after working so many long and ugly hours of late,
after work yesterday, went home and slept for over 12 hours…
I really needed that…….
my long and very “unprofitable” hours of late
has gotten me to think… by “unprofitable” I mean,
what exactly was I able to accomplish for me, by
working long, hard, ugly hours?
I made money, but so the fuck what?
if that is all I accomplished, I accomplished nothing…
what is the standard we use to judge our actions?
by that, I mean, how should we think about our actions?
I worked days on end and what did I get out of it?
I am sore and tired and every part of my body hurts…
I made a little bit of money but that will be gone
in a week or two, so, what exactly did I accomplish by
my month of hell?
I wasn’t able to work on that which made me human…
I wasn’t able to make the small steps needed to go from
animal/human to human…I accomplished nothing in the last
month but survive it…
we go to work and suffer through it… work doesn’t bring us
any tangible benefits of making us better human beings…
it just brings in some money that will be gone shortly after
we pay bills and stuff…
work doesn’t make us better human beings… in fact, I would argue
that work dehumanizes us, make us less human and more animal/human…
because think about what it means to be animal?
all animals do is engage in meeting their needs, food, water, shelter…
the basic physical needs that all animals must engage with…
but as human beings, why are we still engaged in such “animal”
practices as trying to engage in the simply attainment of physical
needs? if all work does is allow us to get the basic physical
needs of being an animal, food, water, shelter, warmth…
then we are not living any better then animals… the difference
is how we procure the basic physical needs……
the sole missing step from animal to being human is money…
otherwise their is no real difference between animal and human…
we are forced to seek out on a daily, indeed an hourly basis,
the means to procure our daily bread… we don’t hunt in a forest
anymore…but given how dehumanizing work is, we might as well be
hunting in a forest for our daily bread…….
we haven’t even risen above a basic daily search for our animal needs
of food, water, shelter, education…
how can we say we have risen above the animals if we still engage
in the exact same physical search they engage with, just with different
means…
if we can meet our daily needs without this pursuit of finding them,
then perhaps we can begin our drive to become human, not just animal/human…
in other words, if we can solve the income aspect to allow us the means to
become something greater then just animal/human, then perhaps we
can rise much faster in the real goal of humanity, which is
to go from animal to animal/human to becoming human, fully human…
the answer lies within creating a social and existential concept whereas
we no longer engage in our daily struggles to gain our daily bread, by some
much more equitable system that is practiced by all…
in other words the path to becoming human lies in changing the
economic system from a capitalism system to a much more
equitable system of communism… the goal changes from
increasing our economic wealth which has no benefits outside
of increasing the wealth of a few fortunate individuals and families…
in other words, we don’t put our GDP as the heart of what it means
to be human…the path to becoming human lies in our basic physical
needs being met by an far more equitable economic system which
divides the wealth evenly between all the human beings…
and then they, human beings, can engage in discovering what it means
to go from being animal, to animal/human to being fully human…
the journey isn’t a journey to increase our physical, material needs
of cars or couches or TV’S or an increase in our bank accounts,
no, that path is a false and dangerous one because it leads
to human beings engaging with the base, animal needs of greed
and lust and desire………
we must rise above the animal/human path of that is promoted
by our political and economic systems…… we must take to the
path whereas we aim for becoming human… to rise above our
basic physical needs driving our current political/economic systems…
to become human, we must not engage in just the simple pursuits
of basic physical needs, just like animals engage in simple physical
needs…
no, if we are to rise above being just an animal/human, we must
learning to grow above the petty and unnecessary pursuit of
seeking our daily bread…that can no longer become our primary pursuit
of what it means to be human…… to be, to become human, we
must rise above such animal engagement…… we must engage with
what will make us human, fully human…
and that is a daily engagement with values and what values are we to
become…….
if I am no longer pursuing basic, physical needs like food, water,
shelter, warmth… then I can pursue the higher, human aspects of
existence…I then rise above being simply animal/human and I
can begin to engage in becoming human……
what is the point of being human if we cannot engage with what
makes us human? and being human means we can rise above such
petty needs and desires that make us animal/human…
our engagement must be with human concerns like becoming who we are
and in knowing ourselves and
the unexamined life isn’t worth living……… Socrates…
let us take him at his word and make that our defining principal,
let us take as our motto these fine and important words…
the unexamined life isn’t worth living…
and begin to examine your life as to what is really important…
and if we are engaged in this daily routine of work as we know it
today, whereas we spend our days in mindless and futile pursuit
of making money to gain our daily bread…
then we cannot, cannot discover what is really important
in being human…
to become human, not just animal/human or even just animal,
but in becoming human, fully human…
Kropotkin