss, kiss, “I’ve missed you for the past six weeks”, happy reunion drive home, things went weird. I heard, as if through a fog, the words… “I think I’m pregnant.” I swear I never saw that train coming. There was a horrible crash and screaming, lots of screaming and some pathetic whining. Fortunately, my inner train wreck did not affect my outer ability to maintain control of a motor vehicle. The only outer manifestation of my inner carnage was a temporary loss of the power of speech, which was a good thing. Somehow we made it home safely, all three of us.
My fork was this, a baby, my baby, was going to be born whether I liked it or not and I had two choices: 1) Stay and become a good Dad or 2) run away. The third possibility of staying and being a crap dad is really a variation of Option 2. I must admit that Option 2 was very attractive because there was a big problem with Option 1. I knew that to become a good dad, I would have to grow up and I didn’t want to grow up. I really did not want to grow up, I wanted to stay in Neverland forever and I didn’t want to leave because of a baby.
There was a part of me that knew I hadn’t been taking responsibility for myself, my life and if I couldn’t take responsibility for me, how could I be expected to take responsibility for another human being, a helpless baby? I was terrified of responsibility, of being tied down, of getting it wrong, of being a Dad. Fortunately my wife to be, Beth, was very patient (very patient). Beth didn’t push me and I was allowed time to just struggle. I was grumpy and bad tempered for a while; not very communicative either. There was little support and no “Expectant Dad” programs around to help me. Eventually, finally and to an extent miraculously, I got my head around the fact that I was going to become a Dad. Some internal switch got flicked and I have loved, really loved my journey of fatherhood. Getting forked was the best thing that has ever happened to me and I have strongly recommended it to a few very “special” people.
When Samuel was born, because of a birth complication, I was the first person to hold him. I was quickly replaced by something much more useful, a nipple, but I had had my moment, a magic new Dad moment with my baby. It was just amazing for me to hold this beautiful, tiny human being in my arms. I’m sure time stopped or maybe it just stopped for me. As well as a healthy baby boy, a new love was also birthed that day. A tender, protective, totally unconditional, connected and indescribable (I tried) kind of love that I had never experienced before. I had become a parent and I could have missed that moment. If my son, Samuel, had waited until I was ready to grow up and become a Dad, he could still be waiting.
Our baby became a child and the child just kept getting bigger and bigger, as they do when they are healthy. I didn’t want Samuel to wait until he was 32 before he started to grow up. To this end, I had been watching for some time the development of a program called “Pathways to Manhood” that was being run locally. I knew it was a bush camp for boys and their dads or a mentor and that they needed leaders to help run more camps. I also knew that it had something to do with boys growing up and setting their feet on the long road to healthy manhood. The program’s name: “Pathways to Manhood”, is kind of a clue as to its intention. I knew very little about Rites of Passage back then, but the words “Rites of Passage” sounded kind of important to me.
As Samuel got older my internal imperative to do something got annoyingly stronger. Eventually, (thanks Elyjah) I got involved as a trainee leader with the Pathways Foundation. I had done a lot of mixed rituals where both men and women were involved and to be honest, I wasn’t thrilled about doing smelly “men’s business.” I was busy, it cost money, <excuse #3>,<excuse #4> and <optional excuse #5> but I followed through with the Leadership Training because I am committed to being the best Dad I can be for Sam, even if that means stretching my personal comfort zones. In the small print of my being the best Dad I can be, I reserve the right to moan and complain about sprained comfort zones, just so you know.
My first camp as a trainee leader was amazing. Seven days in nature, no electricity, no phones, open fires, no women, great food, lots of flatulence, no running water. A rough bush camp, 30 men drawn together with the sole intention of supporting 14 boys to make the transition from boy to young man in a safe, non competitive environment. For some men, the camp was the first time that they had ever been in a space where they were not judged by the type of job they had, how much they made, where they lived, the car they drove, or the clothes they wore. In this safe space I watched men relax; really relax as they set aside the unconsciously adopted defensive male warrior pose.
I watched the transformation of boys’ relationships with their fathers, with other men and with themselves unfold. We all witnessed courageous men sharing stories of their lives from their hearts without hubris. We sat around fires, shared food, laughter, games and challenges and over the week the boys left the camp and they rejoined us as young men. The young men were acknowledged and honored by older men for completing their Rite of Passage, for stepping over the metaphorical line in the sand dividing boyhood from manhood.
