my future within the system…
I’ve been working steadily today. It’s quite nice to have a feeling of control and preparedness. It makes me look forward to the week end and my life outside of the office. It’s quite a different world out there.
There is a plethora of possibilities and I want to experience them all. Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to do anything aside from the mundane. However, within a few weeks I should have some spare time to devote to the bigger picture and my future within the system. Of course, there is always a bigger picture beyond my big picture. This is the picture of humanity and the manner in which we treat one another through the run of a day. What I mean to say, is there is a picture beyond that of North American consumerism. It’s a third world perspective where people must really work in order to survive. Although this may sound like altruistic bullshit, I would really like to help these people.
I suppose this is my humble attempt to extend myself beyond the narcissistic tendencies which are so prevalent in the world today. On the one hand, I want to reject my own needs and focus on the needs of the poor, but at the same time, I don’t want to become one of the poor myself.
This is where we all seem to hit a bit of a conundrum. You often see it in Christianity and in big corporations. We want to take care of the world but not at our own expense. We want to live in a community but we also want to live as independent, self-sufficient and autonomous entities. We want to help other people but only when our needs have been met. We want to be better people but only when it’s convenient for us to do so. In a sense, we only want to act in an ethically correct manner when there are other people watching, and only as a means of distraction from our narcissistic behaviour. Somehow, the bad, ignorant actions of everyday life are justified by our good and conscientious behaviour. So, we can be bad, narcissistic people as long as it’s not in front of other people.
So, to sum up, today I’m going to focus on myself, tomorrow I’m going to focus on Africa and maybe the day after I will focus on the world.
