Lord Lionheart

This thread has nothing to do with such things apparently

DaWarrior

Work in Dubai, get a bank loan for Pete knows how much, leave the country, go buy your dream home in some island somewhere and never come back!

Know a lot of people doing it but their money just doesn't last that long...

MacScot

The money can last if you choose to go to Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam...know a few Aussies that have retired and living like kings...usually open up a bar or small hotel.

Charismatic

Brits often come here to live "the simple life", buy a house by the beach etc. some have families and others to retire. The problem is that their "ideal lives" get very boring within two year. Plenty end up divorcing, others open a cafe or renovate a house and then get divorced.


I often think I want to escape my materialistic existance, slaving long hours to pay for keeping up with the rat race, living a shallow and superficial existance. Speaking for myself those feelings are usually perpetuated by fears and not a true statement of personal desire at all. I suppose if you come to accept that life appears to have an utter lack of any meaning or purpose then you discover that it's actually freeing. Worst of all I discovered that I actually really like the small chores that occupy my life. Working, eating, sleeping, buying things I don't need...I enjoy being part of society working togeather to improve peoples lives and sustain a quality of living.


I read one of Beardman's posts a few days ago where he stated he believes that humans where created to worship a diety. I'm not having a go at him here but it must be interesting to feel such an intense purpose in your life. It's something I've never really experienced being grounded to quite existential beliefs about meaning, or lack of, in life (all beliefs being limiting of course). You can't after all try on shoes if they don't fit your feet .


Anyway, another beer? I've talked too much .

Nic1

I'm sure if you step out of the rat race, then you would need something to take it's place - be that rennovating a house, being self sufficient (which in itself must be hugely time consuming), breeding goats, playing bridge, or finding a higher deity to follow. I'm not sure believing life has a lack of purpose or meaning is freeing for me personally, but I do find that not worrying about what other people think, what other people have, and what other people do is quite freeing.

And of course it is quite possible to live a very meaningful existence while still living the rat race, it is about how we treat other people, the things we give back to society, ensuring our children are well rounded sociable human beings who can contribute to society when their time comes.

However, being debt free is in my mind is hugely freeing as it takes away all sorts of worries and concerns.

I'll join yo for that beer . .

N

littlejimmy

All possessions are transient and meaningless.
Money is debt. Debt is money.
Take a deep breath. Look around you. Slooooow down.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance in strength.
Watch less TV.
Read fewer newspapers.

And go and read the books of Tom Hodgkinson.

Alen1

Yeah; isn’t he the guy that cannot fathom why the denizens of the richest countries in the world work so hard?
Duh!

littlejimmy

Enlighten me (and humoiur me, if you will) . Why do the denizens of the richest countries in the world work so hard? What is this work? What does it actually produce? What is your definition of richness? Do people in poor countries not work hard?

Alen1

Sorry; should have expanded for the hard-of-grasping: the point is that the country is rich because its hard-working denizens make it so.
Idlers do not contribute to that state of affairs.

What is this work?
In rich countries it is the having of a job, which pays for: food, shelter, clothing, recreation, the affordability of raising and educating children; the ability to pay taxes in order that roads, pavements, storm drains, street lighting, in fact any and all civic infrastructure, may be provided;

As to richness and what it produces?
Being able to (including but not exclusively):

. Avert disease through preventive medicine, good sanitation and clean water.
. Cure disease through good palliative medicine.
. Maintain good health through the above plus adequate nutrition.
. Have a fairly good chance that your offspring will be live births.
. Afford to transport/be transported to/from work, recreation, etc.
. Have access to a decent education.
. Provide, in some measure, to those in the community who are less-fortunate.
. Have an alternative to a dirt floor and a leaky roof.

Do people in poor countries not work hard?
In some poor countries (notably Kenya, in my experience) yes, they do – and those that do deserve better leaders – not the idlers they now have.
Idlers in poor countries are equal to those in rich countries; they are a drag on the economy and should be put down.

Hodgkinson should have stuck to being a disease; he is a hack writing specious nonsense.

All this is opinion, of course. It’s 0130, I’m pissed and off to bed.

littlejimmy

Not so much hard of grasping as wanting to engage, that's all. I found your tone a little patronising and you mixed my words up a bit there.

It's debatable to say that countries are only rich because their citizens work hard and that what some people class as hard work produces anything useful. Manufacturing has been divided up and outsourced to the cheapest producers in the poorest countries. And besides, scientific endeavour and advance isn't confined to those who work 12-hour days. Einstein and Da Vinci weren't office drones who dreamt of more quality time with the kids. All those benefits you mentioned don't rely on the capitalist model of unlimited growth, they can and have been achieved in alternative ways.