As a group of men, we returned to our families and the wider community, to the anxious mums and uncles and grandparents and siblings. The community acknowledged the young men and celebrated their safe return to the hearth. Over the week away, a number of the men had said that they wished that they had had something like a Pathways to Manhood, a Rite of Passage when they were growing up. I agree whole heartedly.
It was a gift to see the difference in the fathers, the young men and how they were with their families, with the women who had kept the home fires burning so that we could be away. At different times over the week, the beauty and power of the work had brought me to tears, especially when I imagined myself with my son Samuel, guiding him through his Rite of Passage.
Little did I know that Rites of Passage would so get under my skin that it would become an itch that I can never seem to scratch. In an ever changing world, I don’t know many things for certain but I do know that contemporary, community based Rites of Passage make a world of difference to young people and to their families, they are every child’s rite. More than at any other time in this planet’s history, we need healthy men and women rather than overgrown boys and girls as parents, as politicians, as generals and as business and community leaders. Whilst it is self evident that little boys should not be allowed to run big corporations it is alarmingly common.
Peter Pan has never quite forgiven me for forking off and leaving Neverland, for starting to grow up. I still see Peter on the odd occasion, like when I jump back over the line in the sand and behave like a little boy instead of a man. So whilst I do visit Neverland (strictly for research purposes) I don’t live there anymore and I have some awareness of when I am behaving that way. After my tantrum I can clean up the mess and get on with what needs getting on with.
It is almost impossible to not be concerned about alarming increases in rates of depression across all age groups, environmental degradation, the inequities of the global financial system, <pet worry #4>,<pet worry #5> etc. We face many challenges. Peter Pan with the support of a coalition of the willing has had great success in creating a Cult of Perpetual Youth (CoPY). Neverland is promoted as if it is Nirvana which it is not.
Neverland: “Stay young forever by never growing up!”
Neverland: “Be happy and childlike forever!”
Neverland: “No responsibility. No worries. No wrinkles. (Now fortified with Viagra)!”
Neverland: “The overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest.”(Via BP CEO, Tony Hayward, BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 18/05/10)
We mostly hear about all the bad stuff that is happening and a lot of the depressing stuff can be traced back to different boys but similar behavior. Amidst all the chaos that comes in a time of rapid change there are also millions of amazing, inspiring things happening every day. There are a lot of healthy adults out there too.
“If you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.” Paul Hawken, 2009 speech¹
There are courageous, dedicated, compassionate people in all countries devoting themselves to making a difference and there are parents raising a generation of young people who will not be pawns of unsustainable industries.
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo, 1852.
I have updated the quote for Victor Hugo:
“There is one thing stronger than even all the biggest corporations in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
Here’s a radical idea: Let’s put adults in charge of running things on this planet with Elders to help guide them. What do you think? Victor?
<silence>
<silence>
<more silence>
Is that my segue in? Is that it? After so many pages? Victor? Pretty weak segue but, doesn’t matter. I’m in now. Peter Pan here. Thank you, whatever your name is, yes, I am a victor, a big victor because Neverland Rules and I could wait to be introduced as agreed … BUT… know what? Why wait? I’m good. I’ll just introduce myself to the readers…
¹ University of Portland Commencement Speech 2009. A PDF of this inspiring speech is available from www.paulhawken.com
The Introduction to Peter Pan (Contributed by Peter Pan)
Hi, Peter Pan here, also known as Pedro Pan (Spain), Pieter Pan (Netherlands), Pedr Pan (Wales), Pekelo Pan (Hawaii), Per Pan (Norway), Pierre Pan (France), Petar Pan (Romania), Pyotr Pan (Russia) Peter Panno (Australia) Peter Chan (China) and That Little Bugger (in most other countries). I’m the champion of the childish, the boy who refuses to grow up and proud of it. At this point in history, staying childish and irresponsible has never been easier or a surer path to a highly successful career. It has worked a treat for me.
I used to live in Neverland, way back in 1904 when it was mostly imaginary. Back then, baby boys who fell out of their prams when their nurse was not looking were sent by the Government to stay with me in Neverland but only if they were not claimed within seven days which was pretty reasonable. I called them the ‘lost boys.’ There were no ‘lost girls’ because, apparently, no girl was silly enough to fall out of her pram, which is sexist but true.
