Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 112
Labor Day and the cosmic trickster
O
n the Friday before the holiday
that celebrates the
American worker, it seems
only appropriate we put
a “squinky” eye to the
whole concept of working
for a living.
And in doing so, my
friends, it becomes obvious that we have been
conned.
I hereby submit that working is unnecessary.
In fact, it is downright
damaging to the spirit.
Now, please don’t get me
wrong. I love the American
worker — that is, as long as
he is not me.
But you see, those of us
who have found true enlightenment have discovered this:
The idea that people need to
work for a living was sadistically foisted upon our ancestors by the cosmic trickster a
long time ago.
And worse yet, it has been
handed down from generation to generation like a defective chromosome.
But it is a falsehood.
Did the pharaohs work?
Hardly. Does Paris Hilton work? I seriously doubt
it. It would seem these people merely lucked into lives
in which everybody around
them did/does work for them.
“But these are the unusual
few,” you cry. “The rest of us
must work to survive.”
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
“Survival is overrated,” I
say.
Before I explain, I have to
specify.
If all your labors are labors of love, well, good on
ya. But you’re a freak and I
want nothing further to do
with you.
And you are excused from
class today. Go out and, you
know, create a masterpiece or
something. We don’t need no
showoffs ’round these parts.
If, however, you are normal, your labors are either labors of futility or, at the very
least, laborious. And every minute you spend doing
something you don’t want to
do, just to earn a buck, is psychologically and physically
damaging.
It also wastes that precious
minute that could have been
better spent contemplating
eternity or, at least, picking
navel lint.
Oh, I can feel your rumbling. Most of you are picturing your houses and cars and
Speedos and thinking you
need to work to own these
things.
I propose that you do
not need to own these
things. In fact, of late,
many of you are finding
out you really don’t own
them anymore — regardless of all the backbreaking work you’ve put in.
Still others of you are
thinking you need to work
so your children can eat.
Why bother? You’re just
creating another generation
of brainwashed droids. Stop
feeding them and you stop
the madness. The degrading baton of labor will not be
passed on.
Instead, it will be dropped
and, hopefully, kicked into a
sewer drain.
“Well then, I need to work
so at least I can eat,” you say.
And here, finally, we have
the core issue. The sustaining
of life requires energy. And
that energy must be stolen.
Plants work to steal energy
from the sun. Grazers work to
eat plants to steal the plants’
energy. Carnivores work to
eat the grazers to steal the
grazers’ energy.
Your employer (otherwise
known as the pharaoh) steals
your energy for himself —
and gives you just enough reward, in the form of cash, so
you foolishly think you have
a good deal and will keep
slaving away.
You then use this cash to
purchase energy from a different pharaoh in the form of
Big Macs and such. But this
pharaoh is turning a profit
from your efforts, too.
As you can see, the whole
sustaining-life thing — i.e.
work — is based on theft, subterfuge and downright murder. These are hardly the cornerstones of a noble endeavor.
At this point, a few of you
free thinkers will bring up
Buddhist monks and such,
attempting to say they have
conquered the whole working-for-a-living thing and risen above it.
But no, they’re still eating,
still stealing energy. They’re
just really good at it. People hand it over to them without expecting anything useful in return. (Think Paris is
a monk?)
So you pointedly ask me
what the alternative is. Will I
rage against the machine and
stop working, stop consuming, stop eating?
Will I shrivel up and die
during an anti-work hunger
strike?
What, me?
No, I’m going out for a Big
Mac — and then it’s back to
work after lunch.
But I hereby put it in the record that I’m onto their tricks.
Why, one of these days ... .
And this weekend, once
again, I will take the day that
is grudgingly offered me as a
holiday. However, I will not
be celebrating the day or the
fact I am being used so egregiously the rest of the year.
They aren’t fooling me.
The whole idea of work is
evil.
And the monk thing is
looking pretty good.
“Oooooommmm-no-laborno-labor-no-labor-oooooommmmm”….
Jim Walker’s lazy opinions
are really not those of The
Signal. Yet, somehow, he can
be reached there: jwalker@
the-signal.com.
