Haha thanks timecat! I live in Scotland, it's not stress free... I need to (every fortnight) convince the government that I am "looking for a job".

I dont think you are sad and stuff. I have a work I am a truck driver. In school I didnt like it and didnt listen. I feel bad for being truck driver cause I haul cargo from corporation to other locations. Sometimes I feel a bit free when I am driving and trapped at same time cause my destination is fixed. I also cause much co2 in air.

I pay taxes and a little bit goes to you. I dont care. I am happy I can pay taxes so someone like you can do something else, like think about existence. Maybe you find some answer to the universe yes?

We should be happy some of us can escape the work. The stuff I drive around Europe is meaningless stuff that is not good for climate. I feel guilty. You feel guilty for not working, I think you more innocent than me.

It is strange. Some people wanna drag you down in the mud with them. They say you must work to get my respect. Respect is given, not traded like money. Like, u work, I give you respect, you dont work, no respect, see? That unfair.

Dont feel guilty for not helping climate change and cutting of forrests and stuff. Everyone is a hypocrite. They just pissed they work 8 hours in the system, destroy our world and pay you for not be so responsible

You open up and you get hit. Shame on all who do that.

But what is in society that you want to go on with it? Society is no good for our world. Our climate suffers, animals die, forrests cut down. For buying junk. And you want him to help do all this? There is saying in English. I forget. Somewthign about misery and sharing. And that it then gets better because you share. So it is like more poeple help destroy the world, less responsibility is with ourself?

Maybe all need to stay at home. The end of our society. Someone tell me that people in jungles work less.

If we all want healthy planet how can you blame tony? On tv here our politicians say work makes you feel good because you meet people and do soemthing useful. Wll, I drive cargo around Europe and I dont feel useful. I should work on windmills or make solar panel.

I though people use psychedelics for better the world? But then when we have chance to show this is true, we gang up on tony. Bad tony! He dont work, he dont share our own responsability.

Gang up on Tony?

It's people acting and living like Tony that give psych users a bad name.

He's sitting around leaching money off his government do he can buy rugs and alcohol.

How in the hell can you not see the wrong in this picture.

Yeah he's only 24 and should still be enjoying life, but the reality of life is about to smack him hard in his face if he doesn't chose another route.

Right now at 24 he has the entire world as his oyster. If he dicks around on government welfare for another few years the odds will increasingly stack against him.

Right now Tony has a choice. He can CHOSE to take part in the world around him and have a chance at a happy life. Or he can fight the tend and swim up river. It will be a long, depressing, poverty filled life that he will probably regret for most of his older life.

Tony if you are still reading this then have some damn compassion on you older self and go create a life so that you can still live when you are 60.

Peace.

Yes yes, I am everything that is wrong with the world... I should be ashamed of myself. So what are you basing this opinion on? All you know about me is what I have said in this thread, that I don't have a job... and based on that you have decided that I am giving you a bad name, that my drug use is bad and that I am a leach and a waste of space... I dunno, I think you are wrong. I am, mostly, a nice guy and don't feel that my existence, being lazy and taking drugs, is really that big of a deal.

Again you are seeing the world through your government-sponsored lenses. You don't give responsible drug users a bad name, you REENFORCE drug user's bad name. When we give a hobo a quarter, few of us feel good if that quarter is just added to the next beer. Do you understand that you are a government-sponsored hobo? A bum. And you know what? Nothing wrong with bums. I was a bum long ago, a literal one in the streets. But I did not turn quarters into beers. Granted, I was only homeless for three days before I pulled myself up (and a wee lad of 18 ) . The next ten years was spent working a series of either shitty jobs, jobs that didn't pay, or shitty jobs that didn't pay. And you know what? I pulled myself up out of that as well. It took ten years, but I'm living the dream now. Not because I took government handouts, but because I worked my ass off and applied myself.

