The idea of arriving in your twilight years and realising you wasted your life is a horrible thought indeed.
“I should have had more sexual escapades”
“I should have been faithful to that wonderful husband or wife”
“All that time spent making money, I should have:
- Given most of it away while I was alive.”
- Spent more time with my loved ones.”
- Spent more on drugs, orgies and partying”
- Become an evil Bond villain.”
Most people stay busy, entertained or numb in a subconscious effort to forget about their inevitable demise. The other, less talked about, reason for this ‘filling up our time’ is a nagging dread that we aren’t doing enough. That when we get close to the end, we will be overcome with regret. The irony, for me, is much of this ‘being perpetually engaged’ shit blinds us from what we really want to do.
I realise this subject covers a vast area, so I want to break things down to more manageable chunks. Here I will focus on my immediate interest and stick to the Corporate Confusion theme. For the people who invest the meaning of their life into this realm, success is easy to define: wealth, status, power. Moving on up and up and up…
The highest achievement is, if not literally tangible, easily describable. The CEO, the Chairman of the Board, the billionaire who owns the whole fucking thing! I will not bother going into whether any of this is worth it because that would be different for every individual. I don’t need to bother with the lives destroyed by such insatiable hoarding of wealth; I think it’s pretty obvious and if you disagree, that is a whole other debate.
No, I am taking aim at my usual topic; how this quest for corporate/financial success affects the decisions we at the bottom must carry out or do our best to deal with the consequences of.
Yes, we are all just numbers in the end and that might be enough for most people. Accept that fact with stoic resignation; try and climb yourself; try and rort the system in any way you can, drop out of society or start organising the revolution! All have their pluses and minuses and all may be part of YOUR meaning for life.
“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Alfred Pennyworth “The Dark Knight” (2008)
I suppose I fall into the stoic acceptance group like the vast majority of plebs. How we cope varies enormously and is yet another topic for the future. I, at present am doing this: trying to understand why. I am almost certainly just spinning my intellectual wheels, but it feels like the right thing to do now.
Okay, so back to our corporate climbers and their inconsiderate decisions that make our lives more difficult and seem to be destroying our entire ecosystem. The corporate/financial success ladder is yet another goal to get obsessed with and lost in. It aligns with one of the major ideals people chase, the pursuit of excellence, and is a superb distraction from the absurdity and existential dread lurking inside us all regarding this life we are born into.
“Welcome to your life.
There’s no turning back.”
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” Tears for Fears
The pursuit of fucken excellence! Bullshit! Hear me out. I know it can look like greed on a degenerate scale, but to the ones in the competition, that accumulation of wealth and status is the prize. The most destructive element being that there is no limit! There is no grand final where an ultimate winner is declared. You’re number 1 this quarter, but some devious bastard passes you in the next. There can always be larger numbers on the screen of your net worth.
Serena Williams, Conor MacGregor, Michale Jordan; they won events, tournaments and peer honours in record numbers. Their supremacy was measurable within their field of expertise. Money and fame were a by-product of their talent and dedication, not the sole objective. Strangely, for many retired superstars, it can become a substitute though.
That single-minded commitment to be the best in your chosen sport certainly keeps your mind occupied and when it ends, most athletes are still quite young. These are competitive people, and lazing under a palm tree drinking cocktails can get very boring very fast; so, they need to find a new contest to dominate. I’ll continue this thread elsewhere.
For the person whose forte is creating wealth and/or amassing power there is no ceiling when it comes to who has more. What even constitutes ‘the most’? There is an entire fucken industry that revolves around creating ultra expensive shit for these egomaniacs to buy, simply for flaunting their wealth! Superyachts, jet airplanes, ludicrous mansions, obscenely priced jewellery and apparel, luxury cars, preposterously priced restaurants, fucking spaceships!
“Well, I can tell you everything in one word: money-maker. He has to make money. He’s dedicated to it. It’s the only way he can prove to himself he’s still breathing.”
Harper (1966)
If you aspire to this definition of success, you have already decided you deserve more than others. Whenever you are looking up you lose sight of those below. The higher up the totem pole you move the more distant and blurrier the bottom becomes. Sooner or later what you consider to be the bottom is half-way up the fucken ladder! You are still aware that there is a miserable rabble down in the lower depths somewhere, but what can you do?
“I can’t change the system”
“If I step aside someone else will simply take my place.”
The old drug dealer rationale. If I don’t sell them the poison, someone else will. I might as well make some money. I can do some good with it after all. We’ll ride that upside down merry-go-round another time.
It’s a cruel world they say. Aint that the truth. Just in case you haven’t already realised, I’ll lay it out. If you are working class in a first world country you are much higher on the economic ladder than a massive chunk of the global population. You go to work every day and put up with all kinds of shit. You pay your bills and feed yourself and kids. You deserve a holiday now and then, right? You deserve some appliances that offer convenience and entertainment. After that you’re flat out trying to save a little for emergencies and retirement.
“Of course I’m distressed for those people living in abject poverty, but what can I do?”
That’s not an accusation; it’s just a harsh reality.
“I am the one in ten
A number on a list
I am the one in ten
Even though I don’t exist
Nobody Knows me
But I’m always there
A statistic, a reminder
Of a world that doesn’t care”
One In Ten (UB40)
MINDLESS MUSINGS 
Leave a comment