Who are the real suckers?

[JD@af]

The idea of this post is to identify the suckers versus the non-suckers in this life, who belongs in which category, and why. In my definition, as I will outline below, just about everyone will be able to find their place among one of these two categories.

Let's begin by defining the most common-place way by which a person is identifed as a sucker. A person who gets taken advantage of, duped, fooled, or otherwise believes something that is not true, with the result of this untruth affecting the person adversely. I apply this definition here to those who simply believe something that is untrue, or does not create the ideal situation for their existence. To those people, the simple term ignorance is bliss applies.

Most people who lead "normal" existences go to school, college, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, move to Miami, and its curtains for them. Other people, like many of my high school friends, take a different path, drop out, abuse alcohol, try drugs, don't find a job, and generally don't care about anything except finding a slice of happiness in doing nothing.

What makes me think twice about my life, as being a normal existence kind of guy, is what is our purpose in being here? Are we part of some grand experiment as described in the Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Or is there some other supreme purpose we fill in going about doing what we do? The best conclusion I have been able to come up with is this: our purpose here is to spawn and raise offspring, to keep the human race in continuance, and to try to enjoy ourselves as much as possible in achieving this.

This brings me back to the two types of people identified above. People that drop out, don't get a job, etc. they may be parasites living off the earnings of relatives, but they may have a good handle on what life is all about, an insight that eludes many of us in life. While on the one hand I dislike people willing to do this to others, to bleed money off others to preserve their own existence, but I also wonder if it is just laziness that permits them to continue to live this way day in and day out. Why worry if there are others to worry for you?

What a concept: sit on your ass everyday, and be happy doing it. That may be something. And they may be doing a better job of living their lives than those of us that don't: they are enjoying themselves and making themselves happy.

Granted, many people love what they do, and are driven and career-minded, so that their livelihood is what preserves their happiness. For others, it is simply having a family. But what about the heroin addict that lives his life looking for and eagerly anticipating his next fix? Yeah, his life may suck some serious ass in between his smack fixes, but when he's got it, whew, he's got a happiness and satisfaction that most will never understand.

So is he an addict, a sucker living a shitty existence? Who are we to judge from our "normal" existence standpoints? We think we're so great, going to work and school everyday, getting married and having kids, with the end of our lives approach like a runaway train in the middle of the night that we never stop to see coming because we are too busy following the footsteps of conventionality to contemplate what would happen if we strayed from the beaten path.

Often in our careers we lose sight of the big picture and become disillusioned with what we do on a daily basis. At times like this, one must wonder what the hell they are doing with their lives. At times like this, consider if you are a sucker. You're Joe Schmoe, you work 9 to 5, you make your paycheck, and you try to have fun and relax on weekends. You mock or sadly shake your head at those you consider to be less fortunate because they don't have jobs. What are we missing? Because maybe they feel the same way about us, because we do what we're "supposed" to do.

Don't be a sucker. Life is short and there are many many experiences to be had. It's been said that a man who knows what it feels like to walk a mile in another man's shoes rules the world. Discover what you've been missing. Leave no stone unturned in your search for meaning in a life without meaning. Find out why experience is the best teacher, and happiness will seek you out in your quest.

[Bean Bandit]

IMO droping out of school isn't realy a good decision. But you sad true words. There are so many people who live theire life as happy(or even more) as a family father with two kids and don't own a fuck. Fulfilled life can be established IMO several ways first we have to differ between materialistical satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction. Both is hard to reach but the main difference is that you wont need vast money for the spiritual one I think most people who we consider to live a normal life made a mix of those to satisfaction levels. What I have to admit isn't a bad idea nevertheless I'll try to focus on spiritual satisfaction more than on materialisme.

[Lizard King]

our purpose here is to spawn and raise offspring, to keep the human race in continuance.

Thats it. IMO thats all the real purpose we have. We are, after all, just animals. Those things are what drive animals.

But as we have become more advanced we have forgotten that we are but animals. Now we have created more complicated goals for ourselves.

I don't think drop-outs should be called parasites. Life was never meant to be a stress filled struggle with jobs and finance.

Personally, I could never be fulfilled by the regular life, as you said: "go to school, college, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, move to Miami..."

I could never be fulfilled knowing that I'll have the same 9-5 routine every day for 40 years. I go to work and I see people who've been there for 20 or more years. That really scares me.

"Don't be a sucker. Life is short and there are many many experiences to be had."

Thats the code I live by.

[ichthus]

To each his own. We all have our own purpose in life, there is not a single purpose that could apply to all of humanity. I do NOT believe that we are mere animals. Animals are without a conscience, they do not have the ability to reason. This seperates us from them and puts us on a different plane of existence. We, in short, are responsible. We can differentiate between right and wrong. We have the ability to expand our existence, to better ourselves and the world around us. We also have the ability to reduce our existence and ruin the world around us.

I agree that a 9-5, 40hr a week deskjob would seriously suck...I couldn't handle one. I gave it a try over the summer and quickly found that a life like that would drive me insane. This, perhaps, is why I'm becoming a pilot...I'll have a varying schedule and fly all over the world. Even the normalcy and schedule of college life is driving me insane...i'm sooo ready to get out of here. However, this is for me. It doesn't apply to everyone. My step-dad, for instance, has no problem with a 9-5 job. He needs a schedule that's cemented into his daily existence. He thrives on that. He finds joy in tackling problems everyday at work and is fulfilled in getting the little things done that keep his office and factory running without pause.

