Posted by JP on October 28, 2001 at 11:01:24:
In Reply to: The life of me posted by Cory on October 28, 2001 at 02:03:13:
Nice post. Very honest.
Why'd you guys wait 'til 3 months? Much simpler to take abortion pill during first month or two - no surgery.
I don't think it's the rich you hate. You hate the *stupid*, *asleep* rich, those people who think that having money makes them "better" than others. Everyone hates them (except those who are like them). But there are lots of poor people who are assholes too.
If you have a choice between rich or poor, rich is better. Why? Because money just gives you more ability to do whatever you want, and be whatever you are. If you are a "good" person and want to help out your family and friends, or yourself, or society as a whole, it's a helluva lot easier to do that if you have extra money. If you make *just enough* money, then at least you aren't a burden on anyone else.
But if you're poor, and it's just because you're lazy and hedonistic, then you're simply being selfish and self-indulgent. Because if you're poor *by choice*, then you aren't adding anything to the rest of the world - you're not helping it get better, in that you aren't utilizing your particular gifts to assist society. And of course if you aren't *working* on whatever's most important to *you*, as a conscious entity, then you're not evolving very much, not living up to your potential.
I know because I have been lazy, selfish, and hedonistic throughout most of my adult life (so like for 14 years now). And I have been mostly poor that whole time. I have often had to ask others for help, live with family members, move from crappy job to crappy job...because I felt like "playing the game" - of consumption, of social acceptance, of having a career, of going to college, etc. - was a cop-out, that it was dumb, that I was too good to waste myself on that.
You said "I understand the pain of the underclass and the worker first hand because I've lived as one for the past 3 years." But you've understood just the merest taste of that pain, because if you don't choose to use your gifts to figure out something you like to do to make you rich (or at least pay the bills), then guess what? You're going to become more and more intimate with that "pain" over the next *40 years* or so, if you don't create and follow some alternate plan. And then when you turn 65 you can hope to retire on social security, if it still exists.
I never thought about crap like that when I was 20, or even 25. But somewhere around 30 all that partying and wasted time starts to add up, and you start looking back and looking ahead and realizing that if you want to get *anywhere* with your life you'd better get some focus and make some decisions that move you toward something other than nothing.
It's fun being a 7 - no way to argue that. But it's no way for a 5 to live for very long.
If you get rich and have a family, would you buy your kids cars? Would you buy them quality Japanese imports, or would you stick to beat-up old Fords so your kids wouldn't seem pretentious to random angry people armed with leftovers? I'm not trying to scold you, since I don't really care, although I'd be pretty pissed if someone did that to me, and some people I know would shoot anyone dumb enough to arbitrarily attacked them like that...So, anyway, if you were really rich, what kind of cars would you buy, and why those particular ones?