When were we programmed, and by whom?

FRIDAY, 24 JUNE 2016

Since I am awake enough in the morning to register what is happening on the clock face, I think of work. I think of work when I eat breakfast, when I shower, when I brush my teeth and when I get dressed. I think of work when I’m travelling to a place where I work. After working at a particular place, I go home. Then I eat something, and then I work. When I watch TV, I am aware that I’m not working. When I lie down to take a nap, I think about how long I’m not going to work. When I open Wikipedia in my browser, or Twitter, or Reddit or Facebook, I think about the fact that I’m taking a break from work. On Saturday evening and the whole of Sunday the big thing is that I try not to work. I work when I make money, and I work when I am busy with long-term, ambitious writing projects that are most likely never going to make any money.

What I do when I work may differ from what you do when you work, but most adults accept this story that life revolves around work without thinking about it too much.

Our simple, often illiterate ancestors of five or more centuries ago only worked for a few months of the year. The rest of the time they did what they had to do to survive, they rested, and occasionally they enjoyed a little something of a life that only lasted on average about thirty or forty years.

This begs the question: Since when did we – the working masses – allow ourselves to be programmed with this thing that we have to work at least fifty weeks of the year, at least five days a week, at least eight hours per day?

______________________

The spoken word – and football

WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE 2016

Time for something of a different sort.

On 22 June 1986 Argentina defeated England 2-1 in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Both Argentine goals were scored by their star striker, Diego Maradona. The first was the infamous “Hand of God” goal. The second, a few minutes later, is described as one of the best goals ever.

Here is how Víctor Hugo Morales, a journalist from Uruguay, described the “Goal of the Century” in his commentary (credit to Wikipedia for the translation from Spanish):

“He’s going to pass it to Diego, there’s Maradona with it, two men on him, Maradona steps on the ball, there goes down the right flank the genius of world football, he leaves the wing and he’s going to pass it to Burruchaga … Always Maradona! Genius! Genius! Genius! There, there, there, there, there, there! Goaaaaaaaal! Goaaaaaaal! I want to cry, oh holy God, long live football! What a goal! Die-goal! Maradona! It’s to cry, excuse me! Maradona, in a memorable run, in the best play of all times! Little cosmic comet, which planet did you come from, to leave so many Englishmen behind, so that the country becomes a clenched fist crying for Argentina? Argentina 2, England 0! Die-goal, Die-goal, Diego Armando Maradona! Thank you, God, for football, for Maradona, for these tears, for this Argentina 2, England 0.”

And here is footage of the legendary goal:

______________________

Who are you when you make money?

FRIDAY, 17 JUNE 2016

If I have to give people advice about making money, I would advise them to consider their identity: Who are you? (Why are you this person?) Who do you want to be? (Why?) How do you see your purpose in life? (Why this purpose?) What makes you happy? (Why do these things make you happy?) Would you rather sell something – someone else’s products, or your time, your knowledge, your abilities or your experience, or would you rather take a risk speculating on some or other market?

One problem: Few people are ready with answers to these questions.

Another problem: Many people are too easily tempted to do things they shouldn’t be doing; and of course, too many people are too easily deceived.

______________________

A desperate plea

SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2016

I have mentioned this before, but I am doing it again today, solemnly, in public: I am asking myself, pretty please, to not become a fuddy-duddy, a cranky old geezer.

As a matter of course it is mostly men who will understand this plea, particularly if they have reached their so-called middle years.

Middle-aged and older men are known for their conservative attitudes, and in many cases seem to have a permanent bee in their bonnets and a chip on their shoulders. They regularly feel as if their manhood is being challenged. One of the younger generation of men just has to think of doing something wrong, like parking in the wrong place, talking too loudly on his phone, or cutting in line in the queue at IKEA’s restaurant in Kaohsiung (while actually only re-joining his friend), and the old geezer pushes up in a man who a few moments before was just a normal human being. He gets red in the face, his hair turns a greyer shade from pure outrage, he wants to read someone the riot act, and he says things like, “Please! For the love of god, just wake up!”

That everyone shakes their heads and his wife distances herself from him one small step at a time matter little to him.

Even though there are places where old geezers still rule – Saudi Arabia being a fine example, it seems like fuddy-duddies are an endangered species – red in the face from almost permanent consternation because someone dared to do something with which he disagrees, and with a feeling that if the world had ever belonged to him, it is certainly no longer the case.

Now I just need to build up some resistance to my inner old geezer who wants to show his puffed-up face every now and then and wag his finger at perfect strangers.

______________________