Enjoying Life

Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" is this blog's theme song. Go ahead and play it.

Two nights ago I had a conversation with a friend about the significance of life. We both recognized the infinite significance of an individual life. We agreed about the importance of people recognizing this so they may have the opportunity to live their limited lives to the fullest. Indeed it would be a tragedy to waste this wondrous opportunity.

However, enjoying life is not a straightforward task. Though my friend found it easy to be awed by our world's many features, my body does not react with nearly the same enthusiasm. Yes, the world is incredibly complex and there are always new things to see and understand, but so what? Moreover, recognizing the finitude of our unique lives could very much lead to fear and existential crisis rather than awe. I've been there, done that. Just look at this blog's opening posts.

Nevertheless, during that conversation I concluded that the point of life is to enjoy, while the ethic is to help others enjoy. I was instantly presented with a grand challenge: enjoying life as best as I can. I thought about how I might do that and made plans to carry out the task the following day. Surely in all of New York City I would find something enjoyable to me.

The next day things didn't quite go as planned. Plans to spend time with a good friend did not work out. Instead of enjoying the wonders of existence, I became frustrated as a result of my plans not working out. I had no good plan B. I ultimately decided to cool down my frustration with a walk through some areas I hadn't yet explored around the border of West Village and Tribeca.

I did my best to be awed by the little things around me. I touched the tree bark, noticed particularities of buildings, and thought about the life-giving air I was breathing in. I felt calm, almost serene . . . but not joyful. I headed toward the Hudson and found a nice spot under a couple of trees with low-lying branches. Once I identified the exact spot I wanted to sit in, I proceed to do so.

I sat there calmly, watching the people walk and run by. I then took the camera out of my backpack and took some pictures as the sun was setting. Again, I felt calm, almost serene . . . but not joyful. I took my cellphone out of my pocket, debated what I should do with it, and decided to send a text to my best friend: "I love you." I sat there awhile longer, got back up, and continued my walk down Hudson River Park.



I discovered all kinds of things during that part of the walk: an indoor sports field, tennis courts, basketball courts, metallic public tables and chairs. I thought to myself "I'm gonna have to come back here." The end of the metallic chairs and tables also marked the end of the park's nice grassy strip. I therefore decided to find the closest subway and head back to Brooklyn. I walked down Laight Street, crossed a pedestrian bridge going over the expressway, and soon after spotted the A-C-E. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Though yesterday's walk was a nice break from my normal routine, I certainly did not enjoy the day to the fullest. I know that I enjoy spending time with good friends, playing games (sports, boardgames, whatever), hiking, roadtripping, singing, producing music, and watching Detroit Lions football games, but there's really not that much else. Well I like doing my lifestyle architecture work, and I would probably enjoy teaching, but besides these and perhaps a few other work-related activities, I can't think of much else I enjoy. Photography can be good at times, as can watching a movie and a few other other activities, but these activities don't bring me the greatest level of enjoyment.

I suppose the answer is to restructure my life so as to do more of the things I really enjoy on a day to day basis. The challenge is that my happiest moments are social moments, so it's not just a matter of restructuring my own life, but also of restructuring the lives of others. And before I even try to begin that process I must find these special persons to restructure my life with. Now that seems daunting. I'm therefore not very hopeful right now. Perhaps I need my own lifestyle architect.

My Economic Utopia

I feel bad contemplating the idea of doing enjoyable work that does not contribute to the basic areas of American consumption: food, water, housing, energy, transportation, healthcare, household appliances, computers, cell phones, stereos, air conditioning, insurance, banking, public parks. Could I possibly work within these fields and be happy? It's nice to contribute to the improvement of products. It would be good to help design more energy efficient and lower-priced goods. But this task of improvement only makes up a small fraction of an enterprise. The bulk of the work is in producing and servicing the current products. But how exciting can it be to build and sell washing machines? Whose first choice would this be? This type of work is essentially a chore. Thus, it seems that all we can do is 1) minimize the amount of time we spend on chore work, and 2) create conditions of chore work that facilitate socialization with co-workers and (in some instances) customers.

If we all do our share of the chore work, that should leave plenty of creative work for us to do. Those with a talent for teaching can teach, engineers can engineer, designers can design, etc. Things aren't looking so bad anymore, right? It gets even better.