I personally work simply because I must. If I lived in a time other than now, I'd likely be hunting most of the day, or moving my people, or growing and foraging food, hell, I'd be working to survive.
When I go to work, that is what I do, though a perk of this society and all of our beautiful technology is that a large portion of the money I earn can go towards me eating quality foods, improving my health even more so than has ever been capable, take time for my girlfriend and I, or with friends, to go out for the weekends, during the week, or to travel around the world, anything I feel like doing, I can work towards.

In my opinion, with this society, working makes life easy and simple and much more enjoyable, I also believe that a time will come when we don't have to, a world of abundance will be birthed even more so and leisure time will be maximized.
For now though, I'm happy with the status quo.

In regards to your situation however, I do believe that by a standard of morals that I set in my life, you should work to suit your wanted lifestyle.

Work 40 or so hours a week, enjoy the rest of your time and compensating for the fun and enjoyment with the money made? Or have a mediocre time all of the time, with little money to compensate for the fun you have, which must make you feel a little bit bad, surely?

Also, just because you work, doesn't mean you have to conform or get married or get a house. It just means that you have the currency to pursue what you want in life. For some people getting a house and becoming married with kids is an ideal dream that they seek amongst other things.
Second real downy thread in the last few days, smile people!

One thing that I don't see in here is something that is happening with one of my best friends:

He mostly has no job and thus he lives mostly on welfare. Normally I would see that as something to frown on.

However....

This friend of mine dedicates much of his life to making music, something that would NOT be possible if he had a job. The few times he had a job the music making drastically plummeted to oblivion.

So for an incredible low amount of money, society gets back some wonderful pieces of music. I see this as a big plus. Of course his music is not meant for all, it is quite specific for it's target group, but having his music being played by several american music stations I think that more than enough people enjoy it. And it makes it more as worth for the VERY low welfare wages he gets in comparison.

Here are two nice songs of him (free for all to listen to!):
* Mare Tranquillitatis
* Plane Jane

So like with many other things, it is not as black and white as what it looks on the surface.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

I think this is a very wise way of viewing it.

OP you should do some volunteer work with your time

The fact that we need resources to survive isn't contingent on working. The reason you have to work for resources is because of the capitalistic system that is in place holds people as wage slaves. (Eg. You work in a factory building something, say a chair.) The chair has a use value and an exchange value. The use value is what the chair is worth to the person buying it. The exchange value is what is paid for the chair. The use value and the exchange value are usually very similar depending on supply and demand.

The problem with this capitalistic model is that the factory owner pays you much less in wages to the chair maker than the chair is worth, so that the owner can skim profit off of the top while doing nothing. This is wage slavery. This is the nature of the capitalistic system. This is the oppression of the proletariat.

Tetra, there is a problem with your logic, and it is this. You are correct to assert that one can pull themselves out of a bad situation working shitty jobs that don't pay. But that is not the issue. The issue is "should you have to work a shitty job for someone that gives you shitty pay and makes exponentially more money than you, because he/she is basically stealing some of your money by not not paying you for the entire value of the product YOU made, and they had no part in". That is the question to be asked.. Not if the capitalistic system exists, but rather, should it exist and is it moral?

Does any field of knowledge appeal to you, tony? Is higher education, i.e., colleges/universities, free in your nation? And if not, is there financial aid for dependent folk such as yourself? Or do you prefer something within the scope of manual labor? Basically, my suggestion would be to find something that interests you ( i.e., a trade, skill, an intellectual/spiritual pursuit, etc.), settle in, learn as much as you can about that thing, and go far in it. As someone mentioned previously, one can't be dependent on the government forever, especially in these times. Beside that point, life is everywhere, and one must engage in the world, if not for personal revelation, at least for the sake of uniquely revolting against the marvelous absurdity of it all!

Well, maybe you are given less than the value of the chair, but you don't have to pay for the material and tools, and you aren't the one doing the work to actually sell it. To organize all this is the job of the "owner". He is only "doing nothing" if you consider that work is necessarly of a physical nature, in wich case you'd have to say that intellectual jobs are also wrong.

