What ought?
It is the year 4000. Humans have perfected a procedure to lengthen their lifespan by a factor of 10 by slowing down the process of ageing. The average lifespan is 850 and climbing.
She dances and people are kind to her, for she is considered very young. Her friends are all very supportive of her (people of her age all look like infants). They all watch her performances and applaud politely when it is over. One might wrongly assume that she is just awful at dancing or physical coordination in general. The issue is that casual dancers have an average of 80 years of experience in a 23 year old equivalent body. Since people her age do not usually dance with her (due to obvious physical differences), she appears uncoordinated and inexperienced in comparison to her physical-peers.
Net, one of her closer friends, commented privately that she looked really out of place dancing a few years ago. Panda did not take it very well. Although she acknowledged the point he was trying to make with her words, Net saw the change in her expression that lingered even when the topic changed. Net, being reasonably emotionally astute, stopped and prevented other people in their circle of friends from making the same "mistake".
In another incident, her parents semi-jokingly said that she should pursue something that did not require decades of practice to master. She asked softly, "am I that bad?". To which, the reply was obviously "no, of course not, you dance very well dear".
So Panda danced and was glad. For her friends and family told her that she danced well and she was happy to dance, and also, to dance well. It was somewhat interlinked. Of course she could be happy dancing without dancing well, but that would be a very different kind of happiness and perhaps, a different amount of happiness.
Sometimes she wondered whether people were just placating her. Especially when she saw her own recordings and watched other dancers performing. She would ask her friends, but her fears would be allayed. She was, after all, only a child. And she would die a child. 80 years is not that long a time, she could live her life in ignorant bliss. And it was not particularly hard for them to make her happy. She had many lovable qualities. It felt good to make her happy.
At 40 years old, she performed a concert. With a solo segment. Packed with friends and family. To a standing ovation.
I really wanted to get this out before leaving for SWAT
Proud and uh, rather self-centered.
I know duty. Duty is what I am obliged to do, usually because of some identity or role that I hold.
I know admiration. Admiration is when you see someone do something that you wish you could do. Or be someone you wish you could be. Or possess some trait that you wish you could possess.
I know envy. Envy is wanting that which another has. This is different from admiration in that in admiration, the person possessing is of no threat to oneself while in envy, the person possessing is of threat. Admiration seems pure-r to me.
I know lust. Lust is that which you feel, as physical attraction and a desire to touch, to possess, to control, to have sex with someone.
What else do I know?
I know infatuation. Infatuation is when you get nervous around a person because of some sort of fondness for the person.
Does any of these make love? Are these parts of love? I think envy, lust and infatuation cannot be part of love. Not even sure if love is definable in terms of duty and admiration.
I know sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving up of something for another. This other can be another thing or person. Duty seems to entail sacrifice of some sort.
Does love include sacrifice? Seems that love would lead to sacrifice but I don't think sacrifice is an intrinsic part of love. I think some love that does not require sacrifice would still be love? Maybe within the trinity? Perhaps love includes some potential to sacrifice, some sort of counterfactual that if sacrifice were needed, sacrifice would be made.
I know desire. Desire is the wanting of something. Usually the wanting to possess but here, there are many forms of possession. It can range from very self-indulgent to wanting to be one with.
Probably love includes some sort of desire. It seems hard to fathom a love that does not desire. Duty can be without desire (other than desire to do duty?) but love has to include desire for that which is being loved.
I'm not sure whether I know good. Love seems to be something good. And not just something good, it seems to be thoroughly good. In that it is good pointing towards good in a good way. My old definition of love, which I used, is to desire and work towards the good of someone (or similar).
Oh that reminds me, is love just desire? Or does it need action? Does it have to be will rather than just desire? How much power is there to choose love?
This choosing to love. How does it work? Can you choose to be attracted to something (cue some debate about homosexuality)? Or can you choose to see something as lovable? Can you choose to see something as cute?
Or perhaps it is about acting in a way that will nurture this feelings?
IS LOVE A FEELING? I THINK IT HAS TO BE WAY MORE THAN A FEELING.
ACTUALLY I THINK IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE A FEELING AT ALL.
BUT IF NOT, THEN WHAT?
Love is the answer. But what is love? Like seriously. And how does one know love?
Also, if a society cedes control must it always be towards uniformity or something like that? Or towards some sort of centrally planned? How about serious anarchism.
Also, what is appropriate punishment?
I re-realised. That I am very much flawed.
Pride, the standard sin is there. Maybe stronger than ever though under the guise of something else. It repulses me, the depths that my pride pierces into my core.
Lust, well... very present too. Fight it, I must. Tiring though. Wonder whether it will ever be a non-issue.
Sloth, hmmm... Clearly slothful. Do I fight this? Maybe not so much. TOO LAZY TO FIGHT SLOTH?? Lmao, what a joke
Jealousy, hmmmmmm.... I thought, at the end of the first year of uni, that it was very much overcome (or at least to a large enough degree). But recently... dang. Pangs of jealousy like never before.
