Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Tuesday, 22 January 2013

During my lifetime

the sub-Darwinian
insidious idea
of living, of life itself
as a career
has taken people over
almost everywhere.

From now on, people of the world,
endowed by Twitter, Facebook
(and whatever follows on)
with two or twelve identities
(child, husband, friend, lover, wife)
will also have several careers
- but nothing I would call a life.

4 comments:

Srikant said...

It is indeed wonderful to have an elderly man in the AN blogosphere!

Me and some other young antinatalists here often conjecture that we have a far worse life than generations of recent past, and posts like this tell us we are right after all!

Anonymous said...

auban,

It's always grated on my nerves that when I meet someone new, he/she asks, "What do you do?" Apparently, I am only as interesting as my job placement and salary in the social hierarchy.

I would be very surprised if someone asked, "What are you interested in?"

Jindra K. Hrdlička said...

Even worse, Janus, when you retire.
It's, "What did you do ? and What do you do all day when you are retired ?"

Wofl said...

Yes, guys, I totally agree. I think it is very rude to ask someone, ON FIRST MEETING, as they do: "And what do YOU DO ?" - or "And what do you DO ?". Basically, it is asking them how much money (therefore status) they have.

In the Francosphere it is still considered rather impolite to ask people on first meeting what they "do", rather than what they ARE or THINK.

My stock reply is, "I am a super-annuated terrorist, living on a very small pension from an Enemy State*." That shuts them up!

(The enemy state is, of course, Britain.)