Lately I have been trying to expand my musical library. 6 cds in 2 days? You might say I'm suceeding but it is really only 3 new bands.
Ugh, music is such an issue.
If I ever record stuff I don't think I would feel comfortable asking for money for it because art should be free and why should I be paid for things I love to do?
But I will (albiet grudgingly) pay for cds in the store and don't even like getting them free off file-sharing networks. I do want to support bands but I don't feel like a musician should expect support.
Whatever happened to having practical skills and letting that be your job?
I feel so cheated: no one taught me how to fix things around the house or even how a house works, no one taught me how to garden, no one taught me how to fix a car, no one taught me anything physical.
I have been taught to think and explain and reason and love.
But what am I supposed to do?
9 comments:
so you plan on "doing" something you hate??
It makes more sense to learn to love to do what is necessary than to search out doing only what you love, at least if we are talking about a job you are being paid for.
I want to do the things I love, of course, but I don't want to be paid for that. That just doesn't make sense. I love doing it: why should I demand something in return? That's just selfish. I should be content that I am doing it at all. But I need money of course, because no one seems to want to just give, they demand something in return. So I'm forced into the system, unless I had enough faith to believe that God would provide for me regardless of any situation, but I am lacking in that: I would get scared and feel like I needed to get a job regardless of it's necessity.
So I must get a job but the job I get should come from necessity: someone wants something done (hopefully something I can feel is worthwhile) and doesn't have anyone to do it.
The first job on my list is to work at a hospital. Then I wouldn't care what I was doing because a hospital in and of itself is a service. So helping the hospital is a service.
If not that, then I will take what I can get but it still has to be something I can feel is doing a service to society.
But, I have to stress how unnecessary this all is if everyone were to just SHARE. For God's sake and our sake people: SHARE. Then there wouldn't be any need for money at all! If everyone freely gave whatever it is that they are good at then we could just be content to know that whatever we need, someone will provide for us.
(And before I hear cries of "communism!" I'm not talking about government: I'm just talking about listening to the goodness in your hearts and doing it of your own free will. No force involved.)
Kudos on the Communism clarification. I'm not sure I agree with your "learning to love what is necessary". I mean do you mean that the "necessary" is stuff like taking out the garbage and chores that everybody hates but are NECESSARY to keep the machine running properly (which does sound sliiiightly communist:) In that case, i definitely disagree because as my job would take most of my time, i would hate to hate it and "learning to love it" would be a nice but unlikely thing to happen, resulting in my being unhappy. If it's selfish that I don't want to be unhappy, then I will make my peace with that (even though that's already the case for lots of reasons pertaining to human nature and other goodies). IF, however, you regard the "necessary" to be stuff like helping out society, then you're probably a better person than most (but we already knew that:). Personally, I am inclined to put my own happiness above everyone else's and, as I said before, I feel like one's job accounts for a large chunk of one's happiness or unhappiness. As far as the sharing thing goes though, I think that's brilliant. I don't know if you remember senior year when lukens made us come up with our own utopian society and I said that everyone should just work at whatever they chose (or COULD do, in order to protect the handicapped and otherwise incapacitated) and somehow pool all their earnings together and split them up evenly. A childish and naive idea with lots of holes, I know, but good in theory.
To start off, Fate, that was a post - not a comment. And well, now I feel compelled to jump into the conversation, albeit a little late due to my (irony) job. But here it goes, my view on the thing in discussion.
First of all, I agree mostly with what Fate is saying. However, some of it is slightly off in my opinion. Here's what I have begun to understand in life: There are things we love to do, things we have a passion to do. The reason we are made with those desires and passions for things is not just to sit around and "enjoy" ourselves. That, if anything, is selfish.
We're only put on this world to have a purpose. We live, we exist, we work because we have purpose. I can't imagine we are made with passions just to "enjoy" them - just to put them on the side, and say "Well, I can do that when I have spare time. Because while I love it, I can never do that with my life."
What sort of submission to society is that view of life?
