Hustled Through Life
Most people, sad to say, are too rushed, frightened, and confused to think about what they really want out of life. They are hustled through school, forced into long-term decisions before they’re ready to face them, then held to those decisions by fear and shame. They choose from a limited set of options, and they know that change will be punished.
Eventually they get old and find time to think, but by then they can’t bear to question too deeply; that would jeopardize their self-worth, and they haven’t time to rebuild it.
For an intelligent, creative, and expansive species like ours, this rush to nowhere is among the greatest of evils. And yet it continues, mostly unquestioned. At no point in the usual Western life do we stop, take some serious time for ourselves, and think about the overall:
- What’s life about anyway? What’s the point of what we do?
- What’s the purpose of a career? Why should I care about it above everything else?
- Why should I glorify the existing system? Why should I agree to support it?
- Who paid for everything I learned in school?
- Should I have a family? If so, why? If not, why not?
- What do I think is fun? Does it really coincide with the beer ads on TV?
- What’s the purpose of being like everyone else? Why am I so afraid to be different?
We don’t address such questions. Rather, we’re pushed past them. Even in a church or synagogue – places where larger questions are supposed to be addressed – the person in the pulpit wants us to become and/or remain a member of the congregation; their job depends upon it. There are true ministers and rabbis, but for most it’s all too easy to push their audience into what’s convenient.
As a result, we see little motivation in the modern West, save for the basest of motivators: things that match a line from the Bible that says, “Whose god is their belly.”
Mind you, I’m not against wealth, good food, or sex. I think those are fine things. They are not, however, the whole of life. We are much bigger than that. We ought not be limited to belly-level aspirations. But when we’re rushed, that’s all we’re able to see.
Status and Fear
The two big motivators we face in this rush through life – fear and status – are both negative.
Fear is a manipulation technology; people who make you afraid are hacking your mind. They want you to ignore reason and obey them fast. (I wish I could cover this in depth here, but we haven’t space. Please see issue #54 of my subscription newsletter.)
When we’re afraid, we make our worst choices. Put plainly, fear makes us stupid. But we encounter it on a daily basis… and it destroys us by inches.
Status is the compulsion to compare ourselves with others, and whether we’re looking for the ways we’re better than others or looking for our shortcomings, it is deeply destructive. It’s also irrational, but the advertising business would crash without it and advertisers currently own the collective eyeballs of humanity.
Fear and status are, in a broad sense, drugs, and if you had a choice between smoking pot every day or being on fear and status every day, I’d definitely recommend the pot.
Confusion
Let’s be clear on something: Nearly every adult in the West will agree that politicians are liars and thieves… and yet they obey them without question. Is there any possibility we’d do such things if we weren’t harried and confused?
When we are confused, we pass over our own minds and their deliberations. There’s an old joke: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” But that’s precisely what confusion does to us, and under the pressures of confusion and authority, most people will ignore their own eyes.
Such things do not happen to people who are calm and confident. But the existing hierarchies of the West couldn’t function with a calm and confident populace; their operations require people to be frightened, confused, and blindly chasing status.
As a Result…
As a result, most of us hurry through life, never knowing why. We live as others do, simply because that path is streamlined for us, exposing us to a minimal level of fear and shame. But that path does something else: It keeps us from experiencing ourselves.
Seldom has this problem been put more succinctly than in this quote from Albert Einstein:
Small is the number of them who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
Stop following the crowd. Turn your back on the popular script. Stop feeding at the same trough as everyone else. Break away and learn to see with your own eyes, to feel with your own heart.
Don’t conform. Let people criticize you. Decide for yourself what your life will be about. Make it matter.
* * * * *
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You may never look at life the same way again.
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* * * * *
Paul Rosenberg
[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]
I’m not afraid to face the problems in life. I do enjoy wealth, good food, and sex. I’m not afraid to be “different”. I know I am doomed. And yes, I love pot. There. I said it. It feels good to confess.
My buddy Phil would laugh saying that in any other country, wearing torn jeans and being skinny was a sign of poverty. In another country poor people build their own homes and grow their own food.
Back in the 80’s, an immigrant from Mexico was talking about his brother who refused to come to the USA. He says America is a system of debt. In Mexico he could build his own house and be free of debt for life. No, he refused to even consider coming to the US.
Every aspect is commercialized here. Pay toilets were only the beginning. Now you pay for water. You can buy air at an oxygen bar. You pay gym fees to get exercise. You pay for other people to cook your food. You pay for the opportunity to make small talk. You pay somebody to save your money for you.
We need another Lincoln to emancipate the debt slaves.
Good post EC.
I hate what this place has become. The south of France is looking better all the time.
Stubb, I used to love me some pot back in the 70s. Nowadays I get as big a kick out of French roast coffee and a 6×60 Nicaraguan cigar. ‘Course doomed ain’t got nothin to do with smokin a cigar, so I can’t supersize with you on the doomed part.
My son has it going on.
He started a company seven years ago, got it up to 30 people, just sold it last night and was giddy happy with freedom last night. (I think he was a bit high from pot too)
He grew tired of the stress, the personal risk, being responsible for 30 people, their families, and the main issue that did it in for him was the day to day gripes and lack of work ethic demonstrated by his millennial workforce.
He, his wife and two boys are going to slow way down. Good for him because after 30 years of self employment for me and my wife, life has been a blur with it’s share of regrets.
That time is gone, all we have left is what is in front of us, and that could end at any time.
Ed, I was being somewhat sardonic. Coffee and cigars are more my style these days as well.
Bea Lever if you want to live in a highly taxed and expensive country with masses of spoilt welfare-union cybabies and masses of criminal immigrants from North Africa – and full of debt – then France is your place.
Some people live life on the terms that are given to them by others, some people live life on their own terms without paying attention to the expectations of others.
Which side is happier is difficult to determine, but most of those on either side would be miserable on the other.
this is a great post,
I’ll bet a lot of folks can identify with this feeling.
hurry up, and enter the debt trap.
but what is the opposite of this meme, or rather, what does the author propose?
don’t lift a finger, let someone else work.
and it seem like this has been the meme for a certain segment of the population for the past 8 years:
Get your free shit now, before it all disappears.
At the end of the day, the folks who hurry up, and get things done, can afford to relax and look back on accomplishments, while the FSA has to worry about their next fix, for eternity.
” the folks who hurry up, and get things done, “…….
….Usually have to go back and do them over, ’cause they fucked up, ’cause they got in a hurry.
No applause, please. I know I’m a got dang genius.
While I can’t personally testify, the word is the south France is a no-go,
and 70-80% black.
Suzanna- Not in this particular area near Spain. Google Languedoc-Rousillion.
The EU does not fluoridate the water or allow GMOs. Men still like women there and it is laid back. They may ship in some mooslims before its all over but look what we have to deal with here.
Good post as far as it goes. I was lucky with a 50/50 life. The first half was devoted to all the things everyone told me I had to do and be, and I did and was in the material world, and succeeded by those standards. At mid-life I changed direction 180 degrees to look for things I may have missed the first time around… and found the Spiritual arena. Thus, the first half of my life was devoted to the material world I found myself in, and the second half, was preparation to return to wherever it was I came from, and to God. Consciousness of Self is as good as anybody can hope to do, and something of a relief too.