Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Ok so what do you think. Retirement has become, or evolved as, the secular substitute for Salvation in (in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word) in the cultural psychology. The state of comfortable retirement is equivalent to Heaven. This is a necessary component of the western psychology because it immortalizes the boon of our materialistic strife. Just as the suffering of the God-fearing, church-going, self deprecating Christian is rewarded by atonement with Christ and an eternity in Heaven in the presence of God, so is the torment of the cubicle imprisoned corporate peon rewarded by a peaceful, carefree life behind the reassuring walls of a gated retirement home.
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You are born, you are put in preschool so that you can go to kindergarten, and start your education. Your education progresses to high school where you strive to do well, so that you can go to a good college. (Save for tevon, we are all at this state in the process) You go to your college and work hard so that you can either get a good job, or go to grad school where you work even harder to have a better job. You work at your job in order to live in a house, pay the bills of that house, buy a car, and pay off that car. You do this for a long time until you own your house and car, at which point you work some more to reach the point where you have to work NO more, --> RETIREMENT. Then you live a life of no work until you die.
Based on this model, to which we are all adhering to at the present, if we remove the step "buy a house and car" the majority of the former steps would be obsolete. Without great monetary responsibilities, there is no necessity for a good job, and therefore, no need for college.
The majority of the steps in this process are not things that make us happy. And if we are not happy, then what is the point. No one really LIKES spending 5 days a week in classes, no one LIKES doing homework instead of playing outside. No one LIKES reading for class when they could be reading for pleasure. The only redeeming factor is that we like the IDEA of where this will inevitably get us, a place of happiness, usually retirement.
So instead of back loading the rewards of life's toils in retirement, why not spread them out over ALL life, and cut all this shit?
just flipped through the entire album of our new zealand trips and the other road trips--IT WAS EPIC
Tevon, I think this is an interesting parallel you drew between heaven and retirement, but I don't think I would call it a substitute. One doesn't really replace the other.
Also you say that the development of the idea of retirement came after the idea of heaven. Maybe it was the other way around. I see religion as fundamentally a way to control the masses. It seems to me the idea that you should work hard your whole life for a reward and the end is something that a factory owner would say to keep his workers from thinking like Chris and just doing whatever they want.
CHRIS!! did you write this???--I doubt it!--in a joking way -- the way the guy at the sports depot store did, in hamprshire. :D --"yeah--I DOUBT IT!"
its all good i just don't agree with all of the pessimism! "i wouldn't say no one LIKES' -- this night proves it--i love the current state of being that i found myself in, which happened to be WWU!
brownies dude!
comfortable retirement is heaven--this is your conclusion!--do you think you could add some premises and statements that could make this valid?? --just an idea so as to provide depth to this idea--
Granted, dante, your current state of being at WWU (at the time you wrote this) does not involve real work of any nature (yet). just smoking weed, chilling with people and hitting on girls by means of wearing a fuzzy jacket. (exactly my claim. monkey man = dee dubs!)
that said, i do agree that i was being rather cynical in my assessment of education/american life system, at the time i was rather frustrated with my homework and felt like hating on it. but i am still debating the necessity of a college education outside of a means to monetary stability. which for sure has its benefits.
at the moment it comes down to the fact that i would much rather be hiking some badass trail somewhere with you guys than sitting in my dorm room and analyzing the bible and looking longingly out my window as these atypically warm summer days pass by without much interaction with them.
in response to chris' perspective--yes, some of us are flowing down the path you have described. For me though incurring great monetary responsibilities is not the end goal that i pursue! the structures that were built and that we find ourselves confined to are set up for reasons: for efficiency, for adherence to the culture, to allow engagement, and for much more. if you are aware of these reasons-- you can transcend their intentions and find the deeper truths and realities--themes that transcend the times/culture and touch the eternities
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.--thoreau
Check it - chris engaging thoughtfully in intellectual conversation? word. I posit this: a self-designed post-secondary education is the way past the psychological/cultural pairing of college and monetary stability. They don't have to be tied; if we could all study what we liked, we would leave college with the knowledge necessary to initiate a happy, stable (not in the monetary sense) adult life that fulfills our desire for adventure (or whatever it is that's missing from the standard american post-baccalaureate lifestyle). Which sounds a lot like what happens at Hampshire. Hmmmm....
i think matt has struck the right chord
Haha, I got 2 paragraphs into writing an argument and realized that for the first time, in a very long time, I agree with you tevon and was disagreeing out of mere habit. This is a telling and profound correlation! The truth is retirement sounds like it sucks though. Degraded body, atrophying relations familial and social, and retirement is more than likely a a monetarily tumultuous time of life... blech
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