Tuesday 6th January
Yes, today it was back to work and the madness of millions pushing and shoving their way to earn their wages. And amidst all the lunacy the thought struck me that there must be another way. Is the final endeavour of the human species to carry on industrializing and building cities and extracting fossil fuels and metals from the Earth until there is nothing but one vast over-populated and broken shell of a burnt-out planet left. And it is all madness. We all (in the West anyway) have far too much of everything and yet we all want more. Materialism has been so knocked onto our brains from an early age that most of us can think of nothing else. Each new i-phone that comes out, each new kitchen gadget, each new high-rise luxury flat in Docklands, each new sports car, each new fashion – all become desirable and must-haves, until we have them and soon realize that they have not really made us happy, just hungry for the next toy.
“Easy for you to say” – do I hear you say. And yes, I have enough of everything, so why should I be advocating that those coming after me should be less rewarded? But maybe it is only at this point – when, at last, things are financially easier and my future fairly secure that one can look back and question the sanity of it all.
Trouble is, if even a few of us can see the madness of our present consumerist lifestyle, and maybe have a vision of a more caring and kinder society where time is more treasured than money, how the hell do we get from here to there? Most political parties are arguing for a bigger slice of the cake for their particular electorate, either for some to be able to hold on to more despite the clamour from below or for a “fairer” distribution – both incidentally seeing an ever-expanding cake as the long-term answer. Strangely, with the increase of technology eating many many traditional jobs, and un or under-employment a real problem, nobody is campaigning for a shorter working week, where time could be freed up for people to really live their lives; work becoming an incidental not the defining role on their lives.
Anyway, even if I am just “pissing in the wind” at least I am thinking about alternatives to the madness we are all swallowed up in. Onwards and upwards folks.