There's More to Life...Really There Is
I always appreciate running into someone who says what I think better than I do. There's some guy named Zeus Yiamouyiannis who was talking about how we need to stop getting sucked into a view of the world bogged down in materialism and pop culture. We've been tied up in this faux world by...
...mooring our own notions of the good life to our material subsistence and/or success. The notion that living luxuriously equals the epitome of the good life, has stunted our development and kept us infantilized, even with the many technological, artistic, social, and cultural advances we have made.
Well said! Life really can be rich. But not when all you see is the next car you want to lease, the next outfit you want to wear (even though you've already got 15 pairs of pants, 23 shirts, 14 sports coats...) and not when your idea of the good life is simply the idea that you want to be "rich" like _____ (pick your favorite celebrity, famous business exec, politicians like that French creep DSK...whoever).
Life is rich because of people - starting with those close to you, you know, people you love, like, let's say, your family. It's rich because of Beauty - the beauty of nature and the man-made creations that lift us beyond the mundane minutia of daily living: great art, music, theater, sculpture, opera. Heck, even some popular music and theater can worm its way into the pantheon of Beauty from time to time.
But if you're going to let yourself get sucked into the quest for power, for luxury, for ostentatious displays that impress others, or if you just spend your time watching and listening to whatever slop the pop culture media serves up as it sticks its grimy hands into your pocket, taking whatever you have left after the government rifles your paycheck with its taxes and inflation - well, you deserve the resentment and envy that condemns so many people I meet to a gray netherworld of unhappiness and anxiety.
Besides the Beauty that exists for all of us to share and enjoy, there's the whole issue of how we spend our time and money dealing with practical side of life. And I think if you focus on what you spend your money on, you many find that not every penny spent provides much bang for your buck.
For example, when both spouses work to support their family, you may be shocked at how often the second salary goes to pay for services that the family pays for simply because no one's home to watch the kids. (Really, it's true. And sometimes I think that maybe the parents just don't want to spend too much time with their kids. It's either that or they just don't understand that, after paying taxes, paying the nanny or the day care center, paying for the second or third car, paying for all those take-out and restaurant meals because no one has any energy to cook, paying for the vacations they "need" to unwind two or three times a year from the anxiety that all this creates - they really don't make a profit on the second income.)
That's just one example. Zeus drills down even further:
1) The good life, and even the economy itself, do not have to be primarily tied to material existence, and 2) We can do most if not all the things for ourselves that “experts” are being paid to do. We can decide to rent or share housing and watch each other’s kids. We can decide to drastically reduce our consumption, thus saving the environment and de-polluting our daily life. We can move our money to community banks, directly invest into microfinance, or lend to each other through “circle lending,” cutting out the big banks and brokerages.
I don't know much about "circle lending" (although I'm happy to learn more about it), but I've done some of the other things, and absolutely agree that we can all reduce our consumption.
(If you want to read the rest of the article, click here. The article's a rather long survey of how our economy has become unhinged from reality - but I found it pretty interesting,)
...mooring our own notions of the good life to our material subsistence and/or success. The notion that living luxuriously equals the epitome of the good life, has stunted our development and kept us infantilized, even with the many technological, artistic, social, and cultural advances we have made.
Well said! Life really can be rich. But not when all you see is the next car you want to lease, the next outfit you want to wear (even though you've already got 15 pairs of pants, 23 shirts, 14 sports coats...) and not when your idea of the good life is simply the idea that you want to be "rich" like _____ (pick your favorite celebrity, famous business exec, politicians like that French creep DSK...whoever).
Life is rich because of people - starting with those close to you, you know, people you love, like, let's say, your family. It's rich because of Beauty - the beauty of nature and the man-made creations that lift us beyond the mundane minutia of daily living: great art, music, theater, sculpture, opera. Heck, even some popular music and theater can worm its way into the pantheon of Beauty from time to time.
But if you're going to let yourself get sucked into the quest for power, for luxury, for ostentatious displays that impress others, or if you just spend your time watching and listening to whatever slop the pop culture media serves up as it sticks its grimy hands into your pocket, taking whatever you have left after the government rifles your paycheck with its taxes and inflation - well, you deserve the resentment and envy that condemns so many people I meet to a gray netherworld of unhappiness and anxiety.
Besides the Beauty that exists for all of us to share and enjoy, there's the whole issue of how we spend our time and money dealing with practical side of life. And I think if you focus on what you spend your money on, you many find that not every penny spent provides much bang for your buck.
For example, when both spouses work to support their family, you may be shocked at how often the second salary goes to pay for services that the family pays for simply because no one's home to watch the kids. (Really, it's true. And sometimes I think that maybe the parents just don't want to spend too much time with their kids. It's either that or they just don't understand that, after paying taxes, paying the nanny or the day care center, paying for the second or third car, paying for all those take-out and restaurant meals because no one has any energy to cook, paying for the vacations they "need" to unwind two or three times a year from the anxiety that all this creates - they really don't make a profit on the second income.)
That's just one example. Zeus drills down even further:
1) The good life, and even the economy itself, do not have to be primarily tied to material existence, and 2) We can do most if not all the things for ourselves that “experts” are being paid to do. We can decide to rent or share housing and watch each other’s kids. We can decide to drastically reduce our consumption, thus saving the environment and de-polluting our daily life. We can move our money to community banks, directly invest into microfinance, or lend to each other through “circle lending,” cutting out the big banks and brokerages.
I don't know much about "circle lending" (although I'm happy to learn more about it), but I've done some of the other things, and absolutely agree that we can all reduce our consumption.
(If you want to read the rest of the article, click here. The article's a rather long survey of how our economy has become unhinged from reality - but I found it pretty interesting,)
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