The existence of human life relies on man’s ability to accept paradox, the idea that conflicting principles can be simultaneously applied and experienced. Thus we can be simultaneously convinced by separate and sometimes opposing concepts.
Do I contradict myself ?
Very well then I contradict myself.
( I am large, I contain multitudes.)-Walt Whitman
We can value the freedom of leisure, and yet practice the contrary position of tying ourselves to the means of production. While inevitably life requires the ability to provide sustenance, the prevailing view of acquisition and consumption has overwhelmed the provision of requirements and provided a complexity of goods and choice. When consumption and acquistion become more important motivators, we lose the opportunities to spend our own time. Time is a resource that is spent and cannot be replaced.
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold.
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nest of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon
Louis McNeice
Thus wealth is surely to be considered in measurements of time available to oneself, as opposed to increasing the individuals money stock, and that which it buys. The poorer man has to work at more menial tasks and give greater portions of his time in order to produce enough money to pay for the requisites to live. The richer man has money in the bank to pay service providers , and release him to be active in his chosen areas of interest. So on one level money can buy time. But this leaves us with a political problem. Men are not born equal, they are born with very different capacities, health conditions, mental abilities, character traits,family circumstances, even the country born into. How can we make the world a fairer place to exist in? Either we live within a state system , where the rules are supposedly agreed on within a democratic process, or we live in a system where individuals take hold of the means of production, and to some degree or other , we rely on some patriachy towards the lesser able from the more able.
Could we evolve politically to create a more balanced society? Is it possible to convince enough of the people that the resources can be used more fairly by balancing the means of production, by re evaluating how we live? How many people will it require to question the status quo? And what form will that questioning take? Rebellion and revolution throughout history shows that nothing much really changes, so the overthrow of tyranny has to be via over means than that of anarchic rebellion. Progress, if progress is the correct term, requires the acceptance of all bodies politic. How to reconcile the differing requirements of the haves and the have nots? The only possible way is the evolution of a new understanding and practice of an age old stratagem, employed throughout all eras, by all peoples. It is the common practice of compassion. By the use of empathy, humans can use their compassion even when it is not in their immediate benefit to do so. Everyone knows it, everyones seen it. If compassion is put in the centre of all human endeavour, then every activity engaged in needs to be re visited, re-understood. It’s a big ask, but it’s a big question. How will the human species evolve facing the questions ahead of it, today? Start your quest today, the real quest of living your real life in the here and now. It’s all you’ve got.
Bye for now.
moving in time 