|
dafremen
|
"In a civilization devoted to the strictly abstract and mathematical idea of making the most money in the least time, the only sure method of success is to cheat the customer, to sell various types of nothingness in pretentious packages, to lower the quality of the goods produced; spraying your watery tomatoes with gas to make them look ripe.
But then, having made the money, there is ultimately little of value to buy with it because everyone else is cheating in exactly the same way." - Alan Watts, 1968.
Trying to quantify who is successful in life, or who is worthy of society's bounty with dollars or Wealth Indexes or Lexus automobiles doesn't produce a better society filled with better people. It rewards those who are most obsessed with the acquisition of dollars or wealth index points or Bentleys.
The same concept applies to quality of sports and the pursuit of points as a measure of performance or relative skill. How often do professionals push the envelope of skill and risk it all when the championship is on the line? Not as often as they'll take the safe boring route. Only an idiot runs the ball on 4th down they say..but isn't that the most exciting moment in a sports movie? When they run the ball on 4th and goal instead?
It applies to quantifying popularity or social worthiness with Facebook likes. Who ARE these people who like you? And knowing that they like you..WHO likes you? Would you be happy if say a John Wayne Gacy or a Saddam Hussein was one of your friends? How do you know they aren't like that deep down inside? OR even out in the open? We don't know. We just know that they approve of us. What sort of friendships do we really foster in the world of measured popularity? What sort of Gary Glitters slip through the cracks because they know how to entertain a crowd?
What sort of life is this intellectual, mathematical approach to quantifying life producing for us anyway? And is it really worth striving obsessively for a bunch of abstract hash marks that lead our people to meaningless and sometimes harmful results? Something to think about as we go about the day to day of making our lives work. Maybe it isn't more points or dollars or Facebook likes that we need. Maybe what we need is a little more real excitement not more security. Maybe what we need are more real experiences that involve REAL food and real activities that result in REAL and memorable lives not preplanned vacations and prepackaged meals. Maybe what we need aren't people who like what we care to show them publicly, but real friends who care enough to wonder how we're doing on the inside.
|
140317
|
