“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”

• Verbal Kint in “The Usual Suspects”

Let’s begin, just for a change, with where we agree.  Happiness is good.  Freedom is a core value, necessary for happiness to exist.  Freedom means being able to choose for ourselves what to do with the time we are given.  Our country is founded, above all else, on the idea of Freedom.  And yet, we have adopted a mindset that works to deny meaningful liberty to the vast majority of its population.  We believe that work, particularly work that makes one miserable, exhausted, and unfulfilled is our highest value.  We have been sold the idea that, of course, obviously, we all must work.  We have to earn money.  “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!”  We are taught to be proud of the exhaustion, the degradation, the horrors we have tolerated in order to live.  The idea of laziness is anathema to our thinking.  To call someone lazy is among the greatest insults one can hurl. 

The Puritan Work Ethic is so deeply ingrained in us that to think otherwise is, for many of us, simply impossible.  Tonight, I’m going to ask you to do The Impossible.  I’m going to ask you to entertain the idea that laziness… that relaxing, spending the minutes of your life in the ways that make you feel good, that grant you fulfillment, purpose, and Joy… is really the best way to spend your life.  I’m going to expose the Devil’s Second Greatest Trick.  He wants you to be miserable.  I want you to be happy. 

As long as we believe that a certain portion of our lives needs to be given over to suffering, we will serve those whose lives contain few of the challenges most of us face.  The Pharaoh convinced millions that his wishes were divine edicts, and in this way, he got them to build pyramids.  He didn’t need to work because his needs outweighed theirs.  He had power.  They did not.  Kings lived in luxury while peasants slaved away in deference to them.  Slave owners became rich off of the work of their slaves. 

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

• Paul Farmer

I’m not going to claim that no one should work.  I recognize that society requires labor in order to function.  The Puritan Work Ethic has its roots in the reality from which it sprang.  For most of the 200,000 years human beings have inhabited this planet, ceaseless, grueling labor was required if we wanted to survive.  We had no shelter.  We had to gather, hunt, or steal our food.  We had to protect ourselves from the elements.  We had more work to do than could be done in a lifetime.  And you know what?  We did it.  We accomplished all of these things, and we learned how to do them better, more efficiently, with less and less physical labor all the time.  We grew.  We improved.  We blossomed.  We learned to keep ourselves alive much longer.  We became safer, smarter, healthier, and increasingly moral. 

But that idea persisted.  We have to work.  We have to work some more.  We have to work hard.  The harder we work, the longer we work, the more difficult the work we have done, the better people we are.  To say one has worked hard is among the greatest compliments we can pay each other.  It suggests that the fact of work, itself, is a wonderful thing.  Is it really?  Why is that?

When our earliest ancestors worked ceaselessly, they were the beneficiaries of their own work.  If Og killed a lion, Og got to eat.  If a farmer grew some crops, the farmer got to eat.  The hard work they did was for themselves.  It might have been for their families to the extent that they had them.  It didn’t enrich someone else.  The fruits of their labor were theirs to enjoy. 

But as we developed societies, we decided that some people deserved more than others.  We developed the concept of owning land.  While the Earth had once been shared by all of us, now it belonged to a few of us. 

Today, most of the wealth is owned by fewer and fewer people.  The work that most of us do is designed to make someone else wealthier.  We get paid with these little green pieces of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.  They have no actual value, except that we agreed at some point that they do.  We use them to prove ourselves worthy of whatever it is we want to get.  I have enough to be worthy of a 12 pack of Diet Pepsi or the occasional pastrami sandwich.  I will never have enough of them to be worthy of a yacht.  Other people have enough to be worthy of anything on Earth.  Why do they have so many pieces of cotton and linen?  They got other people to work for them.  They got people to work hard for them.  They induced people to wear themselves out and make themselves miserable, so the Few don’t have to anymore.  They made working for others into an unquestioned virtue.  It is so much a part of the American Consciousness that even to question it is a form of heresy. 

