Dear world,

This is my love letter for you. I write with gratitude for everything you are and excitement for everything you can be. There is much to appreciate about our curious existence. There is much to improve too. As we greet a new day on our vast yet tiny home, an eternal question lingers in the air: where shall we go from here?

The human family is amid great change. If the known history of our species was compared to a single day, 300,000 years to 24 hours, we find that our ancestors lived as primitive nomads all the way from dawn till dusk. Only in the last hour before midnight did agriculture launch civilization. Only in the last minute did industry ignite modernity. Our story has just begun to take off. So when we wonder about our path forward, there truly is no limit but our imagination. The future does not merely happen—it is chosen.

“Modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance. We have learned to fly the air like birds, we have learned to swim the seas like fish, and yet we have not learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.” This manifesto is a path to learn just that. Since the language we choose to define our identity has the power to determine our reality, I propose ethicism as the title of our next chapter. Standing on the shoulders of capitalism, the ethicist vision seeks wealth of the spirit. The profit motive, which is the desire to serve oneself, is now complemented with the ethic motive, which is the desire to serve others. Walk with me.

Our path has eight steps each corresponding to eight principles. Unity of the self and the other forms the foundation. Duality between the conscious and the subconscious holds the pillars. Change is tailored in the inner world and the outer world follows suit. Balance is secured with a steady debtless currency. Harmony is found in forgiveness. Obsolete traditions end. Infinite opportunities open. And finally, we are born again into a beautiful new world. This is my hope. This is my dream. But as time passes, my perspective is bound to evolve. Therefore, this is not an end all be all solution but rather an open invitation to design a happier, kinder, and nobler society together. So I hereby invite you, dear world, to the next daring chapter of our story.















Who are we? We may answer with our names but who is that which was named? In the outer world, we are energy. But the energy in our bodies is indistinguishable from the energy around us. There is no such thing as a physical border because the fabric of creation is identical everywhere. What the mind interprets as identity, difference, and change all unfold within the illusion of separation. In the inner world, we are concepts. But no concept can exist separately from other concepts. We are only this because we are not that. Such fundamental interdependence unites us all with an immortal bond. Indeed, it is not that separate units are truthfully united but a single unity that is falsely separated. All, beautifully, is one.

The self and the other are thus two sides of one higher being. Thus, the desire to serve oneself is the desire to serve others. The profit and ethic motives are but two aspects of one higher will. When we help or hurt another, we are merely helping or hurting ourselves. Notions of karma, reincarnation, and the golden rule of treating others as we would have them treat us all stem from this timeless principle. We get exactly what we give. When this philosophy is united with our economics, seeking mutually beneficial transactions no longer depends on fickle goodwill but rather firm practicality. No such thing as personal gain at the expense of others. No such thing as rising or falling alone. One, beautifully, is all.















Where is the droplet within the ocean? It is there, but at the same time, it is nowhere. Such is the delicate paradox of unity. All, by definition, is the very opposite of one. Yet opposites always attract. To truly be one is to be infinite but to truly be infinite is to be many. Both are neither right nor wrong. Thus, we need a dualistic attitude that allows both an observation and its contradiction to coexist. Indeed, we all share the same objective world yet we each live in vastly different subjective worlds. Consciousness is what combines and divides us. To be conscious is to be aware of something. Paradoxically, it also means to be unaware of something else because the known cannot exist without the unknown. Opposites give each other meaning, as light does to dark. The droplet of consciousness, which is all one knows, flows within the ocean of subconsciousness, which is all there is to know. Who we are is what we know. Like yin and yang, the conscious masculine principle gives formless awareness to the subconscious feminine principle which returns formed expression.

In economic terms, they are demand and supply. The capitalist perspective sees unlimited demand and limited supply, naturally embodying the scarcity mindset. Ethicism presents a reinterpretation. Everyone has likes and dislikes. But liking something does not mean wanting unlimited amounts of it. Just the right amount is actually demanded, lest pleasure turn to pain. At any given moment, true demand is always limited. As for supply, a finite world can only bear finite resources. But duality reasons that if the world is one, it is also many. Indeed, we live in a multiverse of infinite parallel universes. One of them surely has the exact supply demanded. If it can be imagined, it can be realized. Everything is possible in infinity. So unlimited supply does not exist per se but within unlimited worlds, it effectively does. Therefore, the ethicist perspective sees limited demand and unlimited supply, naturally embodying the abundance mindset.















