this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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Thomas Paine posited that if a man, unencumbered by society, could meet his basic needs (food, shelter, etc) in x hours of work per day, then society owed that same person the same basic standards of life for working that same x hours per day. Where I'm from, the Native Americans had to work about 2 hours a day to meet their needs, and so became really great artisans with their "free" time.
Closer to present, my parents were able to buy a comfortable suburban home while working relatively low paying government jobs. That includes my mom taking off approx 6 years to take care of my sister and I until we started elementary school.
When Europeans first came to America, there were schools of cod off the coast that you could literally dangle an empty hook into the water and catch fish. Passenger Pigeons darkend the sky for days on end with their migrations, and the thundering of huge buffalo herds could be heard and seen throughout a good portion of the continent.
Sure it's not all bad. But it's far, far from all good as well. Sometimes bitching is just the sign of an unhappy person, but often there are some real truths behind the complaints.
Those Native Americans were working within a society.
To be unencumbered by society also means to work without its aids. Even with advances in tech, you should read about how much crazy work was involved in setting up your own homestead or kind of anything. (I strongly recommend Crusoe of Lonesome Lake.)
It's a good book. I would argue that although he had a hard go of it, and long days, his life was much more fulfilling than 99% of the lives that people live these days; probably more fulfilling than the lives of the people that lived during his time as well. There's a reason people love escapism.
Oh the fulfilling bit, hard to argue one way or the other. Might be a grass is greener sort of scenario. Like, as a dev who works from home, spending a few days doing hard, long hours of manual labour on my buddy's cabin was fun but holy damn, not sure I could dig that every day for years. Especially without physiotherapy and modern medicine (I play soccer a few times a week and without physio, I'd be a broken husk of a man.)
I imagine the protagonist might have looked at us sitting in the warm with all the free time, multimedia beyond his comprehension, literally every book written at our fingertips and he would've been fair to wonder something like "in such luxury, how could anyone not find their own meaning? With the freedom to learn almost anything imaginable,, with food and a warm bed being all but guaranteed, what person could blame the world instead of themselves for not finding purpose or passion?"