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Everyone else seems to be pushing back with varying amounts of sarcasm and vitriol, so I want to chime in and say that I actually really feel you man. It is disheartening and demoralizing to be young working-age man in a feminized and rapidly aging society, where the only subject that appears to be up for debate is if our daily sacrifice-quota to the Boomer-Emperor on his Golden Stool should be 1,000 or 1,100 Psykers. My protestant work ethic was once strong, but lately when I look around me that motivation to doggedly pursue duty has diminished. Why do we work? The fortune you need to catch even a semi-pretty girlfriend today (which is one of the main benefits of such fortune, as it ever was) is vast indeed if you aren't a natural with the ladies, and the money one does earn is increasingly siphoned to sustain pensions and elderly care in the World's least subtle Ponzi scheme. And many times that care goes to those so marred by sickness that it is doubtful if their lives is of benefit to anyone, least of all themselves.
I don't believe in surrendering to sadness, but it's a sign of health to be distraught about a future where a small number of capital-owners live like kings while the rest of us are relegated to the saddest jobs in existence. I would in my heart think less of any young man who felt otherwise.
I sometimes feel the same way until I look at it from the other side. If I had no dignity and was completely willing to sell out any self-respectability I had, I could accomplish the same end. I truly don’t envy the lives these people lead. They’re hollow on the inside and can only live a psychologically comfortable life, living in the most supreme level of ignorance one can possibly imagine. Never believe these people when they put so much energy and emotion into telling you how happy they are. They aren’t trying to convince you, they’re trying to convince themselves. True happiness isn’t performative, it’s quiet and content.
I’ve also had the same opportunity to make much more money than I currently do but one thing I always come back to is “what am I doing this for?” I don’t need that much money, and I don’t have a family of my own to support. I was never one of those guys who if I had a billion dollars I’d be living the high life, chartering private jets to Dubai and dropping hundreds of thousands on gold chains. Even at my greediest I’d just be doing more of the same. Ordinary people don’t really envy the rich, they envy the lives they ‘think’ rich people live.
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I made my money in a very negative-sum, anti-social space and am now fortunately enough to be largely post-work but yeah I echo this. So much siphoning, so many of the tasks that are offered have no particular direct association with the creation of value and are poised to optimize meh processes. Not to echo the Margin Call sentiment, but few jobs are fortunate enough to actually be involved with the building of bridges these days.
What space? And do you have plans to try and fix things in society as a recompense for the harm you caused? Just curious, trying not to judge.
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I appreciate it. I am a bit surprised at the amount of vitriol and "duh you idiot" I am getting in the replies, but it is what it is.
I agree that surrendering to sadness and despair isn't the way. Despite my frustrations above I've found a lot of meaning and goodness in life outside of work. I do a job that I don't hate, that doesn't destroy me with stress, and focus on other areas of my life.
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