(no subject)
So I realized that the tint on my new window is the correct color. The tan color "fades" to blue-grey as it ages, as evidenced by the original windows having a strip of tan along the top edges, where they fit into the door frames. Huh.
(Also, after looking around online, I now know how to fix dents with a hair dryer and canned air, and how to remove aftermarket tint with a clothes steamer. This is useful in that I have an old dent, and the tint on the rear window is bubbling up and was kinda getting on my nerves anyway. DIY FTW!)
So I'm gonna rant against the illusion of independence again. I don't know why this is my pet subject (or pet peeve), but I've been thinking about it again.
(And I suppose that it's partially my pet subject because it is so darn common in Western thinking.)
What gets me, I think, is that the illusion is so thin. Scratch at the surface and it blows away like ashes. Because I think what we've done is confuse freedom of choice with independence. Those are two completely different things.
You know who's independent? The mountain man who lives off what he grows or kills. That is a man of independence. No one makes his food. No one gives him money. If he's hardcore, he's making his clothes and soap and house and tools and everything else, too. He relies on no one. No one can tell him to come or go, to do this or that, because they have nothing to hold over him. He lives entirely by his own strength.
But he doesn't have a lot of choice. He'll be spending hours upon hours hunting things, trapping things, foraging, tending a garden, caring for livestock, tanning hides, shaping tools, building stuff. Every day he cooks for himself, and probably has to spend a lot of time curing meat and drying vegetables and fruits so that he can survive the times he can't get more. He lives by his own strength, but his own strength is all he can live on. There is no pooling of resources, there are no efficiencies of scale. Every task must be done, discreet, for him. He is "independent" in that he depends on no one but himself, but in so doing, he is entirely a slave to his own survival.
Even having one more person to share it all with would ease his load. But then he would no longer be independent.
If I lived alone, I would be living the common conception of independence. It's easy to see why. I pay all my bills myself, and have for some years now. I would get up every morning, getting ready in my own bedroom and my own bathroom, put together my own breakfast, go down to my own car which I bought myself, drive to work by myself, do my job, eat the lunch I packed for myself, go home, type this all up on the laptop I bought with the money I earned...
But I didn't build my apartment house. I didn't sew my clothes or grow my food. My car is from a factory and gets maintained by a mechanic named Roger. I pay for all of it with money given to me by a corporation that I must work for forty hours a week - more during Quarter End. Likewise, my company gets their money from contracts they have with broker/dealers and money managers, paying us out of the profits they get from fees from their clients, who've got their money from building or engineering or teaching or managing or farming or a thousand other things. And so on down the line.
Because of this interdependence, I have freedom of choice - quite a bit more than the mountain man. I pick my clothes, and buy the CDs I like. I take vacations, knowing that wherever I go, someone'll take my money in exchange for the food or lodging I need. My apartment is warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and on Saturday I'm paying someone to cut my hair the way I like it.
But the mountain man and I have something else in common: though he may not rely on any other human, the fact is, he isn't actually independent. Because he's human.
We must both eat. We must both have clothing. We must both have shelter, heat against the cold, and clean water. The mountain man must have learned his skills from somewhere - he had parents, he had teachers, maybe his parents were his teachers, but that doesn't change the point. We are creatures of flesh and blood as well as mind and spirit, and all of them must be fed. The last man left on earth might be able to eke out an existence for awhile, but with no one to care for him, no one to support him, no one to protect him and bear him up when he needs it, he would die young. If he didn't commit suicide first.
We call ourselves "independent" when we make enough money to purchase our needs. This is a joke. We are no more independent than when we relied on our parents; the only difference being that we are contributing with our work, and therefore get to decide where the paycheck goes.
So why shouldn't we also use that other currency, friendship? Why not pay some things with time and effort and a turn about? If we don't pay a friend with friendship, then we'll be paying a stranger with money, which is not remotely as fun. We depend on each other no matter what we do. For some things, it's better that we depend on those we love, and they depend on us. Then we'll all be richer.