Improvements in pram safety, fewer nurses hitting the big bottle of Mrs. McCready’s Cough Syrup in the mornings and a 1920 UK policy of forced expatriation of children to other Commonwealth countries meant that eventually ‘lost boys’ stopped arriving in Neverland altogether. The ones already in Neverland, well, they got lost, which was annoying but not surprising. Neverland started getting quiet, too quiet, if you know what I mean.
I started spending more time out of Neverland where I “hooked” up with a lot of boys and some girls who also refused to grow up. We all got on great. I called them the “new lost boys” and “new lost girls” respectively. There were a lot more than I would have ever thought. They loved hearing my stories about the adventures I used to have in Neverland and how easy it was to never grow up there. They really wanted me to take them to Neverland but they didn’t want to risk losing their highly paid jobs. So I started thinking, if I couldn’t bring the boys and girls to Neverland then why not bring Neverland to the boys and girls?
It has taken a long time, a very long time, because I constantly get distracted, but I have finally expanded the borders of Neverland, constantly pinching, pushing and pulling at the edges until now Neverland covers almost the entire planet. In line with the advent of Web 2.0 and social networking I have upgraded the original Neverland 1.0, or Neverland Classic, as it is sometimes called, to Neverland 2.0.
Over many, many years I have yet to find any reason to grow up. Indeed, I have found time and time again that a person of my marked immaturity can carve a stellar career in any industry. Whilst the petroleum industry was an absolute hoot, I must say that I have had the most insane fun and made outrageous money treasure-hunting in international banking. It was also nice to be back sparring with Mr. Smee and all the other pirates. I never get tired of hearing Mr. Smee recite the banking hypocritical oath, “Arrrrgh, Take what you can, give nothing back! Arrrgh.” What an industry!
Since
those global financial “speed bumps,” the big cartels
banks initially received a lot of unfair and highly critical press,
much of it wildly accurate. Firstly, “Everybody” said that there
was no way we could afford a global financial crisis (GFC) but of
course, as it turns out “Everybody” was wrong, weren’t they?
When push came to shove, came to collapse, the 4.1 trillion dollars
was found or printed or whatever.
Despite all the time I have spent in banking, I still don’t understand it very well and I know I’m not the only one. Derivatives, schmerivatives. What a great business banking is. Banks take the money that the public save and give them a pittance called interest and then the bank borrows against the public’s money to leverage it so they can lend as much money as possible back to the public at extortionate rates to fund marble palaces and huge bonuses for people who are playing with money that is not their own. One word: sensational.
I volunteered to take on all those depressing, pathetic whiners “Oh poor me, I’ve lost my job, I’ve lost my house, I’ve lost all my life savings, I thought banks were safe… wah, wah, wah.” I also wanted to have a serious lash at all the foolish governments, Iceland excepted of course, who after years of supporting, even promoting financial and other deregulation suddenly realized that deregulation results in a… wait for it… a deregulated market. A market with no rules. D’oh, but do any of the Governments want to take the blame for what has happened? Any hands up in the air? No?
Every
one of my pirate banking CEO friends privately agree
with me that all we were doing was raping what others had saved, or
is that sown? but whilst the public are so pissed off, the CEOs are
fearful of taking on the whingers and governments because it might
jeopardize their healthy bonuses which were, after all, being funded
by the remarkably generous and unconditional government bailouts.
Unfortunately,
before I could blow the whistle or speak out, I was effectively
“gagged” by the whole wanking banking industry.
Well, when I say “gagged,” I mean I was paid a large
roomful of your money just to shut up and retire quietly. Both my
Barrister ($4,000 for 20 minutes advice) and my barista ($3.50 for 20
minutes advice, plus a latte) agreed with me that writing is a quiet
pursuit, so I could in theory, have the angry spray I wanted
but in print form rather than as a documentary or film or as my own
talk show. Clever, huh? I always get my way, no matter what, which is
why I have always been so successful. I was also contracted to
sprinkle fairy dust everywhere so people would quickly forget any
lessons learned and just how mightily pissed off they were. Been
there, sprinkled that.
Sadly, words don’t write themselves, they take work, focus, self discipline and time. Dammit! And Dammit! Oh well, nice thought, time to watch more TV.
