You could think of your experience
As a way to transform your suffering
Into your art.
Photo by darwisalwan (Pixabay)
#Idea – One Way to Be an Artist / 06.05.19
#Idea – The Wrong Workplace / 08.05.18
Note: this probably doesn’t apply to people who enjoy their work, though I have read this is less than half of people who do…
When you think about it
The workplace is a con.
Taken to its worst extreme
It’s an absurd situation.
The idea that
You have to get up before you want to
Put on clothes you wouldn’t choose to wear
And travel to a place
To do work you don’t want to do
For people you don’t really care for.
And this is for five-sevenths of your week
And one-third of your waking hours (…but realistically more)
Of course, many of these hours are your best hours
The better part of the day, in which you have the most energy
And get the best ideas
And this all eats up the better part of your ‘productive’ life,
When you are young, vital and most capable.
The sooner you realise
How sorry a state of affairs it all is
How much a wholesale theft of your very life it all is
And the sooner that you come up with a means to support yourself
That doesn’t involve this masochistic slog
The better.
Of course
You can take pride
In working for a noble cause.
But
You must surely expect more from your life
Than working for a living
Whilst you die inside.
#Idea – Offence / 17.05.19
Despite what anyone else says or does
You are responsible for your feelings
And nobody else.
Photo by CL.Baker 
#Idea – On the Stigma Around ‘White Pride’ / 01.05.19
Just because you’re proud of who you are,
Doesn’t mean you hate other people.
(…though many people do).
Photo by Leroy_Skalstad (Pixabay)
#Idea – How to Be an Arsehole, in Two Easy Steps / 12.05.19
Seek to be understood by others
But do not seek to understand others.
Or worse,
Assume that you are understood by others
Whilst not seeking to understand them.
#Idea – Money *Can* Buy Happiness / 13.02.19
There’s that old saying:
“Money can’t buy happiness”
The phrase is incorrect.
Though it perhaps serves a purpose:
Helping those of us who don’t have enough money
To feel better about things.
Anyway,
Here are some examples where money can buy happiness:
There is the first, obvious, example:
Money has the ability to alleviate your material needs
(…emphasis here on your ‘material needs‘, not your ‘material wants‘)
These include a roof over your head
And food in your belly.
This, by default,
Will increase your happiness,
By curtailing the things that make you unhappy.
Things like being hungry and exposed to the elements.
Photo by Christopher Combe Photography
Disregarding the obvious and logical question
Around exactly how much you really need…
(…answers on a postcard, please)
This alone is a pretty good argument
For redistributing some wealth
From those who have ‘more than they know what to do with’
(…people who are long past the point where additional money creates any improvement)
To those who need only a little more to be noticeably happier.
I take the oft-cited example
Of the über-wealthy person
Who spends millions on luxury goods
That he’ll soon tire of.
Put another way
Why buy another shitty piece of modernist art
When you could feed an entire village,
Somewhere in the developing world
For a long time?
I don’t know.
Anyway
That’s the subject for another day, and I’ll leave it here.
Money can buy happiness another way too.
One that is tied closely to the first.
This, of course, is
(…with a few caveats.)
Studies seem to show that
Charity can make the giver very happy
If
The money is given voluntarily
In ways that the giver can see
Tangibly benefit the recipient(s).
In this way
Having more money (than you actually need) can make you happy.
The caveat:
You have to give lots of it away
And see the good that it’s doing in the world
Seems like a pretty good argument for giving more, don’t you think?
Cover photo by Hipnos
#Idea – There Are Limits to Diversity / 06.04.19
We celebrate diverse* perspectives
But with limits.
For example
We can’t celebrate diversity around
Our core values
Such as ‘not killing people who disagree with you’.
As such, diversity can’t really be considered an absolute
That we either ‘have’, or ‘don’t have’.
It’s more a matter of degree – about how many perspectives that we are ‘willing’ to allow.
Or how many perspectives are ‘practical’ within
Indeed,
Where we draw the line between ‘acceptable’ and ‘not’
Helps to draw a distinction between cultures.
And
If ‘our’ line and ‘their’ line
The cultures will probably have trouble ‘getting along’.
Photo by vwcampin
You can see this clash of values (cultures)
Playing out today
And the consequent violence.
With thanks to Sam Harris for the idea
*Please note, I refer to diversity of perspectives, not ‘intersectional’ diversity.
Cover Photo by La caverne aux trésors
#Idea – When Was the Last Time You Changed Your Mind? / 06.05.19
Here’s a thought:
When was the last time someone said something
That actually made you change your mind?
If you don’t remember, that’s OK.
It seems normal,
Based on the very small, very informal research that I’ve done.
But consider
Making a note next time it happens
You’ll probably notice that it doesn’t happen very often.
If ever at all.
And why is that, anyway?
Photo by Leroy_Skalstad (Pixabay)
#Idea – Citizen – Consumer Crisis of Meaning / 06.05.19
There is a tendency
To think of people
More as ‘consumers’ than ‘citizens’
Though it wasn’t always this way.
As a result, you’re expected to consume (i.e. ‘take’)
Not to contribute (i.e. ‘give’)*
Or, dare I say,
You’re expected to contribute through consuming.
The result of this
This could be seen as
A zero-sum game:
Economy vs environment.
If you don’t buy, the economy suffers
If you do buy, the planet suffers
(…though this largely depends on how/what you consume, I suppose).
And it creates another issue.
An ‘all take, no give’ approach to existence
Which is existentially bankrupt.
It’s tied to a crisis of meaning
That I think has something do with
Why the people who have so much
Are often so unhappy.
We have a class of hard-working people
Who feel that their work has no meaning
But who
Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
Like many of us
These people want to contribute
They want to give
They want to be part of something meaningful
But feel that they can’t
Is towards consumption.
And the fact that they’re all so fucking busy
All of the fucking time.
Keeping it all going.
Sure, there are transcendent moments
And exceptions to the routine:
Raising a child
Perhaps volunteering in one’s limited free time
Things like that.
But these are mere brief interludes
In the perennial workday.
And much of this, I think,
Comes down to this idea that everyone’s a ‘consumer’
Not a ‘contributor’, or a ‘citizen’.
You give so much of your time and energy
And you want something back for it in return.
But when you sell off
Too much of your time and your energy
You come to realise that
There’s not enough money in the world to justify what you’ve done.
And you can’t get it back.
And maybe by this point
You don’t have anything left to give anyway.
This is what ‘being’ a consumer has done to you.
*with the exception, perhaps, of making your tax contributions
Cover photo by
#Aphorism – Retail Therapy / 05.04.19
Getting a great deal
On something that you don’t need
Is just a cheaper way
To buy something that you don’t need.
Photo by lorinleecary