| The one thing I can't have is rest. I have approximations of rest: coping, procrastinating, dissociating. But the fantasy of achieving rest is something that I've had to let go of, like Sisyphus. After multiple boom-bust cycles and returning to the land of the living after burnout, I feel that the world's problems are caused by people who have too much either being unwilling or unable to empathize with the struggle of others. It's not that I'm jealous of the rich. In fact, I have no real use for money other than to get left alone. And it's not that I'm lazy. In fact, my education, experience and work capacity allow me to take on high workloads. No, the central crisis for me is that my standard of living depends on taking from others. If I want to eat well, wilderness has to be cleared, someone has to pick the food, animals will die. If I want to live well, trees have to get cut down, fossil fuels have to be extracted, people will die mining and refining minerals. All that I do, all that I am, places additional burden on someone else. So I've decided to live modestly, working just enough to keep a roof over my head and drive a vehicle so that I can meet the minimum demands of civilization. If I could, I would give it all back and live in a state of ultimate gratitude and peace. But the wealthy don't do that. They just keep taking more and more and more, giving little or nothing back. Reaching a position of power only to deny it to someone else. Perhaps the ultimate sin besides taking another's life. Profit means that someone didn't pay high enough wages. Inheritance means that resources were stolen from one generation for the next. Philanthropy means that someone didn't pay their taxes, so we had to. Once you've hit rock bottom and see through the veil of illusion, wealth accumulation becomes a repugnant thing. The thing separating one from the divine. The thing that perpetuates the suffering we were born into. The eerie part is, for all that I've experienced and learned, I know that this analysis of the status quo is not the final answer. I have not really had an epiphany. We all arrived here to incarnate as humans and experience the full gamut of suffering and bliss. We have philosophies and religious traditions glorifying suffering, even calling it noble and pious. But I've struggled for so long that it's all I have really known, to the point where I've lost sight of how to improve my situation. But what about the people who have achieved success, who do have the means to make things better? Where are the wealthy people who demand shorter work hours, more automation and time off, more shared prosperity and even UBI? Surely there is at least one willing and able to speak out and step up. |
Story of my life. Get here for a virtual hug!
While I'd not be as spartan and ascetic as yourself I too 90% identify with your quote: "I want enough money to be left alone". I definitely will want a few dozen things I don't have now but I am also very convinced I'll know when to stop.
> No, the central crisis for me is that my standard of living depends on taking from others.
This can very easily spiral into extremes. Even Buddhist monks, to whom all life is sacred, laugh at those among them that don't dare weeding out the monastery garden lest they kill a worm while doing so. No disrespect to you meant, in fact I very strongly relate to you, but you do sound like you want to minimize harm in a way that's just not realistic and will end up burning you out in a different way compared to what you experienced working for the man.
I don't lose sleep over the fact that me ordering a $6.70 item from AliExpress maybe stimulates a guy running a sweat shop to keep exploiting people. I am not responsible for that and even if I have tilted the scales slightly here and there in my life I still view all of that as a fair transaction: if they couldn't offer it at that price then they wouldn't. But they do, so I order it and consume it after.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With that being said, I'll always agree that we need to learn to consume the minimum because the way humanity is living right now is absolutely not sustainable and it will bite future generations super hard. That much is true. But I don't order napkins from AliExpress, no, so I am excused for wanting to try a curious novel (to me) shaver or buy my girlfriend a butterfly-shaped hair pin. Simple pleasures that hopefully harm nobody.
> But the wealthy don't do that. They just keep taking more and more and more, giving little or nothing back.
As another commenter here said: most people are not fit to be rich. They get rich too quickly or too easily and then realize they have no purpose, no hobbies, no goals, no struggles, so they spend the rest of their lives desperately trying to fill the internal void with material items which ironically they are well-aware will never gonna happen but feel trapped and hopeless so they keep trying anyway.
...Or date other rich people, which fails even more spectacularly.
...And they love pulling the ladder after they climbed it.
> But I've struggled for so long that it's all I have really known, to the point where I've lost sight of how to improve my situation.
Time for the next virtual hug as I am almost the same. I'll hit 43 next month and I am already dead-tired of all this circus and all the dumb charades and pretenses. The only thing that truly keeps me going is the absolute angel of a wife that I have, whose optimism and positivity are kind of contagious, and I want to show her a better life for both of us. Maybe along the way I'll find self-love as well, who knows.
> Surely there is at least one willing and able to speak out and step up.
I hate generalizing people so I am pretty sure benevolent rich people exist but (a) they are part of a much smaller group and them speaking up might actually be very harmful to them because others in the same group might actively sabotage them and (b) I completely understand somebody who fought for their life not wanting to spend the rest of it fighting for other people's lives (I know that if I make it I'll be one of the most anonymous rich guys you could think of).
You do get tired and burned out after all. Fighting with your own life is quite enough, and then some more even. You and I understand that pretty well.