How many people out there are just like me? How many of you feel like non-contributing zeros?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s
This video gave me pause. Especially that choice of words. "Non-contributing zero". It made me stop and realize how little I, at 26, have accomplished with my life. The video as a whole made me think on how many of us live in a world of technological consumer excess built by a comparative few. All of us are living a life of luxury built by the intellect and vision and passion of a talented few, the majority of us contributing nothing meaningful of our own. What awful, awful people we are. Or not.
I don't think most people are willfully ignorant or lazy. Quite the contrary. I honestly think most people are just like me; unemployed, or working at shitty, meaningless jobs, feeling alone, and wanting nothing more than to find what they're good at and do it, to the betterment of themselves and their peers. Sadly, the society we live in isn't interested in maximizing individual potential. It's built around exploiting current potential. If you're not sprung from the womb, fully formed and ready to start a revolution, than you might as well start memorizing the ingredients on a Jr. Bacon Whopper right now and resign yourself to your fate. Society has no use for you.
Society, that is, as defined by the businessmen, politicians, and other assorted sociopaths that rule over our daily lives. With such an expansive talent pool already at their disposal, they are free to cherry pick the best of the best, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. I can't help but wonder how many teen and young adult suicide victims are the result of a callous job market and an exclusive social scene that has no room for anyone but attractive, out-going self starters? How many of those people would have turned out perfectly fine if there were channels available to them for self-betterment, a way for them to identify and hone skills and talents and put them to work for the world, giving their lives new-found purpose? I'm aware that the whole story isn't as simple as that, but there's no denying that the hostile world that children are forced into is a major contributor to the increase in clinical depression cases. Is it really "clinical" depression when the patient has legitimate cause to be depressed?
As I understand it, the individual is expected to identify these talents on their own, find their way to the appropriate degree or certification programs, and find a fulfilling, financially feasible position in the world ("fulfilling" being optional), all with little to no outside help or perspective. Oh, and they also need to feed and clothe and shelter themselves within their own means. Common wisdom says that the parents should be the means by which people find their way to these goals, offering food and shelter and so forth, as well as sage career advice and social guidance. But parents- ugh, parents. Parents are often found lacking in all areas of child rearing, emotional development, physical safety, let alone the daunting task of finding a personally, spiritually fulfilling place in the world at large. What's a person to do when the only support structure they're given can't even support themselves, financially or pragmatically? Which brings me back to my original point.
What with education, social expectations, and parenting acumen being what they are, many- no, ALL people grow into adulthood with many neuroses, hang-ups, and general "dings." The normal, objectively inadequate, support structures failing, people are expected to just gracefully resign themselves to the fate of being janitors, trash men, and retail personnel the rest of their lives. Large governments and corporations (and the people that run them) are more than happy to turn these people into cannon fodder to throw at the menial tasks their bloated bureaucracies generate. Such a waste. Many of those people are capable, quite intelligent, artistically charged, even. Unable to rise above their station in life, they labor in obscurity until the day they die. Many of them realize this and finish the job themselves, so to speak. To me, this is western civilization's greatest tragedy. The dog-eat-dog, pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps mentality of 20th century America has doomed countless souls to becoming soulless, miserable mockeries of the American Dream®. A man named Jacques Fresco has written a good amount of material exploring this phenomena even more deeply than I could touch on my own. His work can be found here.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Whether his movement has the answers or not isn't the issue. The bottom line is that these are serious problems that hold back the development of humanity, as a whole and on an individual level, and he makes many valid observations on the state of things. Are we alone? Does anyone else see how the working class has been left behind? Are you content to spend your whole life working on someone else's terms for the far off promise of comfort in your reclining years? Think on it. We all should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s
This video gave me pause. Especially that choice of words. "Non-contributing zero". It made me stop and realize how little I, at 26, have accomplished with my life. The video as a whole made me think on how many of us live in a world of technological consumer excess built by a comparative few. All of us are living a life of luxury built by the intellect and vision and passion of a talented few, the majority of us contributing nothing meaningful of our own. What awful, awful people we are. Or not.
I don't think most people are willfully ignorant or lazy. Quite the contrary. I honestly think most people are just like me; unemployed, or working at shitty, meaningless jobs, feeling alone, and wanting nothing more than to find what they're good at and do it, to the betterment of themselves and their peers. Sadly, the society we live in isn't interested in maximizing individual potential. It's built around exploiting current potential. If you're not sprung from the womb, fully formed and ready to start a revolution, than you might as well start memorizing the ingredients on a Jr. Bacon Whopper right now and resign yourself to your fate. Society has no use for you.
Society, that is, as defined by the businessmen, politicians, and other assorted sociopaths that rule over our daily lives. With such an expansive talent pool already at their disposal, they are free to cherry pick the best of the best, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. I can't help but wonder how many teen and young adult suicide victims are the result of a callous job market and an exclusive social scene that has no room for anyone but attractive, out-going self starters? How many of those people would have turned out perfectly fine if there were channels available to them for self-betterment, a way for them to identify and hone skills and talents and put them to work for the world, giving their lives new-found purpose? I'm aware that the whole story isn't as simple as that, but there's no denying that the hostile world that children are forced into is a major contributor to the increase in clinical depression cases. Is it really "clinical" depression when the patient has legitimate cause to be depressed?
As I understand it, the individual is expected to identify these talents on their own, find their way to the appropriate degree or certification programs, and find a fulfilling, financially feasible position in the world ("fulfilling" being optional), all with little to no outside help or perspective. Oh, and they also need to feed and clothe and shelter themselves within their own means. Common wisdom says that the parents should be the means by which people find their way to these goals, offering food and shelter and so forth, as well as sage career advice and social guidance. But parents- ugh, parents. Parents are often found lacking in all areas of child rearing, emotional development, physical safety, let alone the daunting task of finding a personally, spiritually fulfilling place in the world at large. What's a person to do when the only support structure they're given can't even support themselves, financially or pragmatically? Which brings me back to my original point.
What with education, social expectations, and parenting acumen being what they are, many- no, ALL people grow into adulthood with many neuroses, hang-ups, and general "dings." The normal, objectively inadequate, support structures failing, people are expected to just gracefully resign themselves to the fate of being janitors, trash men, and retail personnel the rest of their lives. Large governments and corporations (and the people that run them) are more than happy to turn these people into cannon fodder to throw at the menial tasks their bloated bureaucracies generate. Such a waste. Many of those people are capable, quite intelligent, artistically charged, even. Unable to rise above their station in life, they labor in obscurity until the day they die. Many of them realize this and finish the job themselves, so to speak. To me, this is western civilization's greatest tragedy. The dog-eat-dog, pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps mentality of 20th century America has doomed countless souls to becoming soulless, miserable mockeries of the American Dream®. A man named Jacques Fresco has written a good amount of material exploring this phenomena even more deeply than I could touch on my own. His work can be found here.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Whether his movement has the answers or not isn't the issue. The bottom line is that these are serious problems that hold back the development of humanity, as a whole and on an individual level, and he makes many valid observations on the state of things. Are we alone? Does anyone else see how the working class has been left behind? Are you content to spend your whole life working on someone else's terms for the far off promise of comfort in your reclining years? Think on it. We all should.