I know, the wording on the title might be wrong, but that was intentional.
I wanted you to ponder it… Those 2 grand which you earned last week (if you were lucky to earn that much), was that the value of all of the amount of your lifetime during that period? And how could… How could one even value a thing such as a life and its time even more?
Of coure, we are all accustomed to Capitalism by this day and age, but regarding that, why is it that all of our life must be measured like such? In money-spans, of how much you could make in an hour or whereas in whole year…? Well, people need affordances, they need to pay their subway tickets to go to work, they need to twist the cogs and levers of the intricate machinery of our civilized-everyday-society. And they do it, in and out… They receive a paycheck, gather their bills, most of them might still have incredible debt from student loans and the like which they will have to face during their lifetime, just to exist.
Whereas, on the other swindle of the handle you have exactly the opposite…
Memento Mori.
Awareness of your death. Know that thoust shall die.
We know that you will die. We will die. But we just tend to forget it nonetheless. We love to indulge in our pays, or rather not, we would sometimes prefer to live in a more modest life without so much to think about and worry about. Do we even remember what that is? Not thinking too much or even having our brains constantly dissuaded by incessant stimula? I doubt. At least in our digitized and civilized world, people are just dependant on that, unfortunately.
Then, they become utterly oblivious of the fact that which they are just wasting their entire goddamned lives. Doing absolutely and humongous self-serving stuff… On the other hand we could also argue that, well… if you are employed, then, are we rather doing a service for us, ourselves, or for the corporations anyway? And more than that, can we find our identities besides those badges and IDs partaining certain corps?
At the end of one’s life, what was its cost? In monetary terms, as well as time, and even more stern, efforts to make ends meet. Some people might have struggled more. Some people might have made some discoveries. Some had families and had to fend for their daughters and sons… All had to be paid. With debt, with money, with blood in their veins pumping oxygen so they could handle their tasks in time and hand over whatever the hell it was that boss had requested them to… And tomorrow there will be even more. Because growth must not stop, even though we need to stop, and our very lives do come to a halt once in a lifetime.
Oh, the hamster wheel all over again. And again. And again… Truly desperating… Which begs me to thing, what kind of other values are there in one’s life besides just the financial ones? This, to some sort is what made me interested in the first place into studying Buddhism. And for those of you which do not know, there is an entire chapter regarding Death and its discontents in a Tibetan Buddhist work named Lamrim Chenmo.
I have just read a few passages before writing this post, maybe it is why I am so critic regarding capitalizing and measuring one’s life purely on monetary gains. That is needed, for sure, but what does make one’s life truly meaningful? Of course, the answer varies, but according to the text which I had just mentioned, which is religious in nature, assures that the real value is to be found in practice towards liberation from the cycle of existence (considering various lifetimes). Buddha said that, the authors cite other texts that also reinforces that aswell.
Then, it got me thinking, how much one must value its time, in order to fulfill its obligations with society, if needed, or where, on the other hand one could also fulfill its own internal and spiritual obligations (more akin to requests) to a higher spiritual goal.
One thing that nags at me, is how diametrically opposed these two views will be. On one hand, Capitalism will always request more of you, to indulge in more gains for the corporations, whereas you are left with only your paycheck at the end of the month. On the other hand, religiosity, and Buddhism in this case takes a step back and inquiries you to consider how one must be spending its time and efforts.
I guess that, if you have been following here long enough you might already have noticed my stern motifs regarding the business agenda as a whole. The structure of the whole dammned thing is rigged, and my troubles is that I suck for more knowledge in IT and infrastructure and I like it. What I despise are the abhorrent and ludicrous timelines that are requested of us to deliver products, features and what have you (especially now with AI).
Everyone is crazed by looking for sheer more volume of stuff and that really is starting to get on me, thinking: “should we really all just be riding the hype train?” Can’t we, for once, take a step back and look at the overarching schema of how things are going over in the world? Literal wars being waged. Diseases, debt, all kinds of stuff…
And what are us unto it?
We, I guess, or at least I, could then use a little bit more of self-reflection and introspection, and maybe, that is a worthy goal to pursue, more than just giving lifetime away to corporations at the end of the day. Still, it is needed, as a way to survive, but I will not be giving my whole goddammned time over to Capitalism.
Not when I have the chance to consider and choose.
That’s it for today.
I hope you too can make a choice for yourself, and with yourself in mind.
Paece.