Nature is expressed in the elegant geometry of fractals. So is time. Every decision we make splits our timeline of experience into branches of possible outcomes. Each branch splits further and further into infinity. Just because one conscious being follows one branch on the fractal tree of time does not mean that there are no other branches. The opportunity cost of every decision continues in an alternate universe amid the infinite multiverse. Every possible scene in the drama of life has already been played out. Creation is finished. Change is an illusion projected by the movement of consciousness, just as a movie is an illusion projected by the movement of pictures. Everything that can happen, has happened. The past, present, and future are fluid. When a possible future is assumed as a certain past, it becomes the present. Imagination precedes experience, as thought precedes action, as cause precedes effect.

Meditate. Retreat from the outer world of effects and rest in the inner world of causes. Be still. Be silent. Observe your thoughts without judgment. The more you nourish a thought with attention, the bigger it grows like a plant in a garden. Imagine yourself as the gardener. Sow the seeds of love, success, and abundance. Prune the thorns of fear, failure, and scarcity. There is an alternate version of you already living the life of your wildest dreams. Becoming them is simply a matter of assuming the thoughts, feelings, and imagination that they would have. Keep nurturing the garden in your inner world and your outer world will inevitably bear the fruits. When we connect with ourselves in such an intimate way, we gift ourselves the opportunity to answer questions, heal wounds, and soothe yearnings. Inner peace is both the means and the end. We need the key of desire to open the door but we do not need it to enter. In fact, it must be left behind. We can only have what we no longer desire because we cannot desire what we already have. True happiness is not the presence of wealth but the absence of desire.

We are the masters of our destiny. We are the authors of our fate. Effect follows cause, as action follows thought, as experience follows imagination. There are no accidents whatsoever. The stronger your faith in the power of your imagination, the sooner your desired experience shall manifest. Such is the science of prayer. There is no divine being out there granting your favors. There is only you, here and now, becoming what you behold. Mastery over conscious imagination is essential. Thus, meditation is much more than a mystical tradition only for the religious. It is the most practical technique of self transformation for everyone everywhere. We must all learn to meditate as instinctively as we eat or sleep if we wish to reach our full potential. Ethicism may be a systemic revision at large but it is a deeply personal renewal at heart.















Confined to the outer world, we only value the material. Approached from a scarcity mindset, we are bound to a hollow feeling of never having enough so serving ourselves remains a priority. The profit motive naturally reigns. Liberated into the inner world, however, we begin to value the immaterial. Approached from an abundance mindset, we realize that there is more than enough for everyone so we serve ourselves and others in balance. The ethic motive naturally emerges. Without this balance, we chase more and more in a race without a finish line, forgetting that the value of material riches is only in the immaterial feelings they bring. We mistake the symbols of value for value itself. Currency becomes king. The creation, control, and contraction of currency becomes an irresistible power. Under the weight of temptation, it also becomes a subject of utmost secrecy. Most people are distinctly influenced by the flow of currency yet remain blissfully ignorant of its source.

Today, private corporations known as central banks create our currency. Instead of issuing it directly into circulation, they lend them to government treasuries and commercial banks after creating them out of thin air. What is meant to be wealth ironically originates as debt. In addition, interest is charged. Not only is the debt impossible to pay off without erasing the currency itself, the interest is also impossible to pay off without amassing further debt. Unbelievably, a 1984 investigation called the Grace Commission discovered that the United States national revenue from the personal income tax was spent entirely on paying this interest to the Federal Reserve, a private central bank. Such is our absurd reality. Despite these bizarre circumstances, governments have always had the ability and indeed the constitutional duty to create currency. Before the debted currency known as the Federal Reserve Note was unconstitutionally adopted in 1913, the United States Treasury normally created debtless currency such as the Continental Currency, the United States Note, and the Gold Certificate. None of them were loaned. All of them performed their functions perfectly well. Only when they were irresponsibly created in excess did they lose their value. Indeed, great power carries an inherent risk of corruption. But saner heads prevail.

