In Defense of a Quote

Joseph Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 31, 1987)

“I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.”

That’s something this fine and stylish gentleman above said, and I (equally importantly) Retweeted.  This is one of Campbell’s more controversial quotes, it’s not as touchy feely as the one he’s best know for, the concise and eloquent: “follow your bliss”.  I can see the poster right next to your kitten on a branch framed “hang in there”.  I think this quote is more important though because it’s the reality of most of our lives, it is the flip side of “follow your bliss” it is the “this is what happens when you don’t follow your bliss”.  I had the pleasure of teaching existentialism to game design students this month, yes you can read that sentence again.  I would say for the most part they were more receptive to discussing this idea than my creative friends, the musicians, the photographers, the film makers.  People are down right insulted by this quote, I’d like to talk about why I think that is.

(Please be aware it is very possible that I can and could have always been completely wrong about everything)

People hate being called a slave.

It’s a harsh word, but it probably wouldn’t have sounded as snappy if Mr. Campbell used the term “indentured servant”.  For our purposes, we’ll make that line a little hazy.  The truth is we give away our freedom, our choices, all of the time.  We live in constant compromise, not only by the laws that govern our society, but by our social norms and the expectations of those we give authority to, parents, spouses, bosses, God(s) etc.  It needs to be clear though that we freely give away these freedoms even when we are not aware of it.  At the same time, and this is the most important part for the people that get really upset at this quote, most of the time we give ourselves away for right, just, and noble things.  To take a job you don’t love to support your family, the ones you love, to put their needs above your own is a noble thing.  Your family is your bliss.

A lot of people with a dream, or as I will refer to them for the remainder of this blog, PWADs, need to take a job to pay their bills, I was going to put “pay their bills” in quotations but I thought that might throw too many of you off… wait.

But lets talk about bills.  I think what we spend our money on is a true measure of what we desire, it is measureable and finite.  I’ve found that in my life