Am I a misfit in the "do something" USA?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

I've worked at many factories and I often thought the products that we made were pointless, maybe even damaging to the world -- e.g., various kinds of plastic trim to cover up supposedly "unsightly" screws or holes made by home builders. I would think, "This is something else that will probably end up floating in an ocean someday." I know that I'm applying my own subjective values with this example. On the other hand, can we agree that something isn't good just because there's a demand for it on the "free market"?

I feel like we're a nation of "busy bodies" who sometimes do more harm than if we did nothing. Are all cultures like this? I doubt it.

Back when I heard Rush Limbaugh denigrating "welfare queens" and the like, I used to think how the world would be much improved if that deceptive fat ass was on welfare himself. I'd have far more respect for him if he did that instead!

[HopeAgain]

1. We need to find meaning in our lives

I feel like production and consumption have become the primary form of American spirituality. It has become the place most turn for meaning to their existence. Make, make, make, buy, buy, buy.

The pabulum of consumption has bled into our entertainment (reality TV), our politics (Limbaugh and Hannity) and our possessions (Walmart and Best Buy). These things can make people feel better just like a drink or a drug, but can also be just as addictive.

My solution is to not buy in. I don't get joy from just having a career or owning the biggest, but from sitting on the edge of a lake or helping another person.

I believe we are looking at life wrong in this country. We measure our economy by how much crap we produce or how many cars we buy. Quality of life in America is measured in plastics or real leather, not intellectual pursuits, arts and love.

just my soapbox...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. Nice reply!

We seem a lot alike.


I like to feel "useful" in society, but I've accepted many jobs in the past just to survive and they weren't very fulfilling in that regard.

[HopeAgain]

11. I advise people on arcane and dense regulations

Stuff that was created with good intentions but distorted by years of push and pull of capitalists trying to end around their way into making more money. A cat and mouse game that in the end looses sight of any real purpise.

Whole different career with the same empty feeling.

[Lars39]

3. We're watching Minimilism right now.

Really underscores this.

[PETRUS]

4. Wonder what you'd think of this:

http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. Excellent article!

Thank you so much!!

[HopeAgain]

10. Great article but

I think he could have stressed more the driving factor of competition for competition sake in our capitalism.

Why, for example, would an owner of a business want to pay people do do useless, ineffective things? I think it is the same reason we collect stuff that gives no real value to our lives. Ego:

"I own a business that employs X people"

Which filters down the chain to:

"I have a job that supervises X people"

It is the instinctive fight to amass both people and things, which worked well when we were competing tribes in prehistory and it was impossible to have "too much." Ego was part of the fight for survival.

Now we equate that endless drive to impress and amass with "meaning". My manufactured thing has more value than your manufactured thing because all the screws holding it together are covered with a more aesthetic plug. Hence I'm more valuable as a person. Soon we all feel "less than" if our screws are showing. Hence screw plugs are now a necessity.

I think we all need to keep talking about this subject because America's wealth disparity is a product of this and I believe it is unsustainable. I was considering walking away from this site and this thread is the type of thing that might keep me here...

[rurallib]

5. You certainly are not

I think at some point many of us have introspective moments when we wonder why we stay at jobs we hate, making or selling crap that often isn't good for humans or the environment etc.

But few of us have enough guts to carry out our beliefs because we want to eat well and also get some shiny toys.
So we sigh, strap on the old shackles and hope someday we get lucky and hit the lottery.

[True Dough]

6. You're right

Demand does not equate to common sense or what's in the best interest of the planet. Bottled water is an example. There are occasions where it's helpful, like after disasters destroy infrastructure. But people who buy it by the case and discard plastic bottles regularly are being very wasteful.

[DFW]

7. Are things really that dreary back home?

My two siblings are doing wildly diverse jobs they both have fun at. One in-law is a lighting techie on Broadway, and has a great time. One of my daughters has a job in Manhattan in a field she always wanted to be, and gets to do it in a place she always wanted to live. She was born and grew up here in the German Rheinland. My brother is doing his top security clearance whatever-it-is, living in the Langley/McLean area of Virginia. He's happy as a clam, too.

None of them is making a fortune, but they are doing what they want to do, and where they want to do it. Ironically, the one member of my family who IS making a fortune is my younger daughter, who went to law school in the USA, couldn't find a job after graduation in May of 2010 (aftermath of the Cheneybush recession), moved back to Germany and is now the youngest German partner in (of all things) the German arm of an American law firm. She lives two hours by train to the south of us. It seems they were desperately looking for someone bilingual German/English with an EU work permit and an American Bar Exam. She said, "here I am," and off she went. Now, she invites (and pays for) her sister to join her on trips to Cuba or the Oktoberfest in München. She would have preferred to stay in the States, but went where the work was. The daughter in New York envies her younger sister's big earnings and six weeks' vacation. The one in Germany envies her sister's chance to live in Manhattan. Yin and Yang. Nobody gets everything they want, but none of us makes anything made of plastic.

I don't live in the USA any more, but as station chief for Europe of an American outfit, that wouldn't work long distance. In any case, my wife is German, prefers living in Germany, and we speak German at home. Our daughters are fully bilingual because I made it a point to speak to them only in English. I'm in a different country practically every day for my job, and though it's more tiring at age 65 than it was at age 35, I get to spend my lunch breaks at the Grande Place in Brussels, the Altstadt in Zürich or the Plaça de la Catedral in Barcelona. Only an idiot would be whining about that. I didn't whine 30 years ago, and I don't now.

Outside of Europe and North America, where, after all, only a minority of humans live, many cultures are about mere day-to-day survival. Many people on this planet, maybe even a majority, might well answer "if only I had your problems."

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. I'm happy for you.

You and your family seem to fit into the system quite well, and it wouldn't surprise me if genetics plays a role.

I suspect that we're very different people with different values.

Reading your post makes me wonder if this is how a homosexual man feels when a heterosexual man proclaims the joy of his sexual exploits with women.

[cwydro]

12. Very odd analogy.

I'm a gay woman, and I don't remember having any sort of "feeling" when a straight friend talks about their sex life.

Very strange analogy there.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. No feeling... exactly.

I felt happy for the person, but everything that was mentioned did nothing for me.

[hunter]

13. This thing we now call "economic productivity..."

... is a direct measure of the damage we our doing to the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

I've been saying that here on DU for many years.