That sort of thinking just allows people to buy into the concept that you must do something just to make money. That, despite its being useful and good, you have to spend your life doing something else because what you love, what you have passion for cannot "support you". Or because you wouldn't want it to. Because you just want to enjoy it.
But that's not life. Life isn't about putting aside what we love while we pine away at "jobs" that earn us a living. We're made with a passions so to lead us to do the thing we were made to do. The issue here is not, "Could I be paide for doing this? Will this earn me money? Can I live off this? Will I be ripping someone off if they pay me for this?"
We're supposed to do things because it gives us that purpose - because we were made to. What an insult to our creator to say, "Well, sure you made me to love this. But, you see I can't really do that. So I'll just do that on the side. Thanks for the suggestion, but that doesn't really seem useful enough to me. So I'll just do something else."
You see, it's not about money or how much will someone pay you. It isn't about what you can stand the thought of someone paying you for, even. If you live life like that - you live just like this world. Because life is about doing what we love to do, what we were created to do - and doing it for a reason.
Money isn't a good enough reason to be alive. Due to our existence in society, money is necessary. But it is still nothing more than a means. So we do do jobs that make us money because we need it to live -- but we don't resign ourselves to living for some "job", constantly doing what we were made to do as nothing more than a hobby that allows us to be selfish with out talents. That's absolutely absurd.
Instead, we only do those jobs until the door opens to allow us to do what we're made to do, regardless of the fucking money.
Rali, I agree with everything you just said, and I think that's part of what "Fate" was saying too. The way I gathered it is that not only does he not expect to be paid for something he loves, he doesn't even think he SHOULD be. Also, I would assume that he does plan on making use of his passions and serving his purpose, he just doesn't think he should be paid for them because having the ability to do that is rewarding enough, am i getting it so far? Personally, I would LOVE to be paid for something I already love to do and would consider myself very lucky if that happened to me. Why should I get a job that I'm not sure about just because it might help maintain the efficiency of the "machine", hoping that I MIGHT grow to LIKE it? Unless I misunderstood you (Fate) and you were talking about a whole different thing altogether. Also, I have nothing against helping people but, I confess, the sheer thought of having helped someone does not motivate me THOROUGHLY. Sure, I would love to have the opportunity to be a missionary FOR A WHILE and I can only imagine how rewarding that might be, but I highly doubt that will satisfy me forever. I admit I am selfish (big surprise) and if I go too long without having fulfilled my OWN goals and desires (hoping they will multiply with time because right now I frankly don't know what I want) too, I will likely start to resent everything that is keeping me from doing that. As you can see, I am still a bit unclear about the whole "learning to love the necessary" thing. All I am saying is that since the society we live in forces us to NEED money--and this is close to what I think you were saying, Rali-- why should we enslave ourselves to IT by doing something we are not passionate about just because it helps society develop? And yes, I know what you'll say, Fate: you have to LEARN to love it. But then, once you LEARN to love something, wouldn't you feel like it is, once again, a privilege for you to be doing it in the first place? Wouldn't you feel like you shouln't be getting paid in return for doing it? I'm officially confused now.
Ok clearing up time.
First of all to Rali:
No, you misunderstand me. What I am suggesting is that the things we love to do we should do and wholeheartedly but we shouldn't expect something in return for them. I don't think demanding something in return for the things you love to do is right. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't get anything in return.
What I am trying to suggest (and here I will address Brandy's concerns too) is that rather than thinking of how you will be supported or of your own needs we should be thinking about other people and trying to fill their needs.
Isn't that the whole point of Christianity? Isn't that the whole point of love?
Putting other people's needs above your own. Which we should be able to do having faith that God will provide. What I was saying is that as I don't have enough faith (something I'm working on) I will get a job, which provides a means for me to get my neccesities. But the job won't be something I love to do but rather some form of neccesity the community needs. Like working at a hospital. A hospital is trying to benefit the community in general so any kind of help is benefiting the community.
The logic is that if I don't have enough to not have a job, at least let my job be something service oriented and not based on something that makes me happy foremost.
