As I try to keep my hopes up on this day
of national mourning… I am faced with
my own personal modern world problems…
I am within a month of turning 66… I still work,
but given my age and other matters, I need to
retire… but I can’t… I have for the last 30 years,
provided the family with health care… if I were to
retire, we would no longer have health care…
I am old enough for Social Security and Medicare,
but my wife who is not even 60 yet, is not eligible…
in trying to buy health care for her, which is absolutly
necessary for us before I can retire, we have found
that buying health care is not possible… basically,
buying health care for her would cost me my entire SS
check… even a bare minimum plan would cost me 90%
of my SS check… I couldn’t afford my own health care
costs which has to come out of my SS check…
I cannot retire, which is necessary to save my sanity and
mental health… Mentally, physically, emotionally, I just
can’t continue working… but I can’t afford to stop…
this is the modern dilemma… to save my life, I have
to stop working, but I can’t afford it…
One of the questions that I try to work out is what role
does Philosophy play in all of this? How can I use philosophy
as a practical day to day matter, solve my problems?
and if Philosophy is unable to help me, what value is philosophy
to me?
Regardless of my internal state, which philosophy is meant
to aid, I am left with a problem that demands to be solved…
I can use philosophy, the rational working out of reality, perhaps
suggests that I logically, rationally, seek out a solution to
my dilemma… and that is what we are doing, trying several
avenues of research to find a solution… Nothing, so far,
has yet, presented itself… so, here philosophy does aid me
in helping me keep my composure and keeping me calm
and focused on the job at hand…
Perhaps that is the most I can ask of philosophy…
to help me keep my composure while not losing it,
because of the crap that work puts on me…
it is said that capitalism is the ‘‘greatest’’ economic
system ever because it offers us choices and yet,
this very economic system of choice has no choices for
me… I am forced to work even though that work is
killing my soul and my body…
We will keep plugging away at finding a solution, but
at the continued cost of my soul…
Kropotkin