As
fate and I would have it, I used to have an acquaintance called
Damian [Daniel]. Just as
my writing idea was sinking out of sight, I bumped into my old butt
wipe buddy. Donald [Daniel]
was excited to see me, he kept yapping on and on about it being time
to Leave Neverland and how my behavior had inspired him to write a
book. He almost captured my attention but he was kind of boringly
serious, no, no, seriously boring and annoyingly earnest. “This
book will make a difference…” which was when I switched off, for
a while. I think he said “yadda, blah, Neverland, yadda, write,
yadda, blah, blah, book, blah, d’oh….” I nodded every now and
then to keep my neck from getting stiff which just spurred him on and
on. He noticed the neck movements but somehow missed the pointed
yawns entirely.
I was just about to escape and go and give birth to an environmentalist (take a dump) when he said the magic words, “don’t worry, I’ll do all the work.” Well, I was on board in a flash. I made Darryl [Daniel] promise not to bother me with boring booky details like writing or publishing, etc, etc. Dennis [Daniel] is convinced that people are ready to leave Neverland despite all the evidence to the contrary. Normally I avoid delusional people but some delusions are harmless. I say, “if you’re prepared to do the time you can have your whine.” Go your hardest Buddy!
The
difficulty with working with delusional people is that they often
assume that just because they said something or sent an email or two
that communication has taken place. I’m a busy guy and a
multi-tasking specialist. I can’t afford to devote all of my
attention to the person that is talking to me. Please! That is a
grossly inefficient use of time. Because Denzel [Daniel]
didn’t explain things clearly to me, I thought that I would get to
you readers first and explain a few things before you read any of his
… shit tripe crap
writing.
Oh, ummm… in case he mentions it, Draco [Daniel] claims that I had a bit of a tantrum and threatened to pull out of helping altogether if I didn’t get to go first. I can’t remember any emotional release and because a latte got spilt [poured] on the recording device, that part of our interview is kind of undigitalized. I told Dane [Daniel] that it was a bit childish to cry over frothed milk but that didn’t seem to comfort him much.
There are some people that see the half full cup and get upset about where the other half of the cup went [like on an expensive microphone?] With an attitude like that, they will never be happy. I see a half full cup and I immediately take half of someone else’s cup and then I have a full cup and I’m happy. With the right attitude, life is really very simple.
So, David …. It is David, isn’t it? [Daniel] will write most of the book which shouldn’t spoil it too much. He said that he would add some comments in parenthesis and in a different font to mine [like this]. I of course reserved the right to insert the odd, odd comment in {these things} in his chapters if and when I feel like it. If you get confused, just listen to what I say because growing up is for losers.
Where was I? Remember, how I was telling you about how I spent a long time out of Neverland Classic while I was busy bringing Neverland to the people? Well, it’s quite funny really. You see over those decades, I … um … well, it’s funny and a touch embarrassing, I have become rather well padded since I was first described in print in 1904. I have grown out and talled up a bit. I’m quite a bit bigger than I once was but I can reassure you that I have done everything in my childish repertoire, which is vast, to avoid growing up mentally. I am just as capricious, vain, self centered and selfish as I was in 1904, if not more so.
Obviously I take my immaturity seriously and I carefully monitor my Emotional Intelligence (E.I.) level and keep it as low as possible. My average E.I. level hovers just below that of an indulged, pre-pubescent 14 year old boy. I am delighted to reveal that my E.S., or Emotional Stupidity level is so high that it is off the charts. E.S. measures a person’s inability to access certain emotions such as compassion, empathy and a sense of responsibility. In Neverland 2.0 these emotions are so rare that they are considered theoretical, if they are ever considered at all, which they are not.
In exchange for you buying, copying or stealing a copy of this book, I will share with you the secrets of my low E.I. high E.S. diet. I will show you how you can make loads of fast money and stay looking young forever’ish by reducing all the unnecessary stress commonly associated with shirking responsibility, lying, cheating and dominating others. You do not have to grow up and no one can make you, if you don’t want to. That’s great news isn’t it? It is time to share the Neverland Code, the Code that has allowed Neverland 2.0 to take over the world. When I say “Code,” well, it’s actually more of a guide really.
Practitioners of the Peter Pan Low E.I., High E.S. Diet™ (PPLowHigh Diet™) can become enormously powerful and with great power, in Neverland 2.0, comes a total lack of accountability and responsibility. Take for example one of the greatest PPLowHigh Diet™ dieters of our time, former President [unelected] of the United States, George W. Bush, [child president]. Or maybe you want to tilt your cap at the corporate world? The PPLowHigh Diet ™ can rocket you to the highest echelons of the bluest of blue chip resource companies, financial institutions or corporate stalwarts like Enron or WorldCom. Stay emotionally slim whilst gorging yourself at the company’s expense. The PPLowHigh Diet ™ is a high performance diet; just think what it can do for you. [When Enron collapsed in 2001, it owed $32 billion dollars and was the biggest corporate failure in US history, at that time.]
