All Wretch, and No Vomit

It's been said a million times before, but most of us live quite backwards lives.

As Alan Watts once said.. lives of "all wretch, and no vomit."

Lives carried through on the tragic basis of co-opting oneself through fear of a great anonymous authority which demands that you sell your time to others; allows your existence to become commodified and monetized to a great factory of futility, always struggling and sweating and toiling in vain chasing order, cleanliness, and a foolish semblance of certainty in the same way that a dog attempts to chase its own tail, yet lacking the nonsensical lust for nothing which permeates the intangible flow of nature.

We live under the grand illusion that, when we work terribly boring, utterly draining, and bitterly humiliating jobs in the name of nothing more than money, that we are working towards a future of quite the opposite.
We push and struggle against the stream in an attempt to reach that crescendo of bliss and pleasure; we see work as the gateway towards truth, when, in fact, this futile pursuit does nothing more than convolute and warp the truth to such unrecognizable extremes that the struggle becomes the majority, and the bliss a fragmentary illusion; 2 days of symbolic release. Even within our traditional linguistics, we are tricked into believing that work comes first (hence why there is the 5-day 'work-week,' and the 2 day 'week-end') and all other pursuits are nothing but secondary fantasies which one can entertain in order to remain sane.

The insanity of 'work,' in this context, is that it is on-par with being at the bottom of a waterfall and attempting to swim back up, despite gravity and reality which flows on unabated, undisturbed, and blissfully carefree.

The fear of not making the attempt to swim back up the waterfall lies not in reality, but in abstract linguistics looping through abstract linguistics looping through abstract linguistics; collapsing inwards towards a great self-destruction as opposed to simply letting go of the practical concerns which suffocate the mind in opposition; "I would love to simply walk out on this office and hitch-hike to Los Angeles, but where the hell would my next meal come from? For the sake of self-preservation, I'll remain at this desk."

Even the Western Zen idea of 'treat work as play, and you'll have a much better day' is a strange coping mechanism that, in many ways, attempts to make an individual ignore their Tao which is telling them to let go of such a job and let themselves fall back down the waterfall and flow on with the river, wherever it may lead. That isn't to say that there aren't jobs which one can treat as play.. but the attitude of play towards a job should not be forced; it should come naturally. You should not be attempting to shut down that part of your mind which keeps telling you that you are wasting your time laboring for nothing more than self-preservation, the uphold unnecessary luxuries, and simple conveniences. There are 'jobs' out there.. or, rather, ways of making a living.. which do not require you to step away from life in order to sustain it, but are instead just as rich an aspect of true living as long trips to mysterious parts of the planet you have never visited before, reading books which click your constitution in a brand-new direction you would have never even imagined had existed prior, or getting up and taking a walk down the street simply because you feel like it.

Freedom exists. But it resides, as I would expect should be an obvious common sense, away from all forms of force. 'Freedom' does not reside in money or subordination to business owners.. it does not reside in the ability to choose which brand of paper towel you wish to purchase.. and it certainly does not reside in the decision to fill out your tax-return form tomorrow rather than today.

True freedom resides beyond all obligation, and in the ability to walk in and out of societal conception as one sees fit. A truly free individual can work a terrible job. Not out of a feeling of need, but out of a feeling of want. They can just as easily call up work one day and tell them they won't be showing up for any more shifts, and then take the meager amount of money they have made, pick a direction, and start walking, riding, driving, or flying for no other reason than because it is what they want to do. Because it feels natural, and it feels right.

The general attitude towards people of such a nature is one of disregard; they look at them like they have no consideration for others, as they leave co-workers dead in the water and 'forced' to work much harder due to the sudden absence. This is only a problem insofar as these co-workers take their jobs, as well as their society, seriously. In the same way that any philosophy which takes itself with absolute seriousness is, at its very basis, entirely wrong (regardless of the fact that what it may have to say is indeed interesting and valuable), our society is not only incorrect, but doomed in all aspects due to how seriously it demands to be taken. The truly free individual could have given two-weeks notice to make sure his co-workers could cope to a satisfactory extent, but then his message, or rather, his affectionate slap-in-the-face would have been missed entirely, and his very small part in attempting to better our society with a show not of malicious apathy, but of verve light-heartedness would never have had the chance to show itself at all.

In some situations, and in certain regards, such a message would be nothing but futile; but would be a futility far more meaningful than the 'Grand Futility' of treadmill labor. In other regards, it would make a positive dissident impression on many, whether sooner or later.

This isn't to say one shouldn't participate in society; but it is to say that nothing will get better until people start taking humanity, politics, philosophy, religion, and all things conceptual and consensually constructed far less seriously and, ideally, not seriously at all.

If a majority of your time is spent making a living as opposed to living, you can rest assured and admit to yourself that you are not at all free. What you consider to be 'living,' however, is entirely up to you.

Just follow your flow, absolutely and unconditionally.