i am one of the smaller group of people which has almost no desire to be part of the capitalist rat race of the modern city. on more than one occassion this has been pointed out to me to be to be a sign of weak ambition. on those days i nodded or looked away, admitting that such a statement was indeed factual. but after some conversation the other day with a couple of new friends on my vision of an ideal life in the village or rural countrysides, i only came to become more convicted of my position. if anything, i am less guilty for thinking this way. i realised that drive of ambition is not the source of but rather the equivalent of a desire for competition in the corporate world. in other words, if not wanting to join the cutthroat marketplace means i am weakwilled, i will accept that that title with no embarrassment.
after all, being on the other side of the fence, though strongwilled and in focus, would make me a type of human i would respect less than a dog. knowing myself full well, i am completely able, if i were to set my eyes on the ladder of modern success, to scale it easily while biting the legs of the dogs above me and kicking the heads of the dogs below me; my rational mind allows me to calculate the cost of a dog's life and if need be, allow some of them to fall off to their deaths once i quantified the profit from doing so. but it is simply because i would rather be an average human rather than a top dog--a simple comparison of my fundamental desires--that makes me choose the village over the city.
during the conversation last week i had the fortune of being reminded of the old adage of the greenness of pastures on the far side of fences, that the rural world has its own share of difficulties, that the struggle for money is replaced by the struggle for food. simply it seemed, it was a shift of market rather than a shift of job. i didnt have the wisdom that day to give an answer; getting out of a bias accusation is impossible without the help of a third party. but now that i am no longer in that conversaion, i do in fact consider myself a third party...and i once again discover that my previous statement about my different value system would suffice as a response--that because i detest the corporate struggle more than the so-called primitive one, id reasonably and logically choose to stay in a place where my rewards come from plain sweat rather than cunning.
true, good talents should never be wasted. no doubt, i possess the kind of mind, almost criminal if i was untethered, that could squeeze profit out of other minds just like a sucessful capitalist would. but today i am more and more disillusioned with the nectar of wealth and its corrupting properties and i see it happening daily to my city which prioriti$e$ talent over humanity under the euphemistic term meritocracy. everyone is nice only to the point where money is concerned--suddenly its sorry, but i have to or it is a tough time, it must be done. the only way to survive in the zoo is to become an animal.
sorry, id rather be a farmer in his field than a manager in his office.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
voting for tolerance
many worry for the fate of humanity, especially the religious bunch. any modern day christian will be quick to inform you that the end is near because of growing immorality, loosening values and wider thought. if a doomed world is one that grows to empower itself rather than rely on God, then they are right.
but if i say that a succeeding world is one that causes a massive reproduction of human life and sustenance of that population via advancements in technology, law and philosophy, then like all good debates, the opponents are merely arguing around and about different definitions of the problem.
since we started recording history we have abolished slavery, criminalized inhumanity, granted women equal rights, welcomed the lgbts and so on. we have embraced rationalism--gone are the days of learned men being persecuted for delivering science in a manner that made pious men appear less apt at explaining the world. knowing what we know today, which sane man would say, "let us go back into the days where the gods ruled"? these are the same days where capital crimes were punished by stoning, where women were the property of men, slaves were symbols of of wealth to those who owned them, and a homosexual did not exist because it was better not to. what world is the world of the old where men trounced upon men with no compassion? are not the most beautiful religions of the world about compassion?
i detest any religious man who places his religion above the rest--he who uses his position to sequester and dominate the heathen peoples around him. what kind of peace are we trying to achieve by waging war for the sake of it? is it right for one religion to infiltrate the government? the workplace? the marketplace? how about we try love, compassion and tolerance before we try to "conquer" this mortal plane for our respective Gods? does your God want our big cities, tall buildings and our land, which he could likely destroy and rebuild in a day, or does he really want our freely-given hearts which he cannot destroy and rebuild in a day?
every man with a moral conviction would understandably stand firm in his views. such a man would also do his best to teach the others around him of his ways which he knows from his heart is true. but to what end does such a man push until he knows to stop, step back, and let the other man pursue his own convictions? if one woman is against abortion, at what point does she stop herself from preventing another woman from terminating her pregnancy? should one man be able to vote against another? throughout history the power of voting has been used as a force of good to free the imprisoned, rest the burdened and deliver justice to the helpless. in some cases it has been misused as a tool for one section of society to impose its will on the other.
it pains me when i hear a Christian state who should and shouldnt be allowed to go to Church and when i see the number of people who agree with him. it pains me when a woman says she will vote against abortion to prevent another woman from doing what could possibly be the best for her and her unborn child. it pains me when a husband says he owns his wife and subjugates her to his hypocrisy. it pains me when people who know nothing about death tell me stoutly that the death penalty should stay. opinions are unavoidable, and in many cases it is a sign of intellect. but coupled with the power to translate those opinion to action, the biggest failure of modern humanity is the use of democracy to restrict the minority rather than to liberate them.
the biggest pain is that i will not and cannot stop them. but what burns like a fire in my heart is my duty to the weak minority.
but if i say that a succeeding world is one that causes a massive reproduction of human life and sustenance of that population via advancements in technology, law and philosophy, then like all good debates, the opponents are merely arguing around and about different definitions of the problem.
since we started recording history we have abolished slavery, criminalized inhumanity, granted women equal rights, welcomed the lgbts and so on. we have embraced rationalism--gone are the days of learned men being persecuted for delivering science in a manner that made pious men appear less apt at explaining the world. knowing what we know today, which sane man would say, "let us go back into the days where the gods ruled"? these are the same days where capital crimes were punished by stoning, where women were the property of men, slaves were symbols of of wealth to those who owned them, and a homosexual did not exist because it was better not to. what world is the world of the old where men trounced upon men with no compassion? are not the most beautiful religions of the world about compassion?
i detest any religious man who places his religion above the rest--he who uses his position to sequester and dominate the heathen peoples around him. what kind of peace are we trying to achieve by waging war for the sake of it? is it right for one religion to infiltrate the government? the workplace? the marketplace? how about we try love, compassion and tolerance before we try to "conquer" this mortal plane for our respective Gods? does your God want our big cities, tall buildings and our land, which he could likely destroy and rebuild in a day, or does he really want our freely-given hearts which he cannot destroy and rebuild in a day?
every man with a moral conviction would understandably stand firm in his views. such a man would also do his best to teach the others around him of his ways which he knows from his heart is true. but to what end does such a man push until he knows to stop, step back, and let the other man pursue his own convictions? if one woman is against abortion, at what point does she stop herself from preventing another woman from terminating her pregnancy? should one man be able to vote against another? throughout history the power of voting has been used as a force of good to free the imprisoned, rest the burdened and deliver justice to the helpless. in some cases it has been misused as a tool for one section of society to impose its will on the other.
it pains me when i hear a Christian state who should and shouldnt be allowed to go to Church and when i see the number of people who agree with him. it pains me when a woman says she will vote against abortion to prevent another woman from doing what could possibly be the best for her and her unborn child. it pains me when a husband says he owns his wife and subjugates her to his hypocrisy. it pains me when people who know nothing about death tell me stoutly that the death penalty should stay. opinions are unavoidable, and in many cases it is a sign of intellect. but coupled with the power to translate those opinion to action, the biggest failure of modern humanity is the use of democracy to restrict the minority rather than to liberate them.
the biggest pain is that i will not and cannot stop them. but what burns like a fire in my heart is my duty to the weak minority.
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