If we do not fight the adults on the land, in the air and on the sea (which includes off shore drilling platforms) we could end up with a world where people and even companies and whole governments could be held responsible for their actions. Not on my watch. What has happened in the Gulf of Mexico is outrageous. So there was a bit of a spill, a few birds got some black waterproofing for free. Tony Hayward, CEO of BP did a great job of putting it into perspective for people “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” BP quite rightly, in my opinion, appeared to try to save the oil first and the environment second or third, whatever.
It is a worrying precedent that BP were forced to set up a $20 billion dollar Gulf Oil Spill Fund. I couldn’t have summed it up better than Joe Barton, Republican Senator from Texas, when he said it was “a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, a $20 billion dollar shakedown.” I felt your pain Joe. I was also “ashamed of what happened in the White House.” This book will help get more supporters for good ol’ boys like Joe. Profit is not a dirty word, responsibility is.
About those nasty, hurtful rumors that I wear green tights, a green hat, travel by fairy dust and that my fashion accessories are limited to a belt and a gay wooden sword: Those persistent, cruel lies have been propagated by horrible mean spirited grown ups that want to roll back the borders of Neverland 2.0 to the realm of the imagination. Those tossers have totally failed but that persistent, bad fashion stereotype is mean and slightly sicko. Maybe once, for a wicked jape, I dressed all in green. It was St. Patrick’s Day for goodness sake. I was in Ireland, someone drew a picture of me, please let it go… let it go. I wear Armani now, do you?
It is high time that all the perpetual boys and girls that run so many fine corporations for their own benefit and that of their mates get the respect and the acknowledgement that they so richly deserve. Any good Never Lander, a citizen of Neverland, could walk past you in a busy street and you would not even notice them unless they were having a dummy spit. We dress exclusively in brand names, love bling, drive huge, pretentious, gas guzzling vehicles and have found iPhones and the internet to be more effective weapons than wooden swords.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I am having more fun in Neverland 2.0 than Neverland Classic. Here’s a quick fun tip for you: Fun at someone else’s expense is twice as much fun as normal fun because you have your fun PLUS you add to your fun a fun multiplier which is based on how effective you have been at taking away other people’s fun. The bonus endorphins from enhanced fun are more effective than wrinkle cream at keeping you young but more difficult to put in a jar and mark up by 6,000%.
Rites of Passage and Growing Up (by Daniel Prokop)
I’m really happy that Peter Pan is contributing to this book. I believe that people have finally had enough of perpetual boys and that Peter’s undisguised churlishness will help to wake people up. After wiping the drool from the corner of their mouths (which is how you know it has been a very deep sleep), people will start to abandon Neverland and wonder why they ever stayed there so long.
Neverland is no longer restricted to an island in the imagination or to a ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Boys that refuse to grow up, and girls too, seem more the norm today than the exception. The original book “Peter Pan” was written by J.M. Barrie as a children’s story, it was never meant to be used as a blueprint for social development.
Peter Pan was one of Michael Jackson’s hero’s (he didn’t know Peter like I know him) which is why Michael created his own Neverland complete with Indian village, two railways, a zoo, bumper cars and various other amusement park rides, as you do. The 2,676 acre Neverland was a monument to a childhood that as a young star Michael felt he never had. Despite the excess: None of the King of Pop’s Horses and none of the King of Pop’s enablers could put the King of Pop’s childhood back together again.
Fan or not we all have a lot in common with Michael Jackson. We are living in a Neverland that we have all helped to create, that doesn’t disappear when we wake up and will only disappear when we collectively grow up. In our adolescent society growing up emotionally is ridiculed, seen as bad, even stupid and definitely undesirable. Yet the consequences of our prolonged childhood, the global financial crisis, the preventable environmental disasters, human induced climate change and a pandemic of depression are finally (almost) impossible to ignore.
We have tried generations upon generations of not growing up and taking no responsibility for our actions or emotions and it doesn’t seem to have worked very well. For Homo sapiens why is growing up emotionally not pre-installed? How could something so vitally important to life on this planet be left as an optional extra?
