 “Where are you going?” “There and back. See how far it is.” “How will you know when you get there?” “I’ll be on my way back”. “How will you know you’re on your way back, if you don’t even know you got there?” “I’ll recognise things I saw on the way”. *** There’s a small, (emphasis here on small) part of me that has a grudging admiration for people who seem to have a life-plan, or at least, a set of predetermined goals and a sense of direction which hurls them towards old age with a smugness that I just do not seem to possess. I’ve tried to muster the same enthusiasm to conform with the “ideal”, but at some point this always wanes and I find myself rejecting it more and more. I don’t have a mortgage, expensive car, 2.4 children, designer grass on the floor at home, abstract prints on the walls; I don’t run my own business, covet expensive clothes or label (that word, again: LABEL) people according to income…but the very people that do, make up just about 88% of the friends I keep or meet up with socially, which, of late, hasn’t been that often, I admit. Turn the clock back ten or fifteen years and they never revealed these aspirations. If they harboured any such plans I was never privy to them. Yet, I don't envy them either, chasing what it is they chase. Caught in the mangle of life, small cogs in the greasy machine. Like us all. Isn't that the greatest con ever perpetuated? The big sting, with us, the marks, being played, being hustled? What should we call it? What label best fits? There - that word again. Label. Capitalism? Western living? The nasty, insidious ideal, the grand design which keeps us confined to our boxes. The genius of it all - how did they convince us to till the fields, to drag the plough, to plant the crops, to swing the scythe, to earn the money, to buy back the very food we toiled over? It's so damned clever I only wish I had thought of it first. I endeavour to escape it. To break the chains that shackle me to this. To stop selling myself short. To finally get there. I shall only know when I have arrived when I stop recognising things on the return journey.
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I have a lot of the things
I have a lot of the things you mention, though no designer anything, and certinaly not labels. In my case though it's all been rather random in nature. All I aspire to is to live comfortably, to enjoy life, and to treat others with kindness and respect - and cherish the people that reciprocate, and ignore those that do not. In terms of my work, my ambition has really just been to use the tools I have been given (an aptitude for computing I suppose) and to try to enjoy it. Becoming a director of my old firm was by invitation, but not intention... there may be more people like me out there than the media would care to portray :)
Ah, I had you pegged as the
Ah, I had you pegged as the designer-grass type of guy, Paul!
For the record, my thoughts here are/were not intended as a criticism - in more ways I think it describes the thing that awakened inside me - mid-life, I hasten to add, which spoke to me and said something on the lines that if we are ostensibly bean growers being watched over by the bean counters, then I need to try and find a way which will sit more happily with me and try to avoid the whirlwind of consumerism. I'm a complete hypocrite, of course. As Nick said, "Now that I've got my DVD player..."
A bit of what I observed amongst my peers and friends is reminiscent of Jaques' "All the World's a Stage" speech: 10-15 years ago, when we were lovers and carousers, seems to have flown by, and now we are "In fair round belly with good capon lin'd" - I seemed to have espoused irresponsibility at a time when they were covertly setting themselves up in business etc etc. They're chasing bricks and mortar now. I'm waiting for the bricks and mortar in my cheap rented country cottage to fall apart around my ears!!
I awoke one day and realised that I am chained to the plough (aren't we all?), so I need to find a way to use "it" - to fulfill my own dreams and aspirations to find that peaceable living. In many ways it was a complete dissastisfaction with the job I found myself - it not being the job I want to be in. That whole relentless circle of having to get up in the morning just so you can spend all day earning money so you can then give it all back to the "man". It's bloody genius.
The Marxist in me woke very late! Anyway, I want a blu-ray player now!
__________________________________________________________________________ Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde!!
Reminds me of that Welshism
"I'll be there now!" which always confused me
andi
Too old?
He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs
and prays that he always will.
But he's the last of the blue blood greaser boys
all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road
sold their souls straight down the line.
And some of them own little sports cars
and meet at the tennis club do's.
For drinks on a Sunday --- work on Monday.
They've thrown away their blue suede shoes.
Now they're too old to Rock'n'Roll and they're too young to die.