I agree that there is often problems with that system, yes. Business owners who get much more than they should and abuse employees. I don't think that the problem is the system, but the way it is abused.



I understand your concerns about society and it's destructive nature, but I think you are answering yourself in your post. You criticize society and work, because you don't feel useful doing what you do, and because you feel the system is destructive. I agree with to a certain extent... the difference is that I believe that instead of being passive to those problems and not acting, we should actually find ways to be active in that system and help it evolve toward something more positive, less wasteful.

Making solar panels, for example!

What stops you from finding work in an area where you will feel that your time and energy is going to something positive AND at the same time, producing value that will give you some money and help you survive?

Yes. So what are you doing with your time? Anything worthwhile? At least help us justify your sloth by cluing us in on the amazing things you are creating. Are you like Tesla, a mad genius busy inventing? Do you make music to make the Sirens swoon? Art that makes the soul weep with its beauty? Do you make your neighborhood a nicer place by picking up litter around your street with all that free time? Are you writing the Great Scottish Novel (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like Great American Novel) ? Are you busy thinking up ways out of this mess (pick a mess and solve it) ?

If you're just an unrecognized Einstein too busy creating and inventing with your genius, then I say keep being the tick of society, forever burrowed under the skin and sucking the sweet, free blood of the taxpayer.

You are right, there is a problem with my logic, and it is this: logic is overrated.

But you are wrong on the issue. The OP stated in the very first post that: "I do not "work", I have no interest in doing some stupid job to make money for some fat cat..." You have filled in all the rest. He simply stated he didn't want a stupid job to inflate the income of the job creator (or, "fat cat" . Fine. Then don't get a shitty job, be your own boss. Here you must employ the wonderful gift of imagination. But that awesome job-creating imagination is immediately stomped out by a seemingly well-meaning government that provides everything for you from cradle to grave. Why bother looking for a job or inventing one when you are spoon-fed for doing nothing other than inventing new lies to tell the government every two weeks to keep the gravy train flowing? There is no motivation for these people to lift themselves up.

The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was kicking me out at 18 to the cold winter streets. I shudder to think where I'd be now if, instead of becoming a super ninja and transmuting my seeming bad luck into self-sustaining glory, the government was there to just give me everything for simply breathing. I think my motivation would be killed very early and all the cards would be forever stacked against me, as they were from the beginning. But now I hold most of the cards.

And also remember the government that can give you everything is the same government that can take it all away.

The troubling part of this is that you seem to really not know what's wrong with your overall plan for survival. There is a difference in "working for the man" and "providing for oneself". You reap what you sew, although way too cliche, is also way too true.

Good luck to you brother.

I'll agree that life is easier being on benefits. You get everything paid for and you don't need to worry about making ends meet. It makes the transition to working life really hard though because you do need to budget then and try to make every pound stretch as far as possible.

However, its people who sit on the dole doing nothing and not even trying to make an effort who gives those, who fall into unemployment unexpectantly, a really difficult time trying to get some money in whilst they find another job.

I remember just a few months ago sitting waiting for my signing in appointment, desperately looking for work, being refused money from the government, trying to figure out how I could afford a loaf of bread. The guy next to me in line absolutely stank of weed and he went up to the woman, gave some made up excuse that he was looking for work and still got his money through. It made me want to cry when I knew deep down that guy would be spending his money on something he didn't even need...and that I couldn't even scrape 15p together to buy food. Its just unfair that this carries on.

You are getting this money for doing absolutely nothing and whilst you are getting it, it means someone is missing out. And they may need it so much more than you. Have you ever considered the possibility of a single mother out there who is desperate for some money who deserves it a lot more than you do?

Benefits and the dole are a temporary measure, not a permanent fixture. I think if you are capable of work, you should.

Much love,
Sally xx

Something I havent seen posted in this thread: I dont know anything about the drug laws or court system in your country, but if you were to ever get caught doing something illegal, how sympathetic do you think jurors/prosecutors/judges would be to you if you were using drugs with government money and doing nothing productive for society verses working and or volunteering to make society better?