Skate or Die

[kingtycoon]

Some things you just conclude over time, some things you learn just by having the right experiences in the right order. Me? My experiences were strange and out of order and I didn't learn things I might have, and learned things that people probably oughtn't know. For example my whole Effort = Reward understanding is totally fucked. My top rewards have always come from out of zero effort and my top efforts have never yielded positive results. I get more than I ever wanted without asking, and if I ask I usually get shut down and denied. So - that's my broken mentality - its' been reinforced for years now, probably more than 20. The learning there is that laziness accomplishes more than sincere trying. And this, I see everywhere, now that I'm trained to. Lazy and Lucky and Socially Connected. The Hard Work will Make You Free idea that's so commonplace in our society - that one I just scoff at. That's for the rubes, the suckers, the workers - that's for the exploited.

So I learned that - which isn't a great thing to learn - maybe it's better just to suspect or consider, but to know as a fact? Kind of damning.

Now I'm in a different place. It's been a long time since hard work has actually paid off - and as I've been on and on about my worky-work jobby-job - I guess it's relevant to point out and illustrate - I am starting to get the training that the work I do has a value that is recognizable to others. Weird. This is why my creative output is lacking/suffering, because I'm busy with my remunerative efforts. Because those efforts are rewarded - Weird. It's weird that this is the first time for that for me.

But I'm thinking, or was, I was thinking about my Dad - who exploded into life right when he was about my age. That's when he got it in his mind to be, I guess a mulch-millionaire. He went nuts chasing it and it was kind of effortless (since it was in the 80's-90's to be a real-estate tycoon in the Wasteland) and kind of lucky (since he got into the video business totally backwards and by accident) and kind of lazy (since he retired at age 50 - basically - living off his effortless luck). But he started it up hard and fierce, killer instinct. I think about this because I sometimes feel my killer instinct coming in. My ferocity for money and possessions and so forth. Late to arrive maybe, but I didn't learn the right lessons in the right sequence. As it is, I think about and maybe crave for the More. Suddenly and now.

So I think about it, and I think about the opting in and out that this entails. I think about the middle class and relate it to my father's upbringing in the pre-developed developing world where the choices, it seems, were to Win or to Die. Win or Die Starving - seemingly these are the choices. I think it's coming to that here, I think this is the shape of things to come.

In the past you probably had a third choice- contribute what you can spare, of your self and your powers to another person, in a hierarchy, and somehow, just opt out of the murderous cycle - just get uncompetitive and sleep easier at night, be middle classed and comfortable. You could also go crazy and seek out victory so that your position in the hierarchy stayed higher and you would have to eat the shit of fewer people - that's ambition. And you could just play the game stupidly and submit all of yourself in exchange for nothing - be poor and lose through too much effort misspent.

Now, I think it's narrowed down, you can give your all for poverty or Win through competition. I don't think there's a way to opt out for the gentler amusements of the middle class. Or anyway - that that is diminishing or will diminish to a vanishingly small point in the nearer term. And so it is Win or Starve and more and more I find myself saying that I want to Win.

Next up. Figuring out how exactly I'll play this game.

Comments

[anachronism.livejournal.com]

Ha! Too funny that you posted that photo of the sign on the house. I see that every day when I come home from work. I'm kind of baffled as to what it's about... I wish they had listed a website or something for more info.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure what it's about but I assume it's to do with CLV HTS fairly draconian building codes.

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

I think a lot about the creation of leisure by agriculture, the spread of leisure into the middle class & then...then what, fucking we just say fuck it, no more middle path, all serfs? Ugh.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

I think of the democratization of creativity going on now and relate it somewhat to a rolling back of the attainment of middle class artists. Look at how grudgingly I buy books, for example and I'm a reader even - just as an example. This comes up in Klial a little conceptually and it's likely that I'm overstating the issue in reality as my reality is informed by my personal unreality.

Still, making a cursory contribution to the larger economy should be enough to guarantee you a living. Participating in the further enrichment of the rich should get you a liveable life. It's now that the employers have been led to believe that workers parasitize profits instead of creating them that we're all up against it.

Sensibly the corporation should be organized around principles of cooperation and mutual support but instead it is the fortress of the capitalist, the assailable, disposable army of a despot. Enterprise is working, commerce is working, but capitalism is falling apart.

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

"How could people having more money to spend possibly help the economy! As if work created value!"