[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'T')o the OP, some of you may be aware of how people overestimate how happy or unhappy they will be as a result of good or bad things that happen to them.

Since we overestimate how happy good things will make us, we are in a perpetual state of disappointment that the latest good thing that happened to us didn't make us happier. Meanwhile, we don't notice that the bad things aren't as bad as we thought they would be.

[Opies]

God would not punish us for disobedience. It is why he gave us free will; so we could choose for ourselves to follow the right path: the path to God.

Or maybe it's another contradiction...

[Heineken]

I disagree with Faulkner's premise---that work makes us unhappy.

I love work, but it must be work I create and direct. Without such work, I am miserable.

So really it depends on the type of work.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I') disagree with Faulkner's premise---that work makes us unhappy.

I love work, but it must be work I create and direct. Without such work, I am miserable.

So really it depends on the type of work.

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FourOfSwords', '�')��It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
—Charles Bukowski

[FourOfSwords]

Work: The expenditure of energy in a productive process.
My definition of work: The expenditure of energy in a productive process of one's choosing...
...irregardless if it is 4, 8, 16 hrs a day.
I'm curious, how many of you doing the 9 to 5 fall into the first or second definition?
I'm not talking to those who may be retired, those who tend their gardens after their job, and on the weekends, but to the shleps that have a job, so that someone else benefits moneywise from your toil.
Cheers
Alex- trying to define the difference between work that I enjoy, and a job that I am a wage slave to.

[FourOfSwords]

I might also add this to the discussion:The Demands of Society

SAANEN, SWITZERLAND, JULY 1984

Questioner: How can one reconcile the demands of society with a life of total freedom?

KRISHNAMURTI: What are the demands of society? Tell me, please. That you go to the office from nine to five, or the factory, that you go to a nightclub for excitement after all the boredom of the day's work, take a fortnight or three weeks' holiday in sunny Spain or Italy? What are the demands of society? That you must earn a livelihood, that you must live in that particular part of the country all your life, practise as a lawyer, or a doctor, or in the factory as a union leader, and so on. Right? Therefore one must also ask the question: what is this society that demands so much, and who created the wretched thing? Who is responsible for this? The church, the temple, the mosque, and all the circus that goes on inside them? Who is responsible for all this? Is the society different from us, or have we created the society, each one of us, through our ambition, through our greed, our envy, our violence, through our corruption, through our fear, wanting our security in the community, in the nation -- you follow? We have created this society and then blame the society for what it demands. Therefore you ask: can I live in absolute freedom, or rather, can I reconcile with society and myself seek freedom? It is such an absurd question. Sorry, I am not being rude to the questioner. It is absurd because you are society. Do we really see that, not as an idea, not as a concept, or something you must accept? But we, each one of us on this earth for the last 40,000 years or more, have created the society in which we live: the stupidity of religions, the stupidity of the nations arming themselves. For God's sake, we have created it because we insist on being American or French or Russian. We insist on calling ourselves Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and this gives us a sense of security. But it is these very divisions that obstruct the search for security. It is so clear.

So there is no reconciliation between society and its demands and your demands for freedom. The demands come from your own violence, from your own ugly, limited selfishness. It is one of the most complex things to find out for oneself where selfishness is, where the ego very, very subtly hides itself. It can hide politically `doing good for the country'. It can hide in the religious world most beautifully: `I believe in God, I serve God', or in social help -- not that I am against social help, don't jump to that conclusion -- but it can hide there. It requires a very attentive, not analytical, but an observing brain to see where the subtleties of the self, of selfishness, are hidden. Then when there is no self, society doesn't exist; you don't have to reconcile with it. It is only the inattentive, the unaware who say, `How am I to respond to society when I am working for freedom?' You understand?

If I may point out, we need to be re-educated, not through school, college, university -- which also condition the brain -- nor through work in the office or the factory. We need to re-educate ourselves by being aware, seeing how we are caught in words. Can we do this? If we cannot do it we are going to have perpetual wars, perpetual weeping, always in conflict, misery and all that is entailed. The speaker is not pessimistic or optimistic; these are the facts. When you live with facts as they are, not with data produced by the computer, but observing them, watching your own activity, your own egotistic pursuits, then out of that grows marvellous freedom with all its great beauty and strength.
-- From BULLETIN of the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, England, No. 48, 1985
Food for thought.
Cheers
Alex

[FreakOil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hironegro', 'M')aybe it's because we're animals.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', '
')Ludi,
would it surprize you to know that many, many Christians ask this same question / face this same dilemma? (especially after reading the book of Job).

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '
')Good luck figuring out the moral imperatives of Christianity, Ludi. I'd stick with what came out of the horse's mouth (i.e., Jesus) if you want something to build on as an individual, forget all this gloss and code.

You might find succor in Gnosticism, which has many parallels with Christianity.

[FourOfSwords]

Here's something to ponder:
Work kills more than war. Approximately two million workers die annually due to occupational injuries and illnesses, according to a United Nations report. This is more than double the figure for deaths from warfare (650,000 deaths per year). Work kills more people than alcohol and drugs together.
...who would have figured!
Alex

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')it all takes place in the mind.

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FourOfSwords', 'H')ere's something to ponder:
Work kills more than war. Approximately two million workers die annually due to occupational injuries and illnesses, according to a United Nations report. This is more than double the figure for deaths from warfare (650,000 deaths per year). Work kills more people than alcohol and drugs together.
...who would have figured!
Alex

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
Raph,you can come up with some really far out stuff, but at the edge of some of your stuff I sense a great truth. You truly think outside of the box. I don't know about right brain or left brain, but I sense something, something close to what you just said. The best I can describe it is a quote from my favorite novel:
"Science is nothing more than facts we have learned, he told himself for the hundredth time. What we have learned has made us forget what were born knowing. " I wonder how far away we really are from what we are supposed to be.
Pheba.

[worrier]

There's a passage from the bible that I think applies
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
Corinthians 13

[s0cks]

Work is just touching the surface. The human population, per capita, has steadly become more and more unhappy since the start of modern civilization.

Year on year depression goes up. Teenage suicides have increased rapidly! There are more and more people falling ill to "civilization" diseases every day (for example cancer is fast catching on to be an epedemic - asthma is another example). 75% of people working today are unhappy in their jobs. Money doesn't make you happy either. And ALMOST everyone agrees with this statement, yet we all strive to make more money!

[Benzin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('s0cks', ' ')75% of people working today are unhappy in their jobs. Money doesn't make you happy either. And ALMOST everyone agrees with this statement, yet we all strive to make more money!

[FreakOil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Benzin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('s0cks', ' ')75% of people working today are unhappy in their jobs. Money doesn't make you happy either. And ALMOST everyone agrees with this statement, yet we all strive to make more money!

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', '
')
Also, there aren't a whole lot of jobs available for people who just want to work a few days a week. There's part-time work and freelancing, but most jobs are full time. Most people have no choice but to work eight hours a day, five days a week, or even more.

[charliebrownout]

If you work doing something you generally enjoy, then you're better off (although probably not better paid...but that is another story).

I'm a freelance writer and I'll be a teacher for a kids recreation class in a couple of weeks, too.

I like writing and playing. I'm not particularly good at anything else. I dabble in illustration. I'm trying to get into writing children's books, but I'm not the fluffy bunny sort of author/illustrator...so that probably won't ever happen LOL:








Work is fine for keeping busy, but I think I'd pull a Hemmingway if I had to be a pencil pushing cube-farm resident.