Health, Wealth and Love. And the Time to Enjoy them

We are so fucking addicted to out cars. We have to travel far and wide to work just because that’s where the work is. No one wants to live where the work is anymore. So we get stuck in this circle of buy car-pay insurance-pay tolls-pay gas-drive to and from work-pay the rent-drive to work- make the money just to make a car payment and do it all over again. And 40 years later we’ve got about three grand in the bank. But it sure does feel great to have contributed to the economy.


     All the people I’ve put through school, all the goods i’ve bought, just to keep the status quo, to get to work, to do it all over again. Money for this, money for that, make just enough to need just a little bit more. It’s a fucking cruel joke, too perfect to be thought up by man. The gods must be crazy all right, and just a bit sadistic. 


     Our corporate gods get the joke. How they calculate how much money everyone has, and charge just a bit more than that for the things they tell everyone that they need. It’s the perfect crime.


      In our haste to keep up or fall behind, we don’t examine. We compare. How much of this will make me happy, how much of that will make me seem normal. What did those goddamned neighbors buy now? 


     As children, we know what we want. Then we get bombarded with images of other things. I never see billboards for baseball cards or comic books. I never see commercials for bicycles and the hills with the best bike trails. No one ever tried to sell me a mud puddle to splash in or a mountain of leaves to dive into. Daydreaming has not been taxed yet. No one has tried to sell me pills that will the cure the dizziness of running around in a circle till I fall down. Lego's are still cheap. Snowmen will always be free. 


     When I grow up I will be free: to run around all day, to ride my bike, to take a nap, to plant and grow things; just because, to exercise when I want; not tied into some work-gym-sleep routine, and sleep when I'm tired, not because it's 11pm. I'll be free to laugh and tell stories with friends. To kiss and tell. To hide and seek. To play with my dog.

 It’s hard to imagine not watching a hockey game, or not doing battle using my PS3 to heed the Call of Duty. Or not being able to share ideas or humor with people from around the world and be part of the information revolution. These things come with a price. But they shouldn't. They should be the priorities. So should the freedom to engage these pursuits.