Last week, a local news station asked if their viewers believed we should get another stimulus check.  I wrote what I thought was an innocuous response, thinking it might make people nod in quiet agreement.  My hope was to reinforce what I assumed other would probably think anyway.  Here’s what I wrote:

I don’t see why people should be required to do jobs they hate just to survive. If the only way to get someone to work is to threaten them with homelessness and brutal poverty, we’re not doing much of a job of creating decent jobs.

Give everyone enough to meet their basic survival needs. Then let people do the work they choose.

There is no inherent virtue in being miserable for most of your life.

I never saw so much righteous rage directed at me. 

Someone named Doug wrote:

 “why would anybody want to work, if they get enough to survive ?

“Hunger drives someone to work.  How many people love their jobs?  If you give somebody something why would they want to work. I am a realist.  look up the song with part of the words “get a job “. From the 80’s

Love what you do no matter what it is and you will succeed. Who wouldn’t want good pay for doing nothing much.”

I agree with you, Doug.  The threat of hunger and homelessness is the motivation for such people to work.  Wouldn’t life be nicer if we didn’t have to bow down to those who have more green pieces of cotton and linen than we have?  We could do that with a Universal Basic Income.  We’ll discuss that in a little more depth in a bit.  Oh… and was the song you were looking for Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is?”

A Man in a Silk Suit hurries by

Catches the poor old lady’s eye

Just for fun he says, “Get a job!”

-Bruce Hornsby

Perhaps the context was lost on you.  The Man In The Silk Suit is an asshole. 

Someone named Leslie made a similar point.  We’ll excuse her spelling errors and just concern ourselves with her content:

“WRONG!  People need motivation.  If you are motivated to get a job to pay your bills, you will WORK.  Otherwise, why bother?

This mentality is very dangerous.  The Constitution says we have the right to life, liberty and the PERSUIT of happiness.  NOT that it will be given to us on a silver platter.  One must work for it.  The jobs are there.”

I agree.  The jobs are there.  There is a difference between working for yourself and working for someone else, however.  When my labor makes someone else rich while I can barely afford to pay rent, that hardly seems like an idea situation, does it?

Susan told me,

said like an unemployed child. “The work they chose”?  Who will chose to clean toilets 3rd shift or flip burgers in 100 degree heat? There is dignity in all work.  And the hard, dirty work that requires little skill or education should not pay as much as the job that requires a life time and dedication. But it should serve as a motivation to do better.  To get an education.  Or to show up on time and become a team lead then a manager.  Get married and sacrifice a little when your young to build a better life.  This utopian dream you want isn’t real.  The US and Capitalism offer the best life anywhere.  It is literally why people flee Venezuela and EU socialism to get here.” 

In other words, Susan, we need jobs done, but those that do them shouldn’t make enough to live.  I couldn’t possibly disagree more.  And here’s the thing with which we all need to deal.  Automation is eliminating jobs at an alarming rate.  Even those who worship the Puritan Work Ethic will soon find that there are fewer and fewer jobs to do because computers, AI, and robots do them more efficiently, accurately, and cheaply.  When was the last time a bank teller gave you cash?  That was a common job when I was a child.  Now we all use ATMs.  Go to Wal Mart, and you can still find a few cashiers, but you will find many more self-checkout lanes.  Amazon has developed an entire store without any cashiers or even checkout lines.  It just automatically charges you.  There are already robots flipping burgers.  There will be more, not less, of this in the future. 

And I agree.  Who would choose to do the jobs you described?  They suck.  Let’s automate them, and then let’s give human beings more opportunity to enjoy their lives.  The New York Post reports that Marriott hotels are testing replacing desk clerks with automated kiosks. 

“The future is automated.  The present should already be automated.  Existing tech could automate half of all our tasks.  We choose not to automate out of a belief that toil is good for us, and that we can’t just distribute money absent labor as an automation dividend when we should.

• Scott Santens

And, the Utopia I describe is not only possible, but it will be a reality when enough of us decide we want it to be.

Bonnie wrote:

that’s great Fred.  I choose to create art at home.  Will you pay my bills until I start selling my creations?  (if I ever do) oh, and you’ll need to pay my taxes too…

I would love love love for you to create Art at home!  I can’t pay your bills because I don’t have enough money.  The government, though, that group that represents you, me, and everyone else, certainly does. 

