November 7, 2001
C. Mortimer

In struggling to put words to my dissatisfaction with the mindless cycles that define our early twenty-first century consumer culture, I posit that this mundane rythm is just a pattern of learned behaviors. As I measure my ability to invest in the things most everyone "wants" and "needs," I feel the composure of a furrowed brow and with lips pursed tightly together, I nod in full disagreement.

And yet I am well aware of the feebleness of the human mind [I have one of my own] and I know that we want what we see; which only makes the situation more inflammatory and the manipulation we are subject to all that much more apprehensible. Ask any little boy what he wants to be, and he says a fireman or a cowboy; two professions heroicized in television and film [the primary sources for information in the latter half of the twentieth century]. Rarely does a child say they would like to be a poet or a goat herder; and yet are those lives any less remarkable and viable? I argue, not only that they are, but by disengaging from the contortions and politics and the mechanics of life's monotonous cadence, they lend themselves to the potential for far more evolved human thought. And so the question will be, can you do both... can you be both?

Can you be both a poet and also a fireman? Can you be a struggling writer and also a market analyst? Can you be a goat herder and also a lawyer?

Certainly the logistics of each example have their own problems; for where are their fertile fields for man and beast, also near a busy enough population center to support the practice of law? But regardless of these logistical problems, can this dichotomy really support life [and here I am referring to a life of enlightened contemplation]? Will the mind allow an almost perfect and intentional amnesia to be implemented? Will it allow the performance of one act which has a particular set of goals and interests, and then the secession into a completely different task which requires its own systemic calibration, completely irrelevant to the previous, and then back again in turn?

I think that a person can be fooled into thinking that they can buy into our consumer culture, and then spend a few hours a day in alleged Socratic thought. But can any truly enlightened thinking result? With the persistent gravitational pull back to the bills and paperwork and deadlines, which all thump with the cadence of an infernal metronome and weigh so heavily on the aspiring soul, can thoughts be freed to a sufficient degree to cause the mind to blossom?

And if the dollars and cents are given up for the poetic dullard and sense of enlightened thought, does our current societal structure allow for the basic needs of shelter, food, and clothing to be met? Can you profit, both literally and figuratively, from the "benefits" of an organized capitalist state while eschewing it for the unfettered pleasures of the heart and mind? Or will the body wither and decay if the mind is truly given the opportunity to flourish?

My thought is this: Our contemporary culture evaluates success on a different scale of measurement than one ought to measure strides in contemplative and enlightened thought; and some success monetarily is required [in the current system] to provide for the basic human needs which make higher moral thought and creative activity possible. Without food and shelter, the satisfaction of the comfort of home, and a full stomach, the mind will not lend itself to philosophical musings. To believe this is true, one must both ignore and acknowledge, the Diary of Anne Frank and other such works produced during extraordinary human torture. Though examples like this seem to refute the above hypothesis, they actually serve only to illustrate a parallel point: Creativity and enlightened thought are made manifest both during times of repose and comfort, as well as in times of complete horror, anxiety, fear, and pain.

Pain is a gift for the mind and soul; it forces the mind, at gunpoint, to wander where it otherwise might not have gone. Pain is perhaps the easiest of avenues, for it lays bare, almost immediately, portions of the brain which are lulled to sleep by monotonous contemporary existence. The musings of the mind possible during times of pain and grief are very hard to reproduce during happier times. And yet it is just these "happier times" that are required, if there is even to be the remotest possibility of sustained critical thought. And therefore we arrive again at the complexity of this situation: To be truly alive intellectually and mentally, you must sacrifice a good portion of energy and time contributing to an empty heartless system, so that you can have a roof over your head and some food in your belly. And then, if you are a good little boy or girl, and follow the herd over the cliff, you may, through persistence, scratch a small hole in the surface of your mind which will allow you to peer momentarily into your true human genius.

And while you have spent forty hours a week for 25 years, slaving for "retirement" [whatever that means] you may, if you really, really struggled, have afforded yourself 80 hours of pure enlightened thought [two work-weeks] over the course of that 50,000 hours of slave wage drudgery.

And if you are lucky, only half of that 80 hours of introspective contemplation will be the result of a self-evaluation due to the death of a loved one or close family member(s). The other 40 hours might be the joy of the birth of a child, or the picturesque stimulation of a long sunset in a remote corner of the Earth. And the really lucky ones, will remember a time when they thought they had seen the tip of an elusive iceberg that might explain the clever differences between greed and lust, or maybe they will be lucky enough to see their individual life as both meaningless and futile, as well as prominent and pandemic, both at the same time.

In this context, I do not belittle that precious 80 hours. In terms of time available for pure, enlightened, introspective thought, it is invaluable. But imagine your life, if the brain were allowed that freedom to wistfully meander for 50,000 hours. Is that unrealistic? Should all our lives not be fully dedicated to nourishing our minds and souls, instead of being devoted to the sick mirage of monetary "security."

If we do not struggle against this system, it will consume us; and it is never too late to begin this struggle. Some will argue that it seems absurd to rail against the same system which provides car payments, rent payments, and the affordability of plane tickets to exotic and distant lands where textiles and art may be acquired in exchange for pennies and the toothless smiles of the indigenous population.

And yet, as sure as I am of the tangibility of my corporeal assemblage and the temporality of its chemical consciousness, I know that the measure of life extends far beyond this purchasing power. We must make time for thought... but it will not be easy.