You might be a king or a little street sweeper but sooner or later you dance with the reaper.
(Go on then, I deserve it.)
Why do we waste our lives as servants?
41–50 of 91 posts
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#42This post really frustrates me. The moral is right and true: If you don't like what you're doing, stop that, and do what you enjoy. Find a way to make it a viable way of making money.
But thinking you can ever avoid being someone's servant... that's nonsense. The President is servile to the whims of Congress. Congress is servile both to each other and their constituents. CEOs are servile to their shareholders, and the shareholders are likely servile to someone else in their lives.
Often, they don't enjoy what they do either. But it's better than the alternative. Crushing poverty is something you're either extremely afraid of, or you've never lived it. Spending some hours on your weekdays doing something so you don't have to suffer that isn't a big deal.
The old equation for a long, happy life doesn't work anymore. With the rate of technological advancement, it probably won't ever work again. Why? Because 4 years ago, the iPhone had come out two years before and smartphone penetration was stupid low. The idea of an electric car getting car of the year was an absolute joke. Things that seem rote today literally didn't exist.
Working at a single company for the majority of your life also doesn't work. For one, people are wise enough now to know it's hard to be happy in an atmosphere that never changes. For two, many jobs barely exist for 3-5 years before becoming obsolete in one way or another, if you don't evolve with it.
But that's okay! We'll get the hang of this, as a society, pretty soon. But that focus you mention, on making your own shiny thing? Finding your own personal passion? Isn't that what our best and brightest have been telling us for at least the past 20 years, if not longer?
Sure, don't be a servant. But don't be stupid and avoid working for "the man" simply because it isn't what you want right this second. Sometimes putting up with a few years of grief can give you just enough leeway to do some really incredible shit with your life.
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#43what does he/she mean by "And don't think self-employment is anything but a new boss. "?
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#44Why do we waste our clicks upvoting this crap?
I wish the internet had an 'unclick' button
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#45I've always been partial to Voltaire's thought on the matter: "Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need." Even if I had more time during the day to to whatever I pleased, I doubt I'd have the money to do anything interesting. I'd probably end up programming or working on something, which I might as well get paid to do. I'd certainly rather program than maintain a garden. But I can understand why t…
Work does not mean that you have to make others rich, however.
You could work only to be saved from those evil and still get something in exchange, that isn't making the other party "get much more than you do".
For that we would probably need the biggest revolution we've ever known (thats not happening)
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#46It's the supreme luxury to be able to reject society. It's a luxury that's only available to those who are either born to wealth or put a lot of effort into obtaining it. There are also the "I just don't use money, man" people who are actually just living off the charity of friends.
It's much easier to be homeless in a lot of developing nations like Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam. In the US you get thrown in jail/shelter for being homeless, in those countries though many people simply live off the land or work for barter their entire lives. It takes less effort than it sounds, but enormous fortitude to become an expat.
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#47Says the man who clearly put in a few hours of servitude in order to purchase the shiny contraption with which he wrote this essay.
Not even subsistence farmers these days are entirely self-sufficient. They still have to purchase some of the necessities of life from others.
Maybe in this modern world we are all servants, but at least we get to choose our masters.
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#48I, for one, am done. From this day forward I will buy/grow the most economical food. I will buy/build the most economical abode. I will forgo the shiny thing or make one myself at a lesser cost. I'm so very tired of being a servant.
I have lived, or at least intensely studied, all aspects of that premise. While a laudable goal I casually aspire to, it is very hard work with low tangible payoff. I instead write software for others because being a servant - a good valuable one - pays off pretty darned well on average.
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#49Eh. If I had the means and the time to not be a servant, I'd go for it. However, I don't even have a business idea that I'm capable of executing on. So meh.
That's his point. He is not advocating you stop being a servant to a boss and starting you're own great company ... He's saying a startup is just another boss and really you should become some sort of acetic monk and live off the land, grow your beats and yams or whatever. You shouldn't even want any "stuff" what's wrong with you??!! It's just crap.
Re: Why do we waste our lives as servants?
#50I may be going toward a "middle brow" here but this is a lot of jibber jabber. You hear this sophomoric stuff all the time. What is inherently better about being some kind of mountain man survivalist or some commune peach grower? I don't use those phrases to besmirch anyone but what is inherently more "right" about those things? The author is denouncing "shiny things" and claims to seek to make his own "shiny things" whatever that means; I suppose technology is of no interest to this person as probably less than 1% of the population could actually build anything remotely similar to something like an air conditioner or a computer without ... some institutions of "servants" trading time for money to buy said shiny things and shelter. This whole "Working for the man sucks, I'm going to be a monk, the rest of you vain, vapid, shallow people" stuff is sort hilarious to me. It's just this pompous pretention of these sorts of people that claim to be above worldy goods and so on that is just so hard to take; in fact there is a rich history of people claiming to live for a higher purpose in just such a lifestyle, when in fact they were just as greedy and licentious as the rest of us.