And, finally, someone I respect very much asked,

 a couple of questions-who is going to supply everyone enough for their basic needs.  Where does the money to supply these needs come from.

It’s time to discuss something I learned this month.  It’s called Fiat Currency.  It turns out our currency in America is backed by… nothing.  It used to be gold.  Now… there’s nothing that exists to make our money valuable.  It’s a question of how much the government prints.  And, as it turns out, they don’t even have to print so many of the little green pieces of cotton and linen.  They can simply choose a number and inject it into the economy. 

It’s different from, for example, food.  I can’t give you more food than I have.  The food is a tangible object.  It has to be grown and cultivated.  The same is true for most of the basics of survival.  Homes must be built.  Water must be gotten to people in pipes or bottles.  Medicine must be created and administered.  Money?  We just decide we have more.  The economic debate over Fiat Currency is intense, and I won’t presume to wade into it.  The money, though, comes, essentially, from the will of the government to create it.  So, who is going to supply everyone enough for their basic needs?  We are.  The United States government is you and me.  What is the source of the money?  The pressing of a few buttons. 

There were more than 100 comments, many of which were simple insults, but I’ve covered the basic message of them, I think.  Someone named Elizabeth took the time, evidently, to visit my page.  She mentioned I do a podcast, and these folks were giving me material.  You’re right, Elizabeth, but that really wasn’t my intention.  I just hoped I might cause one or two people to think about the idea that being forced to work is really not the best way to create a happy society. 

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

-Jimmy Carter

Now, think about this:  When are you happiest?  Isn’t there a wonderful exhilaration that accompanies the end of your work week?  Two whole days off to do what you choose is a thrilling idea for most of us.  When I was a teacher, summer vacation was a cause of ecstasy for me.  I had a couple of months off to do what I chose with my time. 

You and I are here for an incredibly short time.  Few of us will get a century.  None of us gets two.  In the time we’re here, we need to find all the happiness we can.  There is the idea that if we live this life properly, we’ll have a better one in the future.  Perhaps we’ll go to Heaven.  Maybe we’ll get reincarnated.  We might reach Nirvana.  I don’t know what will happen in any life following this one.  I do know, though, that right now, this is the one we have.  To decide that I’m going to give up my happiness now in hopes of having more in a life about which we know nothing firsthand is tragic. 

The Wealthy, for whom most of us are working, want you to believe that you should be miserable.  They want you to believe that anything that doesn’t serve them is a bad idea.  The Wealthy have created an oligarchy that works hard to ensure that they have more and you have less.  They have done this so successfully that even the idea that you should be happy, and you should be free to choose what to do with the minutes that make up your life, has become heretical among those who have the least.  It’s a brilliant bit of Social Engineering.

What would life be like if we all had enough to meet our basic needs?  I can’t tell you what anyone else’s life would be like, but I will tell you how it has changed mine. 

Three years ago, I was miserable.  After teaching Elementary School in a career that spanned 4 decades, 2 centuries, and 2 millennia, I retired in 2016.   The first year, I made ends meet.  I pulled all of what was left of my retirement, after two divorces, and I paid off my bills and lived happily.  The money, of course, ran out.  I got roommates, but it worked out disastrously.  I have spent most of the last four years on the verge of homelessness.  I couldn’t work anymore.  I went to the hospital 14 times in 3 years.  My diabetes destroyed my body, and I did what I could to survive.  I applied for Disability.  After 3 years, it finally came.  It provides me with almost, but not quite, enough money to meet my needs.  I had to add the revenue from the podcast to get approved for my tiny little apartment.  When I got Disability, they sent me sufficient back pay that I now have my lease paid for its duration, and I have all I need.   

