Thinking about thinking about thinking...
I don't know how to handle my own mind.
--Which is to say, my mind works in ways that are mysterious even (especially?) to me. Furthermore, the more in examine my mind, the deeper I probe, the odder it feels.
I think there some kind of equivocation here about odd and peculiar vs unfamiliar. Both are synonymous with "strange." But the more accurate meaning is probably the latter, in that the deepest recesses and mechanisms of my psyche are not thoroughly reconnoitered yet. Unfortunately the
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Earn a living?
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
--Mark Twain
Okay, granted. But walking down Pike Street the other day I was struck by what a monstrous thought the concept of "earning a living" really is. I was coming out of the QFC and it occurred to me that I the checker who'd helped me does that for hundreds of people every day: it's his job, as my job is mine, and it's how he earns his living. Then I thought, that's sick! You don't earn a living. You have one or you don't. If you don't, you're probably not reading this. If you do then you have a whole set of problems to deal with if you want to maintain it, but you haven't earned it.
I finance my living through my job, but what work I do or don't do doesn't determine whether I've justified my existence. I suppose in a hunter-gatherer sense one can earn one's continued sustenance. But...the prevailing work ethic seems to be that sans some value-added employment one hasn't earned a living.
I reject this.
There are other metrics of a person's value to a society, but I don't think one can earn living. Nor do I think that value to society should be considered in determining whether someone should be permitted to continue to live. Again, living is something not a possession but a quality, not to be earned, and not to be revoked. It's not granted by anyone or anything except the happy accident of your birth and all the things that haven't killed you up until now. I suppose one can choose to forfeit living, but it's not something that can be justly taken by anyone.
--Mark Twain
Okay, granted. But walking down Pike Street the other day I was struck by what a monstrous thought the concept of "earning a living" really is. I was coming out of the QFC and it occurred to me that I the checker who'd helped me does that for hundreds of people every day: it's his job, as my job is mine, and it's how he earns his living. Then I thought, that's sick! You don't earn a living. You have one or you don't. If you don't, you're probably not reading this. If you do then you have a whole set of problems to deal with if you want to maintain it, but you haven't earned it.
I finance my living through my job, but what work I do or don't do doesn't determine whether I've justified my existence. I suppose in a hunter-gatherer sense one can earn one's continued sustenance. But...the prevailing work ethic seems to be that sans some value-added employment one hasn't earned a living.
I reject this.
There are other metrics of a person's value to a society, but I don't think one can earn living. Nor do I think that value to society should be considered in determining whether someone should be permitted to continue to live. Again, living is something not a possession but a quality, not to be earned, and not to be revoked. It's not granted by anyone or anything except the happy accident of your birth and all the things that haven't killed you up until now. I suppose one can choose to forfeit living, but it's not something that can be justly taken by anyone.
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