It seems quite obvious that the model of unchecked capitalism and the Protestant Work Ethic have done nothing more than enslave whole sectors of society into a never-ending pursuit of material wealth and consumerist happiness, buying ridiculous gee-gaws and pointless trinkets, getting into massive debt and chasing a dream that is unattainable to all but a few, and to do this they spend the best years of their lives slogging their guts out doing something they hate, and all this results in the rise of Western illnesses as people try to fill the void of their inevitable depression with junk food and alcohol.

It's that Great Money Trick as described by Tressle in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, where a rich (mostly idle) few reap the rewards of others' endeavours and dangle carrots that are always just out of reach. Should these people be put down?

Where has this paradigm got us? The world's economy is now going down the swanny. People who have worked hard have seen their assets become worthless and are starting to wonder why they bothered (see the linked thread). The world's resoures are being used up, sparking resource wars and the planet's ecosystems are being ravaged and about two thirds of the world are still living in poverty, however hard they work. There's little thought of the consuquences, all that has mattered has the bottom line and profit and unlimited growth in a finite system. It was never going to keep going.

As for Tom H, I don't think his ideas or arguments are perfect, and he can come across as a bit smug when he lives the life of a media luvvie in the countryside. When you're already comfortable, it's easy to preach...in the same way that it's easy to assume because you have succeeded everyone else should...and his Luddite views on the internet and obsession with the Middle Ages have caused some consternation and incredulity. Still, he has put seeds in people's minds.

The idea of Idling and being an Idler is misunderstood, and has obvious connotations that get the Daily Mail readership all worked up. It's a misnomer for me. It's not about sponging off other people and being unproductive, it's about living a more authentic and sustainable life, actually producing tangible and useful things, connecting with other people and being creative, not living in a padded cell cubicle under harsh flourescent lighting wishing your life away. Yeah, I'm a bit of a tree-hugging hippy and I don't mind admitting it.

To me this lifestyle is less of a drain on the world and on other people, there is less exploitation of people and resource, and as long as you don't expect others to subsidise you, it's all good. I'm not really a fan of people who abuse the Welfare State, but there have to be questions asked about how so many people have become pretty much trapped in a culture of benefit dependency which is being passed down the generations. It should be a safety net and has become a way of life.

What do most people work for anyway? So they can get enough money together so they can get out of the rat race. Do people enter the lottery so they can work more 9-5?

But these are also just my opinions., and I've gone on and on enough for one millenia.

The Dean

Quote:

"I have a life. Work is simply the means to fund it"

(My father, c1972)

Squirty Cream

There are a couple of great books "Change the World for a Fiver" and "Change the World from 9 to 5" (www.wearewhatwedo.org) - they have a fab quote along the lines of :

Aspire to Be More, Not Have More - seems to make sense, especially now the age of consumerism seems to be heading towards a meltdown.

littlejimmy

I believe in the mantra: Work to live, don't live to work. I've heard too many stories of people working their guts out into their late 60s then dying just after retirement. I don't think anyone went to their death bed wishing they'd worked more.

www.anxietyculture.com

Alen1

Yes, I was being patronising (sorry about that) it was your/his? ‘Freedom is slavery’ quote which started me off.

I agree and disagree with much of what you say in about equal proportion. While I am not a tree-hugger and was never (‘though old enough to have so been) a hippy, I do like to think that I have a social conscience.

Capitalism is not perfect, but it is, so far, the only model that works to the betterment of the majority. Bad or none-existent leadership often gets in the way of that, but it is voting or massive civil disobedience or outright revolution that changes regimes, not idleness.

As you say, it is easy to pontificate from the comfort of one’s armchair, but it was embracing (not being enslaved by) a system and working at it that got one the armchair in the first place.

I take your point re Einstein and Da Vinci, but there was work there somewhere along the way that created the surplus that funded them and allowed them to pursue their endeavours.

It was my favourite politician, Maggie Thatcher, who reminded us that the Good Samaritan would not have been able to help his protégé so effectively had he not the means (money) to so do.

I like The Dean’s dad’s quote: something to remember when the job becomes bothersome.

littlejimmy

Nice post. I think, like with most stuff, we're agreeing on a lot of things but from different points of view.

I refuse to bite on the Thatcher thing, though.