“Hi, GOD! Yeah good to see you too, so…. ummm…. this time I’ll take the basic body shape, a fairly hairless one, unless there is an ice age coming up? The opposite you say? Interesting, whatever, definitely the walking upright model with the enlarged brain and a big penis too, if it’s all the same to you? Yeah, well the size does matter to me. Yes, I have heard that joke about how you knock the dicks off all the smart ones and it was funny back when we were all still living in the trees. Whatever skin color you got in stock for this baby will be fine. One last thing, I hear that that the growing up software is now optional? I’m sorry, you were mumbling, is it optional or not? It is? Great, ‘cause I’m not gonna need it. I just want to be a big kid this whole lifetime, stay kinda young forever, ya know. Yes ummm about that, I will be opting out of taking any responsibility for anything and I just want to reassure you that I’m good with that. Well, it probably will adversely affect my fellow men and women but …. whatever. Right. Yes, totally. GOD, you are THE GOD. Of course I’m listening and I understand your frustration but if it upsets you so much why did you give us free will? Well… maybe it would have been better if you hadn’t, but you did. Now as I understand it, you won’t actually stop me… you know … having nookie? ‘Cause I might ‘accidentally’ father a few kids. It doesn’t feel right talking about sex in front of you. You’re kind of like a parent only so much more. I just can’t imagine you and Mrs. God having sex. Sorry, sorry, any who. I think we’re all set now? Cool. Well, thank you. See you next time. What do you mean? ‘If there is a next time?’ GOD? GOD?”
In human beings there is no hard wired link between physiology and psychology, no inter-molecular check and balance system between physical body growth and psychological mental development. At first blush this appears to be a significant design flaw unique to human beings. Some people who are critical of God about other matters may be thinking that this is a huge oversight by God. Others, who constantly acknowledge just how amazingly clever God is (you may even use a different name for her), will disagree.
Have some fun and visualize a relative or a work colleague, perhaps a favorite politician. Now imagine the physical size of the person changing so that their body is now directly proportional to their emotional maturity i.e. healthy adult emotionally equals full size adult body, child emotionally equals a child’s body, baby emotionally equals baby body size. Hmm, how did you go? Need a few high chairs?
The link between physical body growth and emotional maturity was once provided by the community. The catalyst for achieving the transformation from boy to young man or from girl to young woman was called a Rite of Passage. Assisting young people to successfully make the transition from childhood into adulthood was a matter of life and death to traditional societies. The communities knew that their very survival actually depended on having healthy adults as members rather than overgrown boys and girls (and that was way back before nuclear weapons, genetic engineering and deep sea drilling were even invented).
“A civilization that lacks Rites of Passage has a sick soul and “you know it is sick for three reasons: there are no elders, the youth are violent and the adults are bewildered” African Teacher as quoted by Matthew Fox¹
Rites of passage are normal. An example of a modern Rite of Passage which is still commonly practiced today is marriage. Indeed some people enjoy the rite of marriage so much that they “practice” it several times and still can’t seem to make it work. The potency of marriage as an effective Rite of Passage seems to have diminished greatly. There are many other stages that we move through over a lifetime. These life stages include; birth, adolescence, parent, Elder and death.
I believe that the reclaiming of contemporary, community based Rites of Passage is the way out of Neverland for all of us. The focus of this book is the Rite of Passage where Peter Pan and quite a few others (myself included) have got stuck, the transition from child to young adult.
Childhood is great, I spent 32 years there and Peter Pan has clocked up 106 years as a child and still counting. Early childhood (as opposed to the ongoing childhood of a 40 year old) is precious and children are great teachers of spontaneous joy and happiness. According to Dr. Fry (Psychiatrist and professor emeritus at Stanford University) the average child in kindergarten laughs up to 300 times a day, the average adult just 17 times. Just because kids haven’t heard all the good punch lines does not explain that difference. Children have a sense of wonder and playfulness that is infectious though many “adults” use work to inoculate themselves from regular laughter and outbursts of spontaneous play.
There are positive aspects of childhood which “grown ups” remember very fondly but shed all too readily: joy, fun, innocence and wonder, laughing easily and living in the moment. There are other aspects of childhood which “adults” retain even when they are way past their use by date. These aspects include: the avoidance of responsibility, the insatiable cravings for attention and instant gratification, the misuse of power and being capricious.
So what does growing up mean? People talk about it all the time. Young people are often told to “grow up” by angry, shrill voiced folk who are having a mid life tantrum. Even if teenagers want to grow up, we make it difficult by having few good role models available for them and fewer still that get any media attention. Telling young people to “Grow up!” but then not giving them anything to aim for is like giving someone a dart, then blindfolding them and spinning them around 100 times and then berating them as you pull the dart out of your forehead.