To illustrate the difference, a year ago yesterday, I was hiding in my room hoping I could avoid the roommates who had once loved me, but didn’t even like me anymore because I couldn’t bring in enough money, and my food stamps didn’t contribute enough to the household to make my existence in their lives worthwhile.  I walked on eggshells.  My house was filthy, and I was allowed to clean it only at certain times and under carefully prescribed conditions.  There were bugs crawling on the dishes in the sink from food I neither cooked nor ate, and I had to hope I could be alone long enough to get them done.  I got yelled at because I used too much dish soap.  The house reeked of trash that never got to the wastebasket.  Opening the refrigerator meant being assailed with the smell of what would have been a collection of terrifyingly successful science experiments in mold production had someone with sufficient self-discipline to conduct a study left them there.   I was desperate for the pandemic to end so I could get back to work and I wouldn’t be met with contempt every time I strayed from my room.  I was afraid of what the next minute, next hour, next day might bring.  I welcomed the idea of death.  I saw no hope.  I saw no light.  I was unable to Shine.  I believed myself to be all but worthless.  I filled my syringe to the top with insulin.  For reasons I still don’t entirely understand, I didn’t inject myself.  I suppose there was a tiny ray of light sneaking in through the broken places that kept me alive one day more. 

Yesterday I felt proud of my work.  I woke up around 6 AM.  I finished watching “The Cowboys” and cried a little.  I had a cigarette and chatted with my neighbor.  I came in and played music that moved me while I wrote a portion of this.  My house was clean.  I had all that I needed.  I felt alive.  I began to understand what it meant to feel.  The emotions I forced myself to suppress for so long are rising to the surface with unsuspected power.  Why is this happening?

I have my basic needs met.  My physiological and safety needs are met.  I have enough food.  I have my insulin.  My rent is paid.  I have internet and electricity.  I have a phone.  I get to choose what to do with every minute of my life, within the boundaries of my financial resources.  I can’t choose to take a cruise around the world.  The thing is, I didn’t really want to do that anyway.  That would be leaving the house.  The mailbox is as far as I ever want to go.  I could choose to get a VIP ticket to a Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden concert, though.  And I wanted that very much.  I’ll go beyond the mailbox for that much Joy.

Does this make me evil?  Is my happiness, whose genesis was the end of my suffering, a sin?  Am I worthless because I choose to spend the minutes I have left in life on things that make me happy?  I decline to feel guilty about that. 

If we have any real responsibility in life, it is to do our best to be as happy as we can in the time we have.  I’m not endorsing hedonism here.  I’m not advocating selfishness.  I would hope you would derive happiness from being kind to others, trying to change the world, or simply staying out of everyone’s way.  So long as you’re not hurting anyone, I want you to do whatever makes you happiest.  I want this one life you have to be the very best it can be. 

Let’s meet everyone’s basic needs.  Everyone should be able to live the way I do.  Many of you should be able to live better.  No one should live worse than I do. 

Let’s stop making a virtue of suffering.  Let’s do what we can to end as much suffering as we can.  We have far too few happy people and far too many martyrs.  I would rather you and I and everyone else be happy than be pitied. 

“Cracks and broken pieces

Inside us

Where the light comes in

Brightest”

-Sara Niemietz

Suffering is unavoidable.  A life without Love is empty.  The Price of Love is always suffering.  When you love someone, one way or another, it will end.  Either your relationship will end, in which case you will be sad, or one of you will die, in which case, again, you will be sad.  This is especially true of dogs and cats.  We almost always outlive them, and the pain of that loss is searing.  The settled order of nature tells us we will lose our parents, but the loss of a child is unnatural and smells of an evil in the world. 

No one can protect us from that suffering.  It’s a price I’m willing to pay.  The value of Love is the only thing greater than its price. 

But needless suffering can be, should be, and, some day, will be eliminated. 

A Universal Basic Income –- not programs for this and programs for that — but simply cash that is sufficient for a person to pay rent, to eat, to keep their utilities running, added to the Universal Health Care that nearly all other First World countries have, and free education for as long as a person wants to learn would allow us to work in the ways in which we are most interested and allow us to live in True Freedom.  Make the employers compete for workers instead of workers begging for wages. 

“Shame at our own dependence on the underpaid labor of others.  When someone works for less pay than she can live on – when she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently – then she has made a great sacrifice for you.  The working poor are the major philanthropists of our society.”

• Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

Let’s drop The Puritan Work Ethic and replace it with The Human Freedom Ethic.  Let’s allow everyone to Shine.

This was written in April, 2021. I have only now added it to my blog.