Life has become increasingly more stressful in the last few months (that's my own choice, of course). It rarely leaves me with a moment to breathe and think. I find that I simply don't have enough time. There's always something that gets left out, something misplaced, something undone, something forgotten.
I have always pictured life as if I was a swimmer atop a cresting wave. At times, my body will rise high above the waves, propelled with great force by the power below. I spread my arms and mimic the birds, soaring over the horizon. Yet, with the inevitability that gravity brings to all life, I tumble head over heels toward the cold, dark depths of the ocean. Water rushes around me, pummeling my defenseless form.
That is what life is to me. Up and down, but always driven forward by time.
Time. Time is a dimension that is fairly well defined in the United States of America. Seconds, minutes, and hours. We dance like ballerinas to the tick of the clock. It has been decided by our superiors that each second is vital. The server did not bring our food quick enough (a matter of minutes); I was late because I missed the bus (I was no more than 20 seconds walking time away); they tried buying comic con tickets, but they were an hour late (San Diego Comic Con tickets sold out in 1 hour. 130,000 tickets. In 1 hour).
Seconds, minutes, hours, tick, tick, tick. The clock is King.
Time is not just defined by the clock. Time is also defined by another concept. Money. You have undoubtedly heard that Time is Money. Indeed, this is the truest sense of capitalism. Why? Because people are slaves to time, bound by its inexorable march onward. Thus, if time is money, then people are slaves to money. Therefore, he who controls the money controls the people.
This, then, is the critical disaster of capitalism.
We sit in our coffee shops, sipping our five dollar frothy beverages and debate the merits of capitalism over socialism. "Capitalism is risk, and risk is freedom" we say. "True, it's the freedom to fail, yet it's also the freedom fly to the highest heights of the human pyramid." We are all just one step away from being the next Bill Gates. So we tirelessly toil, while dreaming of that day. That one one glorious day that we will be exalted above the others. After all, we wouldn't want to be like those poor, lazy folk who live off the labors of others. Those filthy, wretched folk who sup at the table of welfare. The workers pay for those who do not or will not work. Surely the freedom to fail to feed yourself is better than than the un-freedom that comes with having your hard-earned money stolen from you to feed others?
Here we fall into the sickeningly sweet-sounding trap that is our "freedom". For our freedom enslaves us to the pursuit of money, and therefore enslaves us to those with money.
The crucial question of this century arises: Is it better to be a slave to the poor or to the rich? For as surely as the socialist is a slave to the less fortunate, the capitalist is a slave to the wealthy.
~Piebald
