Tuesday, October 21

Consumerism, laziness, and the postmodern life

A little over a month ago, I ended a stint of onsite web work for a private university. My normal week consisted of eight to ten hour days five days a week, followed by keeping up with existing clients in the evening. I know many Americans have a schedule like I Had for those six weeks basically every week of their lives. The thing that has been getting to me is how fast those six weeks flew by. They seem like a couple of weeks of my 'normal' life. Something about that just seems wrong and dehumanizing. I was a product in the system and it burned my time faster than I could have imagined.

Now, the flip side is I don't think I am not supposed to do any work. The fact is, I try to live a very simple lifestyle so I can do things I love and don't often get paid for (like being the General Editor of THEOOZE, acting in community theaters, and writing). I think human beings should engage in activities which improve mankind and are in some sense productive. The problem I am running into is the consumeristic culture is destructive , but I don't know how much of my life can be truly considered productive in what I do. Am I just being lazy? Selfish? Or is there value in refusing to embrace the machine which would cause me to, as in the movie fight club, "work the job I hate, so I can buy things I don't need"???

How much can a web designer really remove himself from the consumeristic culture. I can cut down my work to the bare minimum, but I am still tapped in. Removing myself isn't the answer, but I feel like I have lived a much longer life at 30 than many at 40 or 50 who have allowed the "machine" to grind up their years.

Or am I just an idealistic punk? Seriously. Am I immoral for not wanting to work a full-time job in the traditional sense? I do more than 40 hours of work on my various projects, but most of the hours don't pay. I don't know ... am I making any sense at all?

posted by Alan | 8:43 PM | |