My Emancipation Proclamation

I often think of going back to work full time so I could be fully self supporting. I then think over the many jobs I have had and I change my mind pretty quickly. Working nine to five was a life of drudgery. Working full time was also more pressure than I could handle with my mental illness. I am very comfortable living on less and working less. My part time job suits me fine.

I see many people around me working their lives away in jobs they hate or that are mundane and I feel so sorry for them. We have been conditioned to think that this is the only way to “make a living.” I see a life of servitude and slavery. People get really upset if you mention that fact in that it threatens their way of life and what they have been taught from a very early age to believe.

I often ask who decided that the forty hour work week was the standard. It is simple. It is advantageous to the employers and not the employee. You would think with the amount of technology we possess that the work week would have diminished over the decades (this was predicted by many notable scholars). On the contrary, people are having to worker longer and harder and for less pay, much less pay.

I think things really took a turn for the worse when corporations were granted the same rights as an individual. I think there was a landmark case involving the railroads in the late eighteen hundreds that established this. Most corporations have become so powerful that they greatly influence our lives and our government. Our government is rife with corporatism. Many of these companies gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to BOTH candidates, republican and democrat alike, during the last election. It is akin to tossing a coin to decide who will be king as either candidate will be sympathetic to the corporate cause. Both men in the last election had strong ties to big business. Many people still live under the delusion that we are a democracy. I would argue that we are a corporate oligarchy.

Also what mystifies me is all the crass commercialism I see around me. Everywhere I turn I see some company trying to vie for my attention and to get me to purchase something. None of this stuff being advertised is needed. That is why I quit watching television in a traditional way. I turned off and tuned out. I don’t want to be bombarded what all that crap on a daily basis. If there is something I want to watch then I download it off of the internet sans commercials.

I sometimes have fears for what the future holds. My common sense keeps telling me that we can’t go on consuming like we do as a nation. I just don’t think it is sustainable. I see so much debt and rabid, needless consumerism. Modern American is beginning to remind me of that colossus called Rome that fell as well. It seems nothing is sacred anymore and anything and everything can be bought and sold like commodities on a market. Everything revolves around the accumulation of those little green pieces of paper that have a perceived economic value i.e. the almighty dollar.

I was forced to live a minimalist lifestyle starting with my homeless days. My homeless days were my emancipation proclamation from a life of slavery. Before hand, I lived the typical “middle class” lifestyle. I and my ex-wife had a new car and nice home. We were also greatly in debt and were constantly bombarded with bills and worries. I would never want to go back to that lifestyle again. I think a large part of my mental illness was so exacerbated by the kind of lifestyle I was living. I was a slave to my possessions and the style of life I had to maintain. I lost everything, but gained something even more valuable: Freedom.

What was forced on me in beginning has become a lifestyle that I now enjoy and embrace. I would gladly chose voluntary simplicity over my former “life” now if given the choice. I have time to relax and enjoy life. I have time to read and write. I can sleep when the need arises. I can go to the bathroom without getting permission from a boss beforehand. If I am not feeling well then I don’t have to work. I can stay home and recuperate.

By most standards I would be considered poor. I live well below the poverty line, but you know what? I don’t feel poor at all. I feel blessed and fortunate. I feel truly freed from a life of servitude and drudgery. That freedom is something I would never trade. Not even for a million dollars. If push came to shove and I was forced to live like I did before my homeless days, I would be back out in that tent in Waverly camping. I would give up everything to have my freedom.