A Worthwhile Life Defined

[Raoul Duke]

When one considers that the Undistinguished Life of an Industrialised Man in an Industrialised nation consists of about 25,000 Days, and that about 33 to 38 percent of those days are spent in slumber (perhaps 36%), then about 9,000 of those days are spent in Unconsciousness, or Dream State. That gives the Industrialised man about 16,000 waking Days of Life.

Up to about age 5 or 6, the Industrialised Man spends his time in Childhood ostensibly waiting for the dozen years of minimum, legal Inculcation, or Indoctrination, (depending on perspective) that will launch him into either Secondary Education, or become a future Cog in the Labor Force.

These first 5 or 6 years can easily contain the paramount 1400 waking days of His life. In the event that he is born into penury, this can also be a time of endless agitation, perturbation, and grief.

Depending on his social surroundings, and his personal outlook, the individual may easily spend the next dozen years (or less if he drops out) in School or Kinder-prison. Extracting weekends and Summer Vacations, the Industrialised Man has about 1500 waking hour days of Time within the most formative period of his life to pursue Art, Literature, Music, and Nature….Or perhaps instead: TV, Little League, Facebook, and Delinquency.

Whether he pursues secondary education, or enters directly into the Labor force, the Industrialised Mans next half century (about 11,700 waking hour days) is often spent as follows:

Approximately 11,000 days will spent in Travail to keep the Industrial Machine turning. While the Industrial Man may enter the cogs of the Machine full of youthful exuberance, as Time wears on, he will find himself spending more and more of those 11,000 waking days doing what he Has to do instead of what he would Choose to do. He may be pressed into working weekends, foreshortening those 3300 waking hour days which comprise 2/7th of 11,000. This two day a week dolor may entail such edifying tasks as mowing the grass, washing the car, driving the family to the local promissory mall, or working on and maintaining his brig so as not to offend the neighborhood inmates by allowing his cell-bloc to sink into proleptic, yet inevitable, dilapidation and squalor. His few remaining non-toiling hours will be typically spent in Transportation Hades to and from the Machine, with perhaps an enervated hour or so of quiescence or inebriation before unconsciousness overtakes him once again. Often his life degenerates slowly into a perdition of Mortgage Serfdom, Automobile Slavery, and Revolving Credit Indenture. Most of these activities are the result of the Industrialised Man’s attempts to assure his Industrialised frienemies, that he is Worthy of being a Cog. If he becomes burdened with brood, or a surfeit of kith and kin, those remaining 3300 waking days are sharply curtailed. It is very likely that less than 1500 of those 3300 waking hour days will actually constitute Worthy Life, and less still if the Man encumbers himself with that second Truck, that Boat, or that Swimming Pool in the backyard which is now replete with leaves, dregs, and sediment from the past several summers of inusitation.

By the time the Industrialised Man has reached the age of retirement, his body may well be too worn out physically, mentally, and emotionally to spend those remaining 700 (or more) waking hours in pursuit of the dreams of his Youth. This is particularly the case with people who vocations include Mining, Timber, Masonry, Hard Construction, or Heavy Industry. But even these occupations may allow the man to have more chances at seeing Nature (whether He participates or not) than the Cubicle Serf who works for a large Bank, Insurance, or Law office. In fact, either may find that His recompense for all those years of thralldom to the Machine constitute little more than incarceration in a panopticon of Skilled Nursing, with all his hard earned assets confiscated to remunerate his captors.

The average Industrialized Man with 25,000 days on this planet, may easily secure only about 4500 waking hour days of beneficial Life. Perhaps 20 or 25 percent of his life if he is providential ….but if a member of the Lumpen-proletariat, or a Laborer, he may avail less than Ten percent of his waking adult hours for cogitation, orison, or laxity.

by John B. McLemore

 

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