“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” ― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
Are we destined to work until the very end?
It seems that way.
Long gone are the halcyon ‘final salary’ pension days.
What a way to go.
I’ve done the maths.
Our house is very modest and yet the sunk costs – i.e. costs that will come around every month come what may – still equate to something in excess of £2,000 and that means you’d have to have more than a decent pension or savings to afford to retire.
Perhaps for a select few they won’t mind. What else will they do in their waning years? But I know that work is not life, less still bullshit jobs that proliferate like mushrooms in a dank forest. (Please don’t get me started on the abolition of work!)
My issue is a very simple one: if all we’re doing is working to pay the bills or to honour the moral order, then save for the odd holiday or celebration or ‘experience’, why the hell are we here?
In any event, it seems so shallow, so anaemic, so eviscerating of the soul.
Is there an alternative?
Of course, but that means we’d have to consider a very different way of being in the world, not least the fact that we’d have to get along with and help each other. Also, you’d need to demolish the capitalist infrastructure, redistribute the wealth of a few and return us to our animistic roots.
Does that sound appealing?
I doubt it.
In fact, it sounds like someone who needs to be consigned to the asylum!
Even if I’ve got this all wrong (I’m happy to debate the point), why are we here absent our obsession with work? To procreate? To consume the earth’s resources? Or for some other reason?
In the final analysis, as I’ve said so very often, nothing I say will matter a happeth. Everyone will be taken in and taken under by the project of moribund work and assume this is normal.
But I know it’s not and I’m not about to shut the ‘f’ up** because I can’t find a willing audience.
How say you?
Will you be working until you drop?
Blessings,
Julian
**This will be my last ‘daily’ post and henceforth I shall write once a week — most likely on a Saturday or Sunday. I need to focus all my effort on my book — the one I’ve mentioned more times than I’d care to admit. Thank you for all your kindness and support and here’s to the next chapter on the Summerhayes-as-a-new-man journey.
Well said! Keep writing. We need you. Looking forward to the book! 🙏❤️