Buy The Cow

It has always been a mystery to me…..at what point did we as a society decide that “the right thing to do” was literally work until you die??? Think about it, we usually start working part time at around 15 years old.  Working in a grocery store after school to make extra money to buy CDs or weed.  Some of us even started earlier with paper routes or lawn cutting to make some extra money to buy comic books.  From there…..we just keep on working, through college, after college, through our 20s, through our 30s and if we are “lucky” we are able to work right into our 60s!  And then…..within 8 years (statistically) we die.  And that is only if you are one of the lucky ones, if you are unlucky, you die at 55 on the job before you ever earn the privilege to “retire”. I know, great huh? 10 hours a day for 50 years given to someone besides you or the ones you love and then you are allowed to die with pride because you did the “right” thing.  Even if you make it to retirement, you are too old to do any of the fun stuff!!  You are too old to surf, too old to make the big league and WAAYYYY to old to enjoy sex!  If you are the schlub who only work 25 hours a week as a waiter or a bartender and spends the rest of the time reading books you enjoy or taking part in hobbies that interest you…you are a bum who has done nothing with your life.  You have nothing to offer……..W-w-W-what???? You spend the majority of your life doing things you enjoy, and really experiencing the world and you are a fool, but- If you spend the majority of your life in a cubicle, making someone else rich and aquiring stuff you don’t need to impress people you don’t know…you are the smart one, living the dream.  Sounds  like a nightmare to me. 

All I am saying is, to what end?  Why do we allow ourselved to be trapped in this paradox that tells us we should do something that goes against every fiber of our make up just so we can die!  We are not suppose to spend every day couped up in an office.

Lately I have been reading a lot of buddhist literature and I have to admit that the principles are really intriguing.  I have also been listening to the podcast by Alan Watts.  The concept he brought up was something that really brought everything back into focus.  The concept was, memories of past and dreams of future do not exist.  When you first think about it, it seems nuts, right?  Memories exist, I was there, I “remember” them.  But think about it, they don’t.  Memories are what ever you want them to be. How many times have you remembered something so vividly that you can experience the smells, sounds and tastes all over again, only to find out that what you remember is not exactly the way it happened?  You could swear that you were wearing a red shirt but the pictures from the day show you in a blue one.  We spend a large part of our day thinking back to days of yore and the fact remains that the moment the event passes, no matter what the event, it no longer exists. 

Now go the other way.  How much of our lives do we spend planning for the future or envisioning an occurance exactly the way we want it to happen and when the moment we are thinking about arrives, it is nothing like the way we had hoped.  The reason……because the moment you were thinking about didn’t exist when you were thinking about it.  We spends hours, days, dreaming and planning for a future that does not exist.

The only thing that truly exists is this exact moment right now and if you think about it too long, that moment no longer exists either.  There is no origin or destination, only the moment of the journey you are in righ now.  I know, its trippy, but it is fact.  I guess that is why the book makers never go out of business.

New Comedian on the scene Brandon Ficara.  Very funny!