43 replies to this topic

[degrae]

The trouble here is doing stuff that is not difficult makes you feel dead.

I think this is an over generalization. When it comes to how people work, there are many truths. The Western ideal is in general hard work, giving your all = happiness and success. The Eastern ideal is more like happiness = taking care in your work. Something like that.

Not everyone needs to get a PhD. Not everyone needs to graduate college. Not everyone needs to graduate high school. Not everyone needs to be making big bucks, and not everyone needs to work hard. But everyone needs to be responsible for themselves in the end.

To me work is work no matter what. If I'm getting paid to do something I'm probably not going to enjoy it. It's the time outside of work that makes life good. Grilling some chicken after work, sipping a beer, and watching the sunset. Sitting down with my soldering iron and creating something new for me pedal board. Practicing guitar. These are all things I like to do but most of my day is taken up by work. I want sub-40 hour work weeks. The American public doesn't appreciate time with life. We must work hard, and give our all to be happy. But in Europe, they can appreciate the importance of sitting down with your family for a nice meal. Not on holidays, not monthly, not weekly, but daily. Other countries understand the importance of vacation. They understand the importance of finding happiness outside of work and transferring that happiness back into work, rather than making work your happy place and life outside of work where you juggle every other responsibility. At work I think about every other thing I could be doing to make myself happier than being at work. At home I think about work and how it has impaired my ability to find happiness.

Not everyone needs this laissez-faire lifestyle, but I think more people need it than need the 40+ hour, arrive early, stay late, work from home model that many people currently employ.

the reply ---
Sounds like you do something that you have some respect for. What do you do? I don't think it's western or european to feel like a nap at 2 pm, I do think that if we have to work with dickheads we quickly warp our view of work. I get an equal sense of happiness in and out of work, I just feel like I am not polishing a finer craft when I am at work, and I'm looking for that sort of a competitive adrenaline testing yer mettle sort of a feeling, without doing something that is just for the money, you dig? So picture a group of comedy writers getting together over coffee in the morning, they are battling all the other comedy writers in a healthy competitive sense. They at least have the comraderie of one upping each other yet being on the same team. Emergency Medical Technicians might have that same sort of vibe as a group. The hard part about work in America is that there is just so much stupid bullshit that has nothing to do with the job at hand that we have have to swallow to keep our gig, not to mention being forced to tolerate whining and incompetance because of the influence of the "legal system", (read Lawsuit System), Over.

I like this thread. There's a lot of poetic bullshittery but it's all worth considering for a moment.

I don't know how this reply thig works obviously

[degrae]

I have an Idea, Let's Play "God",
O.K. pretend your God, what happens?

[weener]

Me personally? Abortionists, homosexuals and feminists are instantly smote down by My hand, humans are reminded of their place and to worship Me at all times, and everyone in the world has to admit that America is the greatest country on Earth or suffer My wrath.

That's just the way I roll.

[degrae]

Me personally? Abortionists, homosexuals and feminists are instantly smote down by My hand, humans are reminded of their place and to worship Me at all times, and everyone in the world has to admit that America is the greatest country on Earth or suffer My wrath.

That's just the way I roll.

Sarcasm? I would expect that Meatwhistle would be placed above Led Zepplin in everyones ipod rotation, for one thing, sounds like you need to get a few right wingers baked so they can get off their high horse.

[weener]

Yes, sarcasm. Really, I would just want everyone to try their best to be respectful to other humans, animals, and the environment. And that's about it.

[unluckycharm]

I want a freakin' sailboat. Howm I gonna do that?

well sheeit brotha, sailboats aren't all that much. you can do it ... check this out, $4600:

http://seattle.craig...1224205596.html

[degrae]

I want a freakin' sailboat. Howm I gonna do that?

well sheeit brotha, sailboats aren't all that much. you can do it ... check this out, $4600:

http://seattle.craig...1224205596.html

Thanks, it's as easy as you make it i see.

[Jacki O.]

I want a freakin' sailboat. Howm I gonna do that?

well sheeit brotha, sailboats aren't all that much. you can do it ... check this out, $4600:

http://seattle.craig...1224205596.html

Thanks, it's as easy as you make it i see.

double true

[unluckycharm]

degrae, truth can be found in the writings of mark twain. for instance:

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Isn't human nature the most consummate sham & lie that was ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all is aspects? Is he really fit for anything but to be stood up on the street corner as a convenience for dogs? Man, "Know thyself --& then thou wilt despise thyself, to a dead moral certainty."
- Letter to William Dean Howells, August 31, 1884

[degrae]

degrae, truth can be found in the writings of mark twain. for instance:

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Isn't human nature the most consummate sham & lie that was ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all is aspects? Is he really fit for anything but to be stood up on the street corner as a convenience for dogs? Man, "Know thyself --& then thou wilt despise thyself, to a dead moral certainty."
- Letter to William Dean Howells, August 31, 1884

