Through my writings presented here I have come to be misunderstood by a great many people, mostly with regards to my politics and my philosophy. There seems to be, if my email box is any measure, a widespread conviction that I am a socialist of one stripe or another.
While that may be true (I do not know), it is entirely irrelevant to me and to my thinking and acting, whether you call that politics or philosophy. While I do have a passing interest in political economy and a much-more-than-passing interest in reading and discussing both Western and Eastern philosophical systems and ideals, neither of those things can easily map onto my personal ethos; what I care deeply about and what I spend my time pursuing.
If my politics or my philosophy, as the two terms seem to be used interchangeably by most people who comment on either is not obvious from my writings, and I assume it is not, or there would not be so many missed guesses emailed to me, then perhaps I should state them as explicitly as I can, as I understand them now. That last bit is by way of warning; what I write here now does not signify everything I have ever cared about or everything I will ever be involved with, it is a description, not a proscription. With that in mind, my politics are as follows:
- I am deeply interested in whether people enjoy what they do to get food and shelter.
- Whether we all feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling.
- Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to.
- What we can do right now, today, to change whatever deficiency we see in those three concerns.
My ‘politics’ does not consist solely of thinking about, reading about, or discussing those things. My politics arises from my day-to-day participation in them. My politics is relevant, to myself, my family, and, as best as I can understand it, my wider community.
My politics is not comprised of -ists who adhere to -isms. My philosophy is concerned with the contents of my daily life; with improving said contents according to the the measures of joy, beauty and un-symbolism and un-mediation. So there!
whether people enjoy their work (though perhaps you’d be open to considering whether what some people do to gain food and shelter can legitimately be called work) is interesting to me…at the moment, i’m reading paradise lost as a critique of usury and intermittently pondering on currency, interest and the divorce of earnings from work.
would it make me a socialist if i stopped to ask whether it is true that some people work for money even as money works for some people?
by the way, i found your page while searching through results on pat tillman’s series of unfortunate events.
I always thought your personal philosophy was pretty simple and fairly common:
“I’d like a beer and I wanna see somthin’ nekkid.”
Well, yes, that too
I have no idea if it makes you a socialist or not. It would however, make you an interesting person to talk to…
As to Pat Tillman; no comment.
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Interesting post. I hope we all get meaning and fulfillment from both our work and our daily interactions with others – although I know that many don’t.
I´m here via the 1st T13-Carnival. Congrats on being featured in this edition and thanks for sharing your interesting thoughts. Please keep up the good work!
Yes, that seems to be a universal hope and want, but as I explore throughout this little website, a growing number of people are not achieving those goals, and I try to explore why that is, and what changes we can make to our daily lives, social structures and political systems to do so.
Thanks for stopping by!
“My politics is not comprised of -ists who adhere to -isms. My philosophy is concerned with the contents of my daily life; with improving said contents according to the the measures of joy, beauty and un-symbolism and un-mediation. So there!”
Well put, Jon. Glad you were chosen for Thursday Thirteen’s first carnival, I had missed this post.
I am down w. your philosphy. Too bad more people are not. Here from T13.
I am down w. your philosophy. Too bad more people are not. Here from T13 Carnivel.
Thanks! I am surprised I was chosen, actually, but happy nonetheless.
I’ve been interested in this same line of thought since age nine when a classmate who was the son of one of my Dad’s bosses, harrassed me on the playground with some version of: “Be nice to me or my Dad will fire your Dad.”
Thoughout those same years our family dinner table was monopolized by my Dad’s fretting about work, I began to notice how tired he was when he got home and how unhappy he seemed to be every morning at breakfast.
About that same time I began to understand that my Dad’s job was what put the roof over my head and that dinner on the table and the clothes on my back. It was distressing to say the least.
The same theme has permeated my marriage. My husband has hated most of his jobs. And I am currently nearly as dependent as that nine year old because of visual impairment and other health issues that make me less than desirable as an employee in the more traditional venues. Which makes me feel as much a burden to my husband as I once felt to my father. Again, quite distressing to say the least.
I have been reading in economics, sociology, philosophy and spiritual traditions with an eye for explanations or solutions to this for the last seven years. A project now impinged on by the recent closure of our local library system. Another economic and social problem that is quite distressing!! To say the least.
Meanwhile, I continue to struggle to not feel apologetic for asserting a right to exist and live joyfully in the face of a social and economic system that seems to see me as having negative value. A burden which could be, according to the underlying philosopy of the work ethic as it is currently manifested, be sluffed off without moral qualms. Distressing, yes?
May I suggest some reading from here…