Ethicism champions debtless currency created only by government treasuries. To prevent corruption, the treasury must be the most prioritized, scrutinized, and audited department of government. Furthermore, the currency supply must be held constant. Currency is only valuable if its purchasing power is reliable. As endorsed by the Austrian Theory of Money, keeping the currency supply constant is the best way to keep its purchasing power constant. Thus, the value of currency is protected and the economy flourishes upon a solid foundation. Most importantly, the currency supply is no longer vulnerable to sabotage. The Great Depression was deliberately caused by the Federal Reserve, as explained by Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman and later admitted by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. This was the most destructive economic crisis in history. Protection from such manipulation is absolutely critical to our prosperity. Altogether, the ethicist vision of a steady debtless currency will beckon nothing less than an economic renaissance.















When children learn to walk, they fall again and again. But we never blame them. They learn from every mistake and rise from every fall until one inevitable day, they start running. The same principle applies to civilizations learning to walk as brothers and sisters. In life, there are only blessings and lessons. Waste no time with blame. If we lived the lives and walked the shoes of those we condemn the harshest, we would have done exactly the same ourselves. Embrace the scars, stains, and cracks of life. Discover beauty in imperfection. We enjoy harmony when we find things to criticize but choose to see beyond them. “If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” Forgive freely. Forgive foolishly.

Above all, forgive yourself. Understand that your past self did the best they possibly could given all the circumstances, contradictions, and complexities they faced. Thank your regret because it is teaching you acceptance. Thank your anger because it is teaching you tolerance. Do not seek acceptance from anyone but yourself. Do not depend on the judgment of someone who has not lived a second of your life. Self forgiveness is not a luxury—it is a necessity. Dreams come true only when we accept that we are worthy of receiving all that we wish for. We all deserve forgiveness not because we are special but precisely because we are ordinary. The sun gives equal light to all. But to receive it, we must be outside the shadows.

What are you avoiding? When we meditate on this question, we intuitively realize what we should do. The answer is different for everyone but the reason is always the same. We fear. So we avoid, hide, and wait. But the beauty of fear is that it always carries love. The fear of death is the love of life. The fear of failure is the love of success. Understanding that one cannot exist without the other blesses us with the power to see one as the other. Our worst obstacles become our best lessons. We will keep clashing with the same problem in different cloaks and meeting the same people in different bodies until we finally learn what life is trying to teach us. Respond differently. We have the response ability to either better or worsen any given situation. We may be struck on one cheek but we can turn the other. We may receive hatred but we can return compassion. What good is our love if we only return it to those who give it to us first? Confront what you avoid. Reveal what you hide. Wait no more.















How would you savor tomorrow if you came horrifyingly close to death today but miraculously survived? Who would you be if the next time you meet your loved ones was your last? Life is truly lived only when death is truly remembered. All pride, doubt, and apathy crumble away when we understand that this is our one and only chance at life. We may have an infinite variety of alternate selves or even an infinite series of reincarnations but they are not really us. This is us and this is it. Today is the youngest we will ever be and the oldest we have ever been. Never rush. The gentler we move, the better. When we grasp the fleeting nature of every moment, we are inspired to express our kindest selves. True strength is tender. Knowing that only those who are hurt themselves are able to hurt others, we abstain from hurting them any further. Anger merely hides sadness. This is why the ethicist society has no prisons nor the death penalty. Since we would have committed the exact same crimes if we were in the exact same circumstances ourselves, we heal rather than avenge. We offer light to those who drown in darkness, returning mercy to cruelty. No one is born evil. We only fall vulnerable to evil impulses amid suffering. Thus, prisons are redesigned into hospitals where patients are only discharged when they heal their inner injuries, learn from their mistakes, and forgive themselves and those who hurt them. This is the only way to break the cycle of suffering. “A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.”