Elevate yerslef Jim, True you have a dark side. The whole of your psychological environment is not fit for tender ears, on the other hand, at least you think about that.
Suppose that you get to say how things go in the future. Suppose you get to know what you know, and press on to make it a little better than when you met it.
I don't have kids because I would kill a mutha fucka that would fuck with my kids, is it fair to deny life to my future kids because of my pre-disposition. I don't want to spend my life in jail, and I don't want to deny life to a soul that deserves it. Now what? I have enjoyed all of my life, with all the wrong in the world, if I had a kid, they might enjoy all of their life also. I just had s group of people over to my house, their was one small baby. That baby could have been either gender, but they looked open and ready. I would like to go back to a time when I was open, and ready. I think that you oldsters deserve to forget what you know, and deliver your personality, based on the hope of what might happen if you pour it on all the time, not worrying about who or why or to what end. Make your legend, and fuck what other people think. Cause they they don't think long enough, or hard enough to screw up what you know you need to do.

[unluckycharm]

"Suppose that you get to say how things go in the future. Suppose you get to know what you know, and press on to make it a little better than when you met it.
I don't have kids because I would kill a mutha fucka that would fuck with my kids, is it fair to deny life to my future kids because of my pre-disposition. I don't want to spend my life in jail, and I don't want to deny life to a soul that deserves it. Now what? I have enjoyed all of my life, with all the wrong in the world, if I had a kid, they might enjoy all of their life also."

But supposing, is only supposing. In the example above--if I understand you correctly--you are denying yourself the happiness or goal have having kids because of what you *think* might happen. You do not know for a certainty it's going to happen. So it would seem you are acting or denying yourself this due to a fear about "a mutha fucka that would fuck with my kids." And you fear what your predisposition might bring.

Understandable. Who doesn't have challenges in their life regarding their behaviour and choices? That's all a part of the human condition. I believe the real challenge is to strive to rise above these seeming limitations. I believe it's important to live and make the best choices based on *now* not on a hypothetical "what might happen in the future." Is your "pre-disposition" who you are? Is that something you can change? I say yes--especially if it is getting in the way of your basic contentment to live here on this earth.

Sure--life is short--and it's your responsibility to remain "open and ready" like you said. It's not always easy, it's too easy to become rigid about things. I've see people who have wasted their whole lives because of what I guess you'd attribute to mental laziness or defeatism. There is no law written on stone that fell from the sky that says life has to be that way.

[dharma_bum]

life is a crap-shoot.

[degrae]

I am just skeptical of judgement. Whenever a lady at Target lifts her daughter by one arm and beats her ass for screaming too much until the little girl screams more, I think, that lady must know her daughter alot better than I do, because I would never yank a lil girls arm out of the shoulder socket and beat her in public. Judgement, Unluckycharm, is the guiding force in your own life, and yet when applied to others has a great chance of being innacurate. If this theory is true, the entire legal system needs to be cleaned to effectively enforce 3 laws, No Rapin', No Stealin', an No Killin'.
If I knew for a fact that we had progressed as a species to just completely have those 3 simple things worked out, the gift of life would truly be a gift without reserve.So I'm not really so worried that I wouldn't have kids as a protest, I understand the challenge that you mention and believe that to be a great motivator, I am sure that everyone that could stomach this post so far, is just quickly sickened by stupidity. When stupidity is applied before judgement, when anger is allowed to grow and define movements, when greed can cultivate legions of followers, I would like to know the correct words to say to my own kid, or to people I like, that might keep them out of those traps.
You can live in a mansion, you can live in the woods, you can look forward to things or you can despise your surroundings, there are actually alot of people I know that don't realise that their very attitude affects those around them. Just your mood is infectious, I guess some people can control that and some can't, it would be a horrible handicap not to be able to drive your own attitude, wouldn't it?

[simpleguy]

Degrae, Truth #1: Thoreau said "...Most men lead lives of quiet desperation..." You know how true that was of myself. And of course there are STILL elements of this within. But with this new found freedom is a remarkable ability to begin again, to reap a harvest of dreams and desires. And purpose.

Who would have ever thought that quiet, middle aged, straight guy who works at a big box store would have the opportunity meet other like minded men to talk about affecting our world in positive, non partisan ways? To help do construction in the 2nd poorest country in the world? To teach children? Here AND in Africa? Out of my desperation and willingness to be open to the larger thruths: We have it so good, we don't even know it. Then Malawi called me.

My job is heartless, but sometimes I give it some heart. I've seen you so it, too. Help folks kinda fulfill THEIR dreams. And that's a pretty big deal. AND you GET TO play some kick ass music, too! The rest of us non rockers just envy the hell out of all of you guys that have jobs and rock out.

Truth # 2: Rabbi Talushkin's wife said: "The only happy people I know, are people I don't know well."

It's not about happy. Happiness comes and goes like a vapor, a mist. Highs and lows, if you will. The point is about contentment. Finding things in life that make one content. And the most important things in life, after all, are not things.

Mr Degrae, I don't think it's the hand we're dealt, it's how WE shuffle the cards. Have your Baby.

[raubhimself]

degrae, have you ever read the poetry of Robinson Jeffers?