Lastly there's the artistic work. This is the type of work that a small percentage of especially talented individuals are able to earn a living on. Whereas the creative work is something almost all people can earn money from, artistic work is more limited. As is presently the case, only a small percentage will be able to earn money from this type of work. However, all will be able to do artistic work in their free time.

I imagine that in this improved society I'm describing, it would be acceptable for the artists (musicians, painters, athletes, etc) to be exempted from the regular shares of chore work and creative work. They would be totally excepted from the creative work and partially excepted from the chore work. Though they wouldn't do their fair share of chore work, they would spend about 10 percent of their work time on those tasks, which I believe is enough to establish solidarity with the rest of society. We all benefit from this organization because we benefit from excellent music, sports, visual art. A world of mediocre art world certainly be a world of a lower quality of life.

So this is the economic utopia I've come up with. I'd be happy to hear any alternatives or amendments.

Modern Life Sucks

I graduated from College a month and a half ago and now need to find a job in order to survive economically. The problem is that when I think of all the roles that are played in our modern economy, the overwhelming majority of them seem quite horrible. Working as a waiter? Cashier? Bank teller? Factory worker? Construction worker? Research assistant? No thanks to all of these. Yes, there are roles to play that seem great. I would love to be a singer, or perhaps an educator, maybe a consultant, definitely a life coach, a therapist, a clinical psychologist, a psychiatrist, perhaps a counselor. But the problem is that even though I could find a role that I enjoy, I'd still be working within a system that necessitates others to spend their working hours doing unpleasant work. My Kantian conscience doesn't do well with this.

I previously thought that a Utopian society is possible if we make all the right changes. However, I'm starting to have second thoughts. Perhaps we can only lessen the unpleasantness of most work roles. Perhaps we can only lessen the depersonalizing and alienating conditions of most private and public hierarchical workplaces. Perhaps I'll have to settle for this limited progress.

Let's say that we all equally slit up the most menial tasks that must get done. This does not mean that the work that is left is spectacular. Professional work is usually quite specialized and operates within bureaucracies. Is being a politician really an engaging job? Doesn't engineering for a company get old after a while? Would I really want to manage mutual funds four of five days a week? I know I certainly would not want to manage an insurance company. That can't be fun. Even being a doctor seems quite tedious to me. I mean, how does that not get old? And think of lawyers; they just argue their clients' cases day in and day out. Imagine doing that for thirty years.

Perhaps I'm being too tough. Perhaps there are people who love doing these professional jobs. Perhaps the people who currently perform these jobs are quite satisfied. Well I certainly don't get this impression from the professionals I come across.

I just want people to enjoy their work. I recognize that task variety is not enough. We need our economy to be based on work that is intrinsically interesting and pleasurable--even after 25 years of doing the work. Is this possible? I'm not sure. All I can do try to make it happen.

However, if I see that pleasurable work has severe limits, there is still one important strategy left to use: the radical minimization of one's consumption. It's really quite simple: the less we spend, the less we have to work. Modern-day labor-saving technology makes the acquisition of food very cheap compared to pre-industrial times. Additionally, we can replace cars and trains with bicycles, which cost much less per month to operate. And there's no need for eating out; nor for paying for entertainment.

So maybe modern life doesn't have to be so bad after all. We shall see . . .

Music and Such

I've felt freer with my decisions lately. It's weird, usually I think hard before I act, but I've been more "oh what the hell" lately. It gets tiring stressing over every little decision. Let me live! And so it's nice to be free, though there is still much thinking to do; there are still big problems to solve that are not going to solve themselves. And so I'm pursuing a productive yet joyful way of being.

But I'm supposed to write about music here! I'm listening to Nena right now. She's German. I really love this song Wir Sind Wahr. I'm also a big fan of Roger O'Donnell's Tiny Little Pieces. You see, music I really like does something special to me. Other things are fun too, but outside of love I don't know what compares to great music.

I've been thinking a lot about those little things in life and how they are really at the core of the big things. We invent all these huge problems, yet at the end it's really about those particular things that bring us happiness. What we want is more positive stimulation and less negative stimulation. But how do we do this? How do we get around the chains of all of those obligations? Is this the real challenge? Or rather, is it figuring out what really makes us happy? Ask yourself: "What makes me happy?" What is keeping you from attaining that happiness? Are the answers clear? I hope they are, though they sure are not with me.