Fortunately for mankind we are all different and each finds happiness in different things. While I have no interest in living life like a broken record, the druggy you describe sounds even more horrible to me. Spending all your time looking for a quick fix or 20 minutes of pleasure, knowing fullwell that you will then hit rock bottom again. A rollercoaster of physical and emotional wellness sounds like a pitiful existence. He finds happyiness for brief periods, but is he fullfilled and does he find true joy in life? I don't think so.

[Lizard King]

My dog knows right from wrong. He often tries to do things he knows are wrong. He creeps towards food, peering over his shoulder, knowing hes about to commit a 'crime'.
Thats the only example I can think of now.
It often amazes me how human like he can be.

Humans are just more developed animals. We have created purpose for ourselves. Early man only had animalistic values. We hunted and reproduced - driven by the will to survive, and keep the species going.

[ichthus]

The dog knows it may be punished...it does not have an inherent knowledge of right and wrong. I'm sure you've heard about Pavlov's Dog which, through conditioning, would salivate everytime it heard a bell because it was expecting food. Your dog knows the consequences of the action but cannot understand the reasoning behind the consequences. An animal will have no remorse for having gotten away with something, while a human may feel guilty...barring some sort of sociological disorder.

[texan]

ichthus- That is true in the psychological sense, but it's also true of human beings. Humans may have no inherent knowledge of right and wrong either, and morality is clearly a learned behavior. Whether or not we naturally seek out what this should be is not in question, but why we do certainly is, and some people surmize that adopting a belief structure is simply an instinct driven by social necessity. Humans absolutely need psotive social interraction to have a healthy and productive life, so we adopt whatever belief structures we feel are necessary to further that end. Ask a baby whether it feels remorse for manipulating the parent to get what it wants; whether the child feels guilt for relentlessly teasing other children that don't quite fit in to their social structure.

Morality may simply be an adaption to surviving and sucessfully breeding in a complex social system, where there are so many followers in the system that it's hard to find direct leadership to draw from. After all, what is truly right and truly wrong? Cannibalism, homosexuality, polygamy, ritual mutilation and sacrificial slaughter are often found in ancient human cultures (and sometimes in currrently existing ones). Yet all are considered by Christian faith (and many other belief structures) to be strictly taboo, so who's right? And who's wrong? And who feels guilt for having done something like that in a social structure that doesn't see it as wrong? Maybe we are just socially adept dogs.

[Bean Bandit]

Just an example, think about it:
A man goes down the road, enters a shop and buys a pair of shoes. No one would blaim him but maybe at another place of the world this shoes were produced by small children who were forced to make them. That's not right. And today you simply can't say if there were produced that way or unless you realy saw how they made it. JMO

[Moppie]

Originally posted by texan
Maybe we are just socially adept dogs.

Very nice, do you mind if I use it else where?

You noted that our concepts of right and wrong are possibly only a result of the social structure we have created around oursleves, and that prehaps morality is purly subjective.
However you made an objective moral claim a the start, you said that "Humans absolutely need postive social interraction to have a healthy and productive life". This is a moral claim, and since you eluded to morality being subjective, then Humans can live a healthy and productive live out side of any kind of social interaction, e.g. Monks from certain religions may lead a very happy, healthy and productive life, and yet be invovled in levels of social interaction that we would certainly call unhealthy and unproductive.

[texan]

Actually Moppie I was speaking psychologically, humans absolutely need interaction (preferrably with other humans) to stay sane (sorry for not making that clear). I suppose it's one of those basic laws of nature, once you have a skill you get an instinctive drive to use it. Humans have a gift that seems to be 99% unique in the animal kingdom, we can project ourselves into the minds of others. And no I don't mean some sort of ESP, I mean that we can see situations and ideas from another's point off view, which is definitely one of our most amazing traits. Think of it this way... it's very easy to learn how to play chess. But what makes a person good at chess isn't knowing the rules or even strategies, it's the ability to anticipate your opponent's moves ahead of time. And this is only possible because we can literally jump into their skin and understand (to a limited extent) what they are seeing and how they are thinking, call it intuition if you want but it's a very real skill. We not only have the ability to see ourselves, we also have the ability to see others in a way most animals have no comprehension of (incluing small children, this ability develops as we grow).

In the case of mental isolation, humans either tend to go insane or invent other things to have interraction with to stay sane. Those monks who practice total isolation actually just dive deep into the minds and inerract only with their God, who's either a fictional character or a higher power depending upon your viewpoint. But the point is that we have a need to interract with soemthing outside of ourselves who is also intelligent, it's a coping mechanism for living in this world if nothing else.

[Moppie]

Aha, I got ya Texan
If you believe in the whole sharing your self with others then you might be intrested in reading works by Nel Noddings. She talks alot about feeling compasion with others, and being in them, but manages to explain it in what she claims are philosophical terms, and as myticism.
Her book is Caring, a Femine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. (Berkly 1984).

I dont personaly agree with it though. When I feel compasion for someone I believe its because I can imagine my self in a similar situation, or becuase I have personaly been in the a simlar situation.
Its the same with playing chess, I can only pick the persons next move if I know them really well, or have taken time to observe thier body langue and playing style. Im certainly not sharing anything with the other person, or knowing thier thoughts, I can only make an educated guess as to what thier thoughts maybe, and the better I know the person the more educate my Guess will be.