“Growing up” emotionally means making the mental shift from being a child to being a young adult, from being dependent on parents and others to becoming independent, from taking no responsibility to taking full responsibility. When this transformation does not happen we get overgrown children who have physically grown up but still behave like a child, often a spoilt child.
The differences between an overgrown child and a healthy adult are vast and it is worth considering what some of these differences are. The main differences as I see them, “Peter Pan vs. Not Peter Pan” are summarized below in Table 1.0. As some eBook formats do not display images I have provided the Table as text and then as an image and because repetition is a good learning tool .
Overgrown Child (PPan) **=> Healthy Adult (not PPan)
A) Alphabet Male ****=>
Leader
I use power over others ****=> I use power with
others
B)
Blame (Dependent) ****=> Independent
No responsibility for
actions or feelings **=> full responsibility
C)
Cravings ****=> Self Discipline
I demand instant
gratification **=> Ican defer gratification
D)
Death ****=> Death
I am immortal **=> I will die
E)
External Identity ****=> Identity from Self
I seek constant
attention **=> I do what is needed
Table 1.0 is meant to be a conversation starter for the very important conversation: “We need to talk. It’s time to start growing up” and in the immortal words of Monty Python, “It’s only a model.” This model has been inspired by the Boy vs. Man model developed by the Pathways Foundation (www.pathwaysfoundation.org.au).
Table 1.0 Difference between an Overgrown Child and a Healthy Adult
The line in the sand between Peter Pan (an overgrown child) and a non-Peter Pan (a healthy adult) was drawn by the community and stepped over during a Rite of Passage. Each of the five aspects in Table 1.0 are discussed in detail in the following five sections of this book.
I have kept this model simple because it is now easier to get overwhelmed by information than at any other time in history. It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4 billion gigabytes) of information was generated in 2008 which is more information than was generated in the previous 5,000 years².
‘Leaving Neverland’ is not a gospel according to Daniel and I hope that since there are so few lions left that this will not land me in the lions den. These are my thoughts and beliefs written in a way that I hope you will find entertaining, informative and at times provocative. The Peter Pan vs. Not Peter Pan model can be useful, I believe, in helping to identify “lost boys” and “lost girls,” especially when they are cloaked in the authority of high office. I also find it useful for when I step over the line myself. If what I have written makes sense to you, use it and if it doesn’t, chuck it away or put it in the bottom of a budgies cage.
{More like the bottom of a vulture’s cage for the stuff Dennis writes about growing up. <hand gesture> Children Rule! Childhood forever! Adults suck!}
Some of the things that Peter writes, well, you might want to keep a salt shaker handy or a bucket.
{Oh, very mature. Ha, ha all I have to do is cast the line out and reel you in. Adult schmadult.}
Maybe we don’t need to Leave Neverland? Maybe Peter Pan is right and we just keep on going exactly as we have been going only harder? After reading this, you decide.
A quick perusal of Table 1.0 is enough to see that the shifts required in the way of thinking and being are so fundamental that it is absurd and unrealistic to assume that adolescents can make such a huge transformation all by themselves in a timely manner. It was never left up to the individual to decide when they wanted to grow up because this is the way that that conversation goes.
ADULT: “Hey, when are you going to grow up?”
ADOLESCENT: “I’ll grow up when I feel like it.”
ADULT: “OK, and when will that be?”
ADOLESCENT: “Never.”
It was not left up to the parents to decide when the child was ready to grow up either. Parents can easily be blinded by their love.
PARENT: “I just don’t think Timmy is ready to grow up yet.”
OBSERVER: “Why is that?”
PARENT: “Some of his beard isn’t grey yet.”
Some parents who are living vicariously through their children or who are simply co-dependent on them may not want their little darlings to ever grow up. There are now many different names for over protective parents that try to solve all their children’s problems for them. There is a variety of hovering type parents: “blimp” parents (overweight hoverers), “helicopter” parents and the more electronically sophisticated “drone” parents.” There are also parents that actively remove obstacles from their children’s path. These are “lawnmower” parents or, if you are in Scandinavia, “curling” parents (parents who sweep obstacles out of their children’s path with a cute little broom whilst trying to take themselves seriously). All these parents condemn their children to a lifetime in Neverland.