I don't know what the body shop used to clean my car with, but it smells weird.
(Also, after looking around online, I now know how to fix dents with a hair dryer and canned air, and how to remove aftermarket tint with a clothes steamer. This is useful in that I have an old dent, and the tint on the rear window is bubbling up and was kinda getting on my nerves anyway. DIY FTW!)
So I'm gonna rant against the illusion of independence again. I don't know why this is my pet subject (or pet peeve), but I've been thinking about it again.
(And I suppose that it's partially my pet subject because it is so darn common in Western thinking.)
What gets me, I think, is that the illusion is so thin. Scratch at the surface and it blows away like ashes. Because I think what we've done is confuse freedom of choice with independence. Those are two completely different things.
You know who's independent? The mountain man who lives off what he grows or kills. That is a man of independence. No one makes his food. No one gives him money. If he's hardcore, he's making his clothes and soap and house and tools and everything else, too. He relies on no one. No one can tell him to come or go, to do this or that, because they have nothing to hold over him. He lives entirely by his own strength.
But he doesn't have a lot of choice. He'll be spending hours upon hours hunting things, trapping things, foraging, tending a garden, caring for livestock, tanning hides, shaping tools, building stuff. Every day he cooks for himself, and probably has to spend a lot of time curing meat and drying vegetables and fruits so that he can survive the times he can't get more. He lives by his own strength, but his own strength is all he can live on. There is no pooling of resources, there are no efficiencies of scale. Every task must be done, discreet, for him. He is "independent" in that he depends on no one but himself, but in so doing, he is entirely a slave to his own survival.
Even having one more person to share it all with would ease his load. But then he would no longer be independent.
If I lived alone, I would be living the common conception of independence. It's easy to see why. I pay all my bills myself, and have for some years now. I would get up every morning, getting ready in my own bedroom and my own bathroom, put together my own breakfast, go down to my own car which I bought myself, drive to work by myself, do my job, eat the lunch I packed for myself, go home, type this all up on the laptop I bought with the money I earned...
But I didn't build my apartment house. I didn't sew my clothes or grow my food. My car is from a factory and gets maintained by a mechanic named Roger. I pay for all of it with money given to me by a corporation that I must work for forty hours a week - more during Quarter End. Likewise, my company gets their money from contracts they have with broker/dealers and money managers, paying us out of the profits they get from fees from their clients, who've got their money from building or engineering or teaching or managing or farming or a thousand other things. And so on down the line.
Because of this interdependence, I have freedom of choice - quite a bit more than the mountain man. I pick my clothes, and buy the CDs I like. I take vacations, knowing that wherever I go, someone'll take my money in exchange for the food or lodging I need. My apartment is warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and on Saturday I'm paying someone to cut my hair the way I like it.
But the mountain man and I have something else in common: though he may not rely on any other human, the fact is, he isn't actually independent. Because he's human.
We must both eat. We must both have clothing. We must both have shelter, heat against the cold, and clean water. The mountain man must have learned his skills from somewhere - he had parents, he had teachers, maybe his parents were his teachers, but that doesn't change the point. We are creatures of flesh and blood as well as mind and spirit, and all of them must be fed. The last man left on earth might be able to eke out an existence for awhile, but with no one to care for him, no one to support him, no one to protect him and bear him up when he needs it, he would die young. If he didn't commit suicide first.
We call ourselves "independent" when we make enough money to purchase our needs. This is a joke. We are no more independent than when we relied on our parents; the only difference being that we are contributing with our work, and therefore get to decide where the paycheck goes.
So why shouldn't we also use that other currency, friendship? Why not pay some things with time and effort and a turn about? If we don't pay a friend with friendship, then we'll be paying a stranger with money, which is not remotely as fun. We depend on each other no matter what we do. For some things, it's better that we depend on those we love, and they depend on us. Then we'll all be richer.
I don't know what the body shop used to clean my car with, but it smells weird.