At times, we are our own worst enemies. Blinded by selfishness, we spew poison into the air we breathe and spill sewage into the water we drink. We intentionally create poor quality, disposable, and synthetic products so that they soon become obsolete. New ones are sold as replacements while old ones are thrown away in ever accumulating mountains of trash. Known as planned obsolescence, such self sabotage is only possible because we neglect the true costs of production. Single use plastics, for example, currently cost very little to produce because their downstream costs to the environment are not paid by the producer. The ethicist economy introduces the externality tax to record these external costs. Also known as the Pigovian tax, this policy will not only bring innovative sustainability to our products and services but also provide the funding necessary to clean up our waste. When we make planned obsolescence obsolete, we spark a tremendous surge in high quality, durable, and biodegradable products. Furthermore, producers may deduct their externality tax burden by the amount they invest in deproduction, which describes the process of recycling, processing, and preventing waste. The hitherto insurmountable problem of environmental pollution is suddenly transformed into a profitable venture for the new deproduction industry. Obsolete buildings may also be deproduced so that cities around the world can make space for parks, gardens, and playgrounds. Ecological purity for not only our human family but all living beings is at hand. Radiant with selflessness, we become our own best friends.















We are walking miracles. Not only is our outer world of highways, metropolises, and factories a miraculous creation of intelligence, our inner world of arteries, organs, and cells is an even more miraculous masterpiece of creation. Imagine how impossible our civilization would feel to an ant. Imagine how impossible it would feel to realize that we were ants to another civilization. The possibilities are gloriously infinite. Our mortal capacity to seize those possibilities, however, are humbly finite. We can make the most out of our brief opportunity or we can waste it all. Efficiency is crucial. There is no need to shoulder heavy loads when we have the wheel. Likewise, there is no need to wrestle tedious tasks when we have automation and artificial intelligence. We must wield them wisely but we must not be afraid of them. They are merely tools. Delegating much of our raw, mechanical, and mundane work to technology, we devote ourselves to refined, creative, and philanthropic work instead. Evolving from workaholic consumers into serene creators, we preserve our energy for our true callings.

We are heirs of a priceless treasure. Protected by generations, honed through evolution, and now assigned to our care, this treasure is the miracle of life. How we treat this gift determines how it treats us. The essence of life manifests as an invisible energy flowing through every cell in our body. Our spine is the central channel. When the essence is cultivated up and inwards, we are energized with health, strength, and creativity. When it is released down and outwards, we sacrifice a piece of our life to create new life. Nature has designed the release of essence to be pleasurable so that we are encouraged to reproduce. Otherwise, we would never give away our most precious resource. Its loss can be so drastic that some male animals die immediately afterwards. Essence is meant to be released only for reproduction. When we abuse natural design and waste it for pleasure, we become weak, complacent, and docile. This is why those who seek spiritual enlightenment practice celibacy. Finding the middle path between indulgence and austerity, the ethicist society gains incredible power by honoring the essence of life.















How can we know that this is the right path? How can we know anything for sure? We cannot. Anything true can always be interpreted as false and vice versa. When we insist on only being right, we are always vulnerable to being wrong. This is why we must approach the future with a fluid, humble, and easygoing attitude. Indeed, as we leave the old and enter the new, many things we thought were true could be revealed as false. History itself may need to be rewritten. Since secrets are naturally meant to hide bitter truths, we must be ready to face discomfort. We will likely feel deeply hurt, betrayed, and deceived by what we discover. But never identify yourself as a victim. “If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all.” Such composure neither attached nor averse will guide us towards peace. When we let go of our insistence of what should be and accept what is, we become free.

Truth is not a destination—it is a journey. We must focus on how we learn more than what we learn. Education can never truly be completed. Schools should prepare children for a lifetime of learning and colleges should be open for adults of all ages. Above all, our education system needs a class on ethics. The curriculum should not dictate what is right and wrong but simply inform students that such questions are worth thinking about. Ethical intelligence is just as, if not more, important than academic intelligence. Without the rigid constraints of correct and incorrect, we are open to learn from all sides of any argument. Healthy debate builds strength. Strict conformity, however, lays vulnerable to exploitation, censorship, authoritarianism. Question others but let them be. Everyone is on their own journey. Everyone has their own truth. The best thing we can do is have gratitude for everything we are and excitement for everything we can be.

In conclusion, dear world, a beautiful future awaits us. I believe in utopia. I naively, carelessly, and cheerfully believe in utopia. Someone has to. I hope the picture I have painted inspires you to feel the same. This manifesto found you for a reason. Dream with me. May our human family finally walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.