The last couple of weeks have been rougher than usual. Oh, it's not that I'm taking one for the team or anything, but there have been a number of smaller incidents that just all seemed to be related to the same theme. Life's like that sometimes. There are stretches when it seems you're confronted with the same ideas, the same issues, the same problems even though you're in different environments and situations. That's what it's been like lately.
The theme? Oh yes ... having and being. Yeah, I know: "Not that again!" But yes, that again. It has struck me that I'm not going to be able to move on until more people "get it".
Why has this been so prevalent? I don't know, but I do know that I had an interview for a new business course and it all centered around what I thought about business and having. OK, it wasn't that direct, but how should I understand that not adhering to the mantra that the purpose of business is the maximization of profits places me squarely in the minority? Or, what am I to make of the recent and hefty Greece discussion ... in or out of the euro, who pays and who saves? Or, what about the recent Republican presidential debates about taxes and saving and just letting people without health insurance die? Or, wondering why my daughter's job is at risk because higher education doesn't have the funding it needs to fulfill its mandate? Or, why if productivity has increased by over 90% in the last 50 years do I still have to wage-slave for 40 hours a week? Or ... well, I think you get the idea.
Though I hate to say it, we've been screwed (again). It's all about what you have, and who and what you are just doesn't matter any more. Being a good person doesn't matter if you have to slave away at more than one minimum-wage job in order to make ends meet ... if that's even possible. Being a caring person and mother doesn't matter if you're single and have to give your child to someone else to raise while you figure how to make the rent. Being optimistic is almost a waste of time if you know that you're kids are never going to have it as good as you had it, even though what you had was really nothing to brag about. For all we have to brag about is how well our (football/baseball/hockey) team does, how high-paid our star players are, how much our company grew last year ... or our new ride, or the fancy, all-inclusive package tour we were able to take, or an upgrade on the house.
No, it's no longer who you are, it's what you have. The little tent community in New York will soon be disparaged as rebels, do-nothings who want something for nothing, but in reality they are just unfortunate people, like you and me, who ended up on the wrong side of a mortgage. They have come together, formed a community, established their common rules and we only now have to wait till the media brands them as communists, socialists, or worse. How dare they rub our faces in the fact that the top 0.1% abscond with all the goodies while the rest of us just dream about the birds in the bush.
A recent article in the New Scientist made clear that there is a growing body of sound evidence that cooperation trumps competition in evolution. In other words, while competition may bring short-term benefits to individuals, in the long run, these are secondary to the benefits that the group acquires through cooperation. Having traded our society for a mere economy, we've lost sight of who we are as a group. And moving a step away from society, we have lost sight of our own biological roots. Homo sapiens has become Homo voratens.
Hamlet was a troubled soul, and that's why we remember him. He had everything: he was Prince of Denmark, he had money, wealth, power. Yet, he still found the time to ask the question that haunts us still: To be or not to be/That is the question. Too bad most of us don't believe in ghosts anymore.
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