I can't tell if my headache is from too much on my mind or from
eye strain, so if you see this, it means I didn't write several pages
only to immediately delete it.
I keep thinking about the
nature and utility of work. As the articles I've recently been
reading keep reminding me, work has meant a great many things to many
people depending on how it was marketed. The 8 hour work day was
considered a step up. As early as the 10's to 20's one economist
notes a shirt that campaigned for the 4 hour work day. Work is said
to create "value" in that it contributes to the motor of
society. It allows you to buy things and keep up with the Jones's. It
allows you to provide for your family.
As the same piece pointed out, work is also about caring for
people. Nurturing children or taking care of the sick aren't
necessarily backbreaking, but arguably, no less mentally intense or
laborious. We consider academic work pivotal to protecting and
growing our databases of knowledge and to further technology. We
respect artists and musicians who perform at levels so high if they
were making mistakes the entire time, they'd be lucky to be in the
same room with someone who could point it out.
But work is changing. Gone are the industrial jobs thanks to
globalization. If you can get a car made by a machine, or modern day
slave, you're not going to pay union worker. This article I read
about lawyers losing out to new technology that can sort through and
refer legal precedent in seconds as opposed to taking weeks with a
team of associates. Soon our phones will be predicting when we're at
risk for diabetes or blood diseases. While it will be a "slow"
transition, so to speak, in the midst of an outcry about "jobs
jobs jobs, we need to create more jobs!" It seems we don't
really have a plan for what those jobs may look like, if they're
worthwhile, or whether people will be capable of doing them.
What
happens when McDonald's goes fully automated? There's one guy in
charge to maybe restock the buns assuming there isn't some great
technical leap that allows delivery trucks to automatically unload
and stock. What happens when big box stores realize that aisles and
aisles of clothes no one is wearing aren't worth the price of rent
and the number of "service jobs" starts to plummet?
I'm
more concerned with what we think of ourselves. I'm of the view that
certain things should be considered "rights." Things like
eating, having a place to stay, an education, or maybe the right to a
fucking planet... etc. This especially because we have an
overabundance that's poorly allocated. What happens when you don't
need to work to eat? What happens when you can choose to interface
with any subject, or perhaps physically plug into a computer with
nano brain bots? Given how many people hate their jobs, I don't think
it will be all that bad of a thing. It's the transition that's a
problem. It's the poorly understood road to getting there that will
make the future bleak regardless of what we've made available.
I
think about this in the context of what I'm doing with my time. I
don't give two shits about coffee, but rich people buy it. I've
worked hard. I've played by the rules. I maintain my propensity to
read things until I go cross-eyed despite my many attempts to shut
off from the world. I'm one of the few "entitled"
millennials who really does think he's done enough and should be
seeing some form of dividends paying out for his effort. This in no
way is an attempt to diminish the help I've had or to try and mock up
my effort or work against someone else's. My dad's an iron worker
after all. I haven't nearly died to take care of anyone. But, he
didn't want me or my brother to have to be iron workers.
For
as long-term as a lot of the problems we face as a country or, as I
tend to go with, species, I think none more lasting than the impact
of how we discuss and understand our circumstances. I've done such a
good job with my language I get away with acting in seemingly sheer
contradiction, at least for a time, with less angst ridden emotional
scenes than I may let on. Also, I'm not even positive how much of it
is "stuck" as a conversation amongst the masses while the
general business as usual remains just that. I can be sure, it'll be
a dumb conversation regardless, where I'll play the cynic messing
with everyone's good vibes.
It's just that, I find myself
sounding defeated about everything I do. "Was dinner fun?"
Eh, we ate. "How was the pool?" The water was wet, cold,
and we got kicked out of the first warmer wet bowl of water. "How's
the van?" Paid for. The work I could do, can do, or contribute
towards kind of means nothing outside of a lofty dream way down the
line. And circumstances that I fully appreciate are well-beyond my
control could dictate whether or not I'm ever able to even get
realistically started on that goal. It's almost too sobering. For all
my enthusiasm, effort, budgeting, and lack of sleep, I still feel the
long dick of Simon Property Management and that lying bitch Terry
fucking my will to keep trying. It's not even that it's hard, it's
that it's stupid, petty, and you feel like you're shitting on
yourself daily by playing along.
From my profile, way back
when I read The Fountainhead:
"If I found a job, a
project, an idea or a person I wanted---I'd have to depend on the
whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're
all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and
we're pushed into it by one single desire. You want a thing and it's
precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of
your hands? You can't know, it may be so involved and so far away,
but someone is ready, and you're afraid of them all. And you cringe
and you crawl and you beg and you accept them---just so they'll let
you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept."
The
"adult" professional world certainly doesn't give a shit
about you. Whether you learn that by trying to pay back debt with
your degree in hand and minimum wage job, or in your future and
health being squandered. What is the work for? What is the struggle
about? You know you're not creating value. There's nothing valuable
by rushing people's hot drinks to their desk. Not with the backdrop
of what's going on at least. If the 1% employs us all to dust their
furniture, will we be happier? Will it feel like we're existing for
any sort of point or helping anything?
This is part of the reason the haunting silence is so hard to deal
with. I don't want you to get unduly excited about something stupid
because it's the only thing you've "really" done in months.
I don't want you to have a positive outlook about something
that's...even...at best. Every time it happens it just reinforces
that status quo. It gives the green light for someone next to you to
accept their circumstances or meekly justify their existence.
Arguably, I don't want you to get as bad as me, but I digress... It's
just sad that we can collectively get behind wiping out other
nations, but not empowering people to be caregivers of each
other.
It's just weird to think that people envy the idea of
living at the beach and maybe being stoned all day. I've been on a
proverbial beach for a really long time, and maybe I just fuck it up
by reading all the time, but it really just leaves you with too much
time to reflect. My "work" reduced to finding distractions
until people get off work or the weekend hits. But who's going to
blame me? I'm going to limp into getting the van going, because, even
with everything paid for, nothing is ever fully paid for. (ooo
cryptic) All the while dipping into money that could reliably
pay my bills for the next 7 months. If you had your rent paid for the
next 7 months, where are you spending that money so that's no longer
true? For me, it's paying kids to advertise.
I guess I'm as
decompressed as I'm going to get right now. What a shitty ending lol.
