Betabook

My dad is so pissed of that I quit one of the easiest and decent paying jobs you can get especially in this economy, because I was reading too much of Schopenhauer's pessimism about the cruelty of man, nature and existence. The stupid will to survive that "just is" and defies all reason. The selfish egoist sexual sadism of all nature and man. How can I live in a world like that? Maybe if I had been educated since childhood that thats the way the world is I could have accepted it. But in school they taught us lies about good guys and bad guys that I was the only fool stupid enough to believe.

My dad thinks I'm depressed because I have no friends or girlfriend. But this is a philosophical existential depression not a personal psychological one! I just can't move, get out of bed or live in this world under such cruel conditions!

How do I convince dad not to throw me out of the house because I wont get any job where I'm ruled by authority

I know that there is a libertarian argument that capitalism is the natural sister of democracy. That the free market is true economic liberty of personal responsibility, free will and voluntary choice. And you have an uncle named John Galt who used to have to lick toilets clean but then invented a autolicker and became a trillionaire. For the moment lets just leave that theoretical argument to the side.

What is the reality? In the USA all workers are at-will. Which means you can be fired for any reason whatsoever save race or sex. For rooting for another sports team, for complaining about an abusive employee, for doing your job too good, for listening to your manager, for asking for a raise or a pay decrease. For any reason whatsoever. So your boss has basically godlike omnipotent power over your life. Since there is limited welfare, its not impossible to starve from poverty so it literally is life and death. Without getting into a theoretical debate about capitalism, on a personal level its hard for me to just accept that some of the worst people in the world, the alpha male wolves should have such arbitrary power over my life. When you think that the lion's share of your time revolves around work, and your job pays your bills for the offhours. Since we're all such individualists, whats the solution for the individual. I guess theres the claim that anyone can be an entrepreneur. But for a young guy right out of college, what are the options really? Boss or death. I don't know if I can endure hierarchy and authority. Perhaps a public sector job would be better since then at least there is a system of checks and balances between unions and management, so its more like a constitutional monarchy. And in an indirect sense you are working for yourself since you elect the government you work for. Technically you can elect your boss out of office but its a rather tortuous process and not reality. Most you can really do is write your congressman complaining.

So I guess for me the question is both personal and philosophical. They feed off each other. I can sort of predict the responses. Its the boss' property so he can do whatever the hell he likes. And I should just toughen up and take my punches. Democracy has been such a big deal in my life politically and philosophically that I forgot to examine democracy in my personal life. I think this was a big mistake in college, because I took a pretty antagonistic view towards college life, when in reality there is more democracy there through hall councils, SA, and clubs than in the real world. Now college is over, and there is very little democracy in the real world. It seems individualism is valued over democracy. We are all lone atoms. There is value to that. But on the other hand you deal with your neighbors as atoms, not as a democratic body. Few people even know their local government. I'm very political and have no idea. And the small town Dem and Rep parties are surprisingly closed off, you would think they would WANT more members. So I started off with a sort of Jeffersonian democratic vision of the yeoman farmer breaking up the landed estates and farming his own land ruling his own nation like the Atheninan democrat or the New England Town meetings. With the values of a old New England town. But as I searched for daily life democracy I became more radical.

So I don't know what the solution is metaphysically or personally. Can this world be made livable? Can I put up with a job? To get a job is the ultimate affirmation of life. Its saying to the universe I'm satisfied with the decades that have come before, and I'm willing to work, fight and struggle to preserve whatever I already have. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that leap of faith and affirm my past life for the future

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