Intuitively, I resent the fact that we all need money to survive and be safe. Somebody technically owns our lives, our hours alive, when we work for them, not for ourselves. Though when I was working in Russia it didn’t seem that way. One, because Russia then still had the flavor of the USSR, and two, I had an office job, I was an architect. So when I spent my days, from nine in the morning to five in the evening, working among other Russians, most with higher education and quite interesting, at the desktop, I even found it satisfying and alluring.
Those times and that Russia are gone. Now, it’s just pure, ruthless capitalism all over the world. The jobs I saw people having in the USA, in something like Fry’s for instance, their working conditions, were appalling. Is this the American dream? Being stuck in a hangar for hours without any sunlight, with a coffee/smoke break at a horrid, filthy patch of pavement by the building, cigarette butts all over? And then you have to rush back to the darkness to put on a fake smile and do the kind of a labor that turns a human into a brainless turnip? And does this slaving for some psychopathic corporation make you free? Does it add in any way to your being alive? Of course not, it robs you of your life and dignity.
I look at the natural world, the one we used to live in thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers. I look at the animals. The day is spent in a constant search of food. And that’s it. You don’t get food to fill your stomach you become food yourself. Often I think I would rather forage in the forest, live off land, as apposed to trying to survive in the modern human world. But this isn’t an option in many Western countries. In Canada you hardly have a right to even walk into the woods (landmass that hasn’t been yet exploited by the reach). It is either parks where you aren’t allowed to do anything or somebody’s else property. By the way, in Russia, I used to pick mushrooms, barriers and firewood in the forest.
So, we are relegated to being stuck in horrible urban environment, where we are pinned between concrete and cars with hardly a blade of grass around. And we are forced to drive to our job and back. Every day. Every month. Each year. To be making what, 20 dollars an hour? Less even. How is this not slavery?
I’ve seen well-off people too. Ironically, they don’t possess any outstanding skills or talents. I often ask Meg what these people do for a living, because I can’t imagine them being good at anything. At times, they are simply stupid.
Another question I ask myself is this: does the amount of wealth a person has reflect their contribution to society, to anyone? I don’t think so. Look at the wealthiest people out there – what have they done to improve anything at all? It seems to me that they either shuffle enormous amounts of money around, or are celebrities so narcissistic and distasteful that it makes me cringe.
I look at people on the street, wondering how they make money. Wondering how I would be surviving had I not been fortunate to have the financial freedom to do what I love rather than slave. And I am thinking that if my only option to sustain myself was to work in service sector (that’s where they seem to always force you into) preforming compliance and cheerfulness, I would choose to not be alive.
It comes down largely to luck, I think, where we end up in the money world. Most of people struggle and it will always be like that. All hail capitalism. There are success stories of course, like J.K. Rowling, or Andy Weir, or Stephen King to make us feel good.
I just so badly want every person to have the option to do what they want, to not forget or give up their dreams. We are hostages of our bodies, we need to feed them, care for them and shelter them. But it is other people who turn our biology into a tool of enslavement. I don’t know if there is a way out. All I know, is that money rules the world.
2025