What does jealousy show? Discontentment. A desire to possess. Pride/selfishness.
Wrath, hmmmmmmmmm... I also thought that I have had quite some control over my temper. But... again, certain recent happenings expose failures here. More frightening is that I like the power that comes with it. But what is this power?
Actually, I think the "will to power". Is so subtle man. One can self deceive quite easily tbh.
Do I love God? Do I want to be a Christian? Do I KEEP LOOKING AT THE WORLD and appreciating the world???
Love cannot turn into hate. You can't say you used to love a person or something and then, when you don't have it, you get angry and want to destroy it, want to hate it.
I feel, if you see something you appreciate and 欣赏, the general response is to want to keep it, to possess it. Here the idea of possession or keeping is not possessive in the sense of a selfish possession or control or dominion over it, but the idea of being one with it, or of relating very deeply with it.
I think that perhaps, borrowing some sort of CS Lewis way of thinking, it is seeing something as it should be. You know, seeing a person being kind to a stranger. Seeing immense beauty. Hearing insanely glorious music. Seeing a person studiously, meticulously work towards a goal, achieving the goal. Seeing the innocence of a child. Seeing the well coordinated action of dance. Creatively solving a problem. Seeing joy light up a person's face. Seeing a great feat of athleticism, of endurance.
Does one get the feeling this is how things should be?
Think back to when you first fell in love. There was this period of bliss. Of, hey, this is what some sort of deep mutual acceptance feels like. Not just that it feels great, it feels like this is what I was created for. Just feels like home, more than a home, a womb, more than a womb, some sort of gelling into place. A sense of epiphany, that this is how things should be. Feels like the most natural thing in the world when you have only felt it for the first time. Feels like all life should be like that only when you have the slightest of a taste.
Think one word they use is awe. I think awe has this natural feel to it. A non-cognitive recognition of value, of worth.
Aquinas speaks of a beatific vision. Where one sees God and all else becomes incomparable. All words fail to describe, metaphors and all.
I think these glimpses are like what it should be. Sort of, fallen reflections of what should be. How does one describe the just-rightness of some act, of some trait. Oh but how I marr it. After seeing it I want to possess it. Of course, if I were perfect, I would possess it in the relational way most beautifully for I would be most beautiful too. And we or "I and it" would be glorious.
But I, tainted being, reach out to grasp for it with my tainted fingers. And when I touch it, it turns black, corrupted. When I take a closer look even without touching, it too is tainted, subtly. Sometimes I do not dare to touch what is beautiful, for fear of upsetting it. I dare not relate to that which seems glorious, for I know that which I am is bound to taint it. So what do I do? I stand at the fringe and appreciate it. And long for it.
Perhaps firstly is to know that it too is tainted. And perhaps not that much less than I.
Oh to long for the day when I will no longer be tainted. Nor it, and then we can relate perfectly, as we should, as it was created for us.
Of course all these pales in relation to God. But what extrapolation is there for a relation to God? Seems rather indescribable .
I am not sure if the title is misleading. Perhaps other generations have dreamt of renting.
But today's generation. Alot of smart people have a dream, and the dream is to be rich without working. To generate passive income. To live without producing anything of value.
I wanted, when I was young, to earn enough money to buy three houses. 2 for renting out and one to live in. Or it can be through shares. Enough shares to live off the dividends.
The thinking was that if I can have these amounts of passive income, I can constantly grow rich without lifting a finger. Or at the very least I can survive (comfortably enough) without needing to toil. Of course, at the start perhaps I can put in effort. Slog a few years just to accumulate wealth. Accumulate massive wealth. That would mean doing something in some industry where the wealth is. Some industry that is protected, that not anyone can get in. Because supply and demand, yknow, scarcity. If one is not naturally talented enough to be a professional football player or equivalent, maybe, investment banking? Maybe... some sort of entrepreneurship activity? How else does one go rich quickly? Enough to buy 3 houses and slack off for the rest of one's life. Oh, sorry, not slack off, but to enjoy the rest of one's life.
Surely one can't be a teacher, nor a policeman, nor a engineer, nor a govt worker, I would think. Perhaps one could be a criminal, perhaps be a small time gang boss, control drug trade and/or prostitution, somewhere with the money. Maybe run an illegal gambling den for a few years. These could yield enough money. Or perhaps one could be a doctor or a lawyer. There are significant barriers to entries there. Good grades, some sort of effort, reasonable interview skills. Quite alot of effort actually. Maybe after selling the better part of one's life one can arrive with enough money maybe around 40 years old? But the scaling for these professions aren't quite like that. The older, more experienced, you are the more money you command. So... Maybe you could amass that amount of money when you are 40, but if you worked from 40-50 you could amass the same amount (because you earn twice as much now). Why not do it? Hmm. Yet if one does it, where does one's time go to? Of course I am not saying that these jobs are meaningless. If these jobs are in the work itself, the creative work, perfectly fine, the money is not even a consideration. If money is a consideration though, perhaps it ought to be separately considered. For how much money can buy some sort of creative satisfaction in a job? I dunno, I don't think it is much. Maybe one could be an artist, a writer. Could hit them big bucks. Be a Rowling. She wrote harry potter when she was 50+ though (I think). Spent much of her life as a teacher.
