mandarine

I could have named it the ‘gnôthi seautòn’ meme, or the Socrates meme, let’s just call it the ‘why’ meme. The rule is the following: pick any number of big life choices you have made or are about to make, and recursively ask ‘why’ until it makes no more sense. I believe that we should do this for almost every choice in life, so that we make sure we are aware of our true motivations.

- I want out of the treadmill of wage-slavery and leave the insane train of industrial production and gdp growth to reinvent a homesteader’s peaceful life.

why?

- Because I think the world is going nuts and that the insane race for quantity instead of quality is already banging against the limits of our small planet.

why?

- Because I think that science and technology can now give us comfort with very little work, but the human mind cannot easily adapt to the new paradigm of plenty. But instead of all rethinking how we want our lives to be, we are prevented from enjoying this by a work ethics which equates ‘more’ with ‘better’, and we have invented the economic structures that concentrate plenty into the hands of few, so that plenty is artificially out of reach from the majority, therefore giving more credit to the work ethics of penury. Always running for more leads to exponential growth. Continued exponential growth in a finite world is not possible, so this race will stop sooner or later anyway. However, I think I should step aside and leave the race before it crashes.

why?

- The obvious answer is that I hope I can make a Noah’s ark for my family and me, but this is at best improbable. If it crashes, we’ll all be in the same boat. But if it does not, I still believe that the ‘race’ is making everybody miserable, even the ones who are not denied a share of the plenty. By stepping out, I can pause and think and invent a life of quality instead of quantity. Ever since I started to work part-time, I have seen how much more quality I could put into my life while relinquishing only a tenth and now a fifth of my income. In fact, I think the best life is the one where the amount of one’s monetary work is not set by conventions but by exactly how much monetary income I strictly need, and also how much good it does the world if I work one extra hour.

why?

- We have all been trained as mercenaries, and now hardly anyone questions the validity of one’s job, whatever the job. But as I have said, it is quite certain that the world does not need more stuff, so I have to be really careful about what good it does the world if I work more at what I do. For instance, if I work for the armament industry, the tobacco industry, the chemical industry, the aircraft industry, the automobile industry, the bioengineering industry, there are serious doubts as to whether more of my work actually makes the world a better place, given the circumstances. Now if I can find a job which is useful to the world, how much of it should be paid and how much of it should be volunteer? If it is paid, it participates in the ‘race’ of money flow, GDP growth, wealth concentration, etc. If it is volunteer work, it profits the world, period. I want to live the best life without having to walk over other people’s bodies, so I have to make the volunteer/commercial work ratio as high as I can afford.

why?

- Because I feel my life has already profited too much from walking over other people’s bodies (especially people in the so-called ‘South’), although I am convinced that the new ‘paradigm of plenty’ (even in the absence of cheap oil) makes slavery of others an optional contributor to one’s comfort. I am not sure that I can ever repay the debt I have, especially if we count in terms of inheritance of the colonial times, but I can at least relieve the pressure our economies put on the world at large and on the poor in particular. Therefore, if I am to earn the least money, I should make my own stuff, grow my own food, and try to rely more on the local economy than on the globalized economy. Hence the homestead. In addition, I wish that my experience can serve as an example to other people and show that other life patterns are possible outside the commercial race.

why?

- Because I think that as soon as one is locked as a nameless mercenary in the economic treadmill, having to beg every penny of one’s needs from the globalized economy, freedom discreetly leaves the scenery. How free am I when all my livelihood relies on the economic welfare of my boss’s shareholders? How free am I when less work means less food for my family? Imagine if all the people in the world were homesteaders who could make their own food, clothing and shelter, would they not represent the kind of ideal free citizenship which was the foundation of the US of A? In addition, if people return to the land, they’ll tie new bonds with the Earth, and instead of being abusers of Nature, they’d all be stewards of the Earth. I owe that much to my son.

why?

- Because messing up the Earth unknowingly is one thing, but carrying on when we know we are is another thing altogether. How is my son to understand if I did not try my best to make his world livable. And by being around nurturing the land he lives on, I believe I give his life the best quality.

why ?

- Because I am certain that he cares more for a mouthful of homegrown strawberries, a walk in the forest, a game of ball in the garden, or wrestling on the lawn than he cares for a large bedroom, a brand-new TV set and a comprehensive collection of Disney DVDs. When kids can count on their parents being around (though not always on their back), they develop the kind of security that makes balanced grown-ups. When people are not afraid they might be abandoned, or loved less, they do not see the world as a battlefield against their neighbours, but as an adventureland with their friends.

why?

- Because I am certain that human aspirations, once the means of survival are provided for, are often the unconscious ripples of unsoothed childhood wants. Nobody is ever rich enough to compensate for an archaic fear of poverty; nobody is ever powerful enough to exorcise a history of humiliation; nobody is ever famous enough to erase a childhood of apparent lovelessness. When one seeks power, wealth, or fame, the goal is always just over the horizon. When one seeks love, happiness, health, one can take them by the hand from birth to death, and walk the walk of the good life. I picture the good life as a hike in the wild, with each step requiring a slight effort but rewarded with new sights, sounds and smells, each step bringing me a little further along whatever path I choose. A walk which is so beautiful in itself that I would have no regrets if I had to stop anywhere.

why?

- Because we have but one life, and we never know when it will end. I am not going to sacrifice now for tomorrow because there could be no tomorrow. But I will not sacrifice tomorrow for now either, because there might be a hell of a lot tomorrows ahead.

why ?

- Because I might live long for one thing, and also because although I fully embrace a purely materialistic viewpoint, I cannot completely discard the possibility that something in people is immortal, whatever it is

why?

- Because I find believing gives a special light to the world.

why?

- Because it sort of answers the final why.

why?

- Why not?

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