This morning, I was looking at yet more things I want to get into. Things I've been "meaning to" get started on. And then there are other things I want to resume doing... I was doing them, at one point, but found myself unable to keep up.
Although we are coming to the end of one of our (quite time consuming) businesses, I realized that it in no way means I am somehow magically going to have more time.
Which got me to thinking about the greater "story" here; the story the looks it just how much little of our time is actually our own.
I'd like to sit and watch sunsets more often...
So Once Again, I Pause to Consider "Our Times"
To ask perfectly bluntly, I am simply being an "entitled little btch"* by thinking I actually get to do things I WANT to do? By thinking I would actually have time to do so?
Am I just being a histrionic whiner because I look at the way many people's lives are unfolding and and I can't help but feel the spectre of indentured servitude, somewhere in the background?
I look around at most of our friends; some business associates; some acquaintances... and recognize that one of the common threads among us is that "leisure time" has become more and more of a luxury we can ill afford.
I asked my neighbor when she'd last been on vacation. A real vacation, not just "a couple of days away."
After thinking about it a bit, it turned out to be 2003. By comparison, much longer than Mrs. Denmarkguy's and my last excursion in 2015.
Landscape near Sedona, Arizona
How did we get to be here, I sometimes wonder?
We live a pretty simple, not very expensive life by most US societal measures. And yet, it seems like we all face a similar challenge: The cost of "being alive" goes up 8-10% every year, no matter what the official "inflation rate" might be. So our net purchasing power goes down.
And so we end up with leisure time being less and less enjoyable because we end up fretting about the opportunity cost of not working at something income producing.
It's 4/20 and We're off the Rails...
Point of perspective: Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are arrested on various charges of possession and use of cannabis products... while rapists, burglars, car thieves and other criminals are barely given a second glance.
How is that, for inequality?
Autumn Leaves
I realize it might sound like we're skipping around a lot here, but are we really? One of my "things" is making unlikely "intuitive leaps of faith," so here's one:
What if cannabis is something that allows people to relax and slow down and pay less attention to the process of endless toil, while burglaries and property crime and even violent crime is something that ramps up our vigilance and anxiety, and possibility even necessitates more work/activity to replace that which has been — or might be — stolen or destroyed?
Think about it? Prosecute the "do less" crime; ignore the "do more" crime.
Far fetched? Perhaps so... but it's still something to think about.
It's the end of a long day, and I'm rambling... so I'd better stop and put this out there, and myself to bed!
Thanks for reading!
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Created at 190420 22:54 PST
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