On Work in the Modern Nation
May 9, 2008 by Jason Austinite
As a responsible and productive member of society, I have made several sacrifices in my everyday life in order to provide for myself and those I care about. It is a social contract that we all sign. From this contract, we gain employment, from which we gain monetary compensation, from which we pay for the things that sustain us in life, such as food, shelter, clothing, cars, etc. This contract also forces us to trade our time, our energy, our brainpower, and all the other resources and skills that we have gained in approximately a quarter of a lifetime’s worth of education for the benefits mentioned previously.
The average person with a full time job sacrifices approximately 36% of their waking time to work. This is excluding commuting time. That’s a lot of time. Imagine what you could be doing with this time. Imagine the possibilities of a work free life, a life in which you could spend all of your time pursuing your own interests, devoting that aforementioned time, energy, and brainpower to making the world a better place to live. When did we as humans decide that we were willing to sacrifice so much of our own identity, our own freedom, our own lives to this strange notion of economy?
My search for answers to this question have led me to the writings of Adam Smith, as well as those of John Locke before him, both brilliant scholars who shaped economic theory as we know it. Their writings have shed some light on the idea of society and the sacrifices that each man must make in order to protect his property and his very well-being. Their logic is sound, their arguments nearly irrefutable.
And yet for some reason, I went to see Iron Man at the movie theater today rather than go to work. Am I a rebel who is rejecting the notion of the modern economy and the social contracts signed by my ancestors so long ago? Do I reject the tenets of modern society and the idea of being an integrated part of an orderly and productive nation?
No, I just really didn’t want to go to fucking work today!
Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go blow some shit up! I mean bowling. Let’s go bowling.