When one is rich, one can have lots of things. Most of all, presumably, one can have time. This is assuming one does not get caught in the cycle of getting richer and richer and richer and richer. Which is rather alluring, I guess. One can have time freed up from toiling to pursue one's own interests. Presumably one's own interest might be less self indulgent.
Will they be though?
For one, being self-indulgent, chasing these self-indulgent dreams of being a rentier changes a person. In the constant striving towards the maximisation of one's own profits and/or returns, one is cultivating a way of thinking. Oh perhaps I will help my family and those close to me. Of course you will. How is that less self-indulgent? Ok maybe, abit. Depends on how you see it though.
But such rentier dreams are terribly self-indulgent. To earn enough money so that I can do whatever I want. What about the society? What about the church? What about the poor? What about whatever else? Oh, but when I become rich, I will have the time to care about these things. I could volunteer, I could use my skills and expertise, I could use my time.
If you can do it with more money and more time and more energy, why not do it now? I think now the only thing lacking is money, and... perhaps we overestimate the power of money abit too much. Think about it, if this (whatever meaningful stuff you are gonna do) really is the aim, with all the time and energy translated into money, you could have THAT MUCH MORE time and effort (i.e 10 years of your life or something). Surely translating it into money then using said money is a less efficient way of achieving whatever meaningful stuff you are trying to achieve rather than just directly investing your time and effort?
This idea of a comfortable life really distracts man. When one has the means to be comfortable, one will be comfortable. And one will expend energy and time and money to be comfortable. I think being comfortable really weakens one's drive towards anything that is not in pursuit of more comfort or the means to be more comfortable. How hard is it to 吃苦 after one has tasted the sweetness of material luxury? That was rhetorical. It is pretty darn hard, I would think.
The irony is that, not everyone can be a rentier. If everyone owns houses and nobody pays rent, houses wont be worth shit as passive income. If everyone owns stocks and nobody works, stocks wouldn't be worth shit either. The gains, the money one gets has to come from somewhere. Somebody has to be producing something to match the money being accumulated from these rents. Somebody has to grow food, someone has to clear waste, someone has to produce food, someone has to clean tables someone has to build houses .etc .etc.
It is sad that the value produced by these people are not accurately captured (or rather, they are in some sense accurately captured by their demand and supply) (I don't have to tell you that I'm oversimplifying and I am not an economist). Alot of the value in the sense of what they produce being worth, is being taken up by these people, somewhere up the chain. So they get the value (sorta the lowest pay possible if they can find a substitute, they would get another person to do the job with lower pay), and yet, the value to society/humankind/whatnot is way more than that pay. Where does the value go to? Probably the people selling the things that they make. Something like that. And where does it end up?
I don't know. I know (or at least, hold with a high degree of credence) it is not with the people that do these work.
This rentier dream is a great pity. Why not dream to create value instead. To grow food more efficiently. To transport people more efficiently. To whatever not, solve environmental problems? To cure diseases? Other than for the money. Why must money be the motivator? What happened to creating value as the motivator. Perhaps because money does not accurately reflect the value created that has all these problems today... But when has money accurately reflected the value of work?
Actually this is quite interesting. Is there anyway that it can be made to more accurately reflect?
For sure if someone is stranded on a island, whatever he produces he gets the same value. How does money change this thing. I think money doesn't actually change in a perfectly competitive whatnot, each person can still sell whatever he produces at the price he feels is right. It is quite hard to bully a person because that thing is worth that much (I think...) Think the bullying comes in when there is threats of violence and/or law. Basically if a person says, hey, watering hole is mine. Pay money to take this water (which he did not particularly do anything for, say maybe he dug the hole once upon a time but there is no other source of water. Then he can be a rentier. But through artificial means, by restricting other people from getting value from some sort of shared resource. I think. Anyway, as you can see, it is alot of thinking and not very polished. Someone could polish this. Would be appreciated.
I personally am quite against this whole rentier thing. Though, of course, I doubt it can be brought down, or that it is even good to bring down. What I am trying to get is, perhaps, seeing how it arises, see how I, as a lone human (perhaps with people who think similarly to me, maybe some sort of tribe or something) can position myself in a way so as to not fall prey to it and yet, perhaps, achieve that which ought to be achieved rather than that which most people want to achieve.
[[Book wishlist (lend me pls)]]
[[The Story Thus]]
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[[The Talk (also silent)]]
[[The Ancients]]