Friday, February 11, 2011

Survival

What is it about survival that makes us do things that are damaging to our soul, our psyche, our dignity, the very essence of our humanness. I’m not talking about prostituting to get our daily fix for whatever poison that our body craves, I’m merely talking about the things that whatever evil empire, aka corporation we are working for makes us do.
I know that to live in a capitalist economy there are only a few ways you can make money, own valuable stuff you have inherited, make valuable stuff by using labor, or own the companies that make the stuff. If you don’t have any of the three, then you are the labor which means you are going to be dancing with a different tune every day of your miserable life if you want to survive. It means you are going to be dancing when you are tired, when you are sick, when you are old and you have to be dancing even when you are sad. You will be dancing to fast tunes, slow tunes, dancing to garbage music, and music that doesn’t make sense. To survive you will do anything your bosses ask of you. You will beg, you will lie, you will cheat, and you will smile and laugh when the only thing you want to do is to cry.
Now if we agree that to survive physically is to have adequate food and shelter, then maybe you can be a small scale capitalist, and make some useful small widget and live a simple life that your small income can support, then the only dancing you will do is to your own tune. But remember we are living in a capitalist economy and society that measures everyone and everything in quantifiable units. That means you are measured by the house you have, the cars you drive, the clothes you ware, the places you vacation, and the number of high tech stuff you own. If you have nothing to be measured by then you have no worth in society’s eyes. You might as well find a whole and crawl in it until the day you meet your maker.
You might say that only shallow and materialistic people might think that way, but if you really think about it the only people that will think that, are the ones who have a high number of measureable units. I have lived long enough to observe, that people who don’t struggle for their daily survival, are the ones that can afford to be interested in arts and culture, that have the time to be involved in social and political activities or at least they pretend to be.
So I conclude that survival is not dependant only on adequate food and shelter but also the felling that you belong to the society that you live in, and can have the regard and friendship of the members of that society. If that is what we desire, and have not attained the intellectual and spiritual maturity that will make it possible for us to live in a materialistic society and not feel the pressure to be like everyone else, then we have to dance. We shall dance to every tune our employer plays, we shall dance when we are tired, and we shall dance when we are sick and old and sad.
Let the music play I want a new smart phone.