Anyway, back to how it doesn't mean that you won't get anything in return. If everyone had the same idea of doing what they are good at without demanding something in return for it then you would be getting those things that they are giving. So everyone would be taking care of everyone and there wouldn't be the need for money.
I'm not talking about communism or throwing everything into a big pot and sharing but just giving without expecting anything in return. I'm just talking about love.
Isn't that what I was saying? Perhaps in different words - but the spirit was the same. We should do what we have the talents to do in order to help people because people are what matters. Not "financial stability" or wealth.
But, Fate, it sounds like you are trying to use this concept of love as an excuse to not have faith in that sort of life in this sort of world. Because we have to be honest, humans are never going to live in perfect love. Humans are never going to love each other wholly and create caring communities that fulfill everyone's needs. People are selfish and self-seeking creatures by their very nature.
Now, as I said above, I wholly agree with putting people's needs first. People and relationships are the only thing of significance in this world, therefore the needs of others should constantly supercede mine because service and selflessness is how one grows healthy relationships.
That said, I wasn't saying we should expect anything in return in the sense of payment. I was making the arguement that we shouldn't even be gauging the thing by such means. I was rather arguing that we're off-kilter if we measure what we ought to do with ourselves by whether or not we can make money. We should not look at something and decide if we should or should not expect something in return for it.
We should just do it, meeting people's needs through the means most accessible to us. And we should have faith that as we do what God considered worth-while enough to create us to do, then He will provide the money and thus the means. He will clothe us like the lillies of the fields and feed us like the birds of the air.
And really, as Fate pointed toward, the problem is just a lack of faith. We don't believe in it - in living like that, in abandoning all this rubbish about money and a career and making a living and settling down. And so, we give in to it - to society. And we let ourselves work jobs that we argue we could learn to love. But that isn't our problem - doing or not doing things we love. It's just because we don't have faith to live like we should.
I still don't think I agree with what I think you're saying regarding the "not getting paid for something you love" issue. Of course money shouldn't be the force that drives you to do it, we are all on the same page on that, but since you NEED that money, shouldn't you earn it for something that's also your passion? Well, I already know you'll answer "no" to that. That has been quite clear from your post. And as much as I hate to admit it, while I disagree with this, I think you're actually right in that you predicted what happens most of the time, inevitably. Not that I'm giving up on my dreams or anything (although I don't have very specific ones yet) but I think I WILL end up holding a job that I'll enjoy doing but won't be my passion (again, not that I have one of those yet). And to satisfy your other condition, almost all careers serve society in one way or another. The world needs teachers, as well as farmers, as well as doctors, and while it may not NEED artists, they sure make life's gritty more bearable, and music, books, movies, poetry, etc. are just so damn good to have around whether enriching, enlightening, or simply entertaining. Art (every form) is for the brain as fruit is for the body, for lack of a better analogy. But I'm sure you agree with that. However, when would those things ever get to us if someone didn't have the means to continue to produce them? And, frankly and as selfish as it might be (and it is), I'll still have to be passionate about my job, and I doubt I can ever grow to be passionate about fixing a car, or a sink, as necessary as that might be. But, I'm sure some mechanics and plumbers aren't passionate about their jobs either so kudos to them for sticking it out.
Disclaimer: I continue to be confused about the issue and the above-stated are only what I THINK I think. Thanks a lot Fate, for succeeding to make me lose sleep over more effing philosophy:-)
Man, how old is this parable I wrote?
I barely even remember this conversation.
Of course, I would agree with it now too but everything is a little different.
There is so much more complexity to everything that isn't apparent when you first look. And I think my first impressions on a lot of things in life are still true but sort of vaguely defined in the details. Now that the details have come up and reared their ugly-monster-hydra heads, have I kept to the spirit of things? Have I held firmly to the original truths I saw so clearly in conceptual thinking?
I don't know.
I feel like I do really well at thinking things through like this but I lose it all when it happens.
That's such a depressing thing to think...
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