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The Recurring Cycle of Prosperous Adaptations to Life’s Constant Changes

The evolution of humanity’s pursuit of prosperity through inquiry, insight, enterprise and exchange is a social activity that involves most, if not all of the population.

At an individual level, the pattern is different. It starts with learning. What we learn determines what we can earn. What we earn determines what we can spend. What we spend determines what we can save. What we save determines what we can invest. What we invest determines what we can learn that is new.

New learning creates opportunities for new earning, which creates opportunities for new spending, which creates opportunities for new saving, which creates opportunities for new investing which creates opportunities for you more new learning, earning, spending and saving, and so on, indefinitely.

Learning can be formal and academic. It can also be social and anecdotal. Much of what we need to know to prosper personally, in peace with others, is not formal. As populations become richer, more diverse and more complex, the need for formal learning increases.

In modern times, it can take many years of formal instruction in the academy for individuals to master many of the most basic skills and knowledge that we all use to organize our living together, such as reading, writing, counting and mathematics, money and government, along with our shared narratives of our once and future history.

Learning qualifies individuals to participate in enterprise. Participation in enterprise earns people money. Money earned by participating in enterprise can be spent purchasing surpluses from other enterprises for making our own private lives as much they way we choose to make it as we can. Earnings that are not spent currently can be saved (when earnings are paid in money) to spend at a later time, or to aggregate for larger purchases.

Money saved as earnings not spent can be invested in other enterprises, earning more money as the price paid by enterprise for the use of those savings.

In our modern, urbanized, industrialized, commercialized, globalized and monetized economy, to save during our working years, so that earnings from investment can replace earnings from participation in enterprise, collaboratively, as we get older, and less able to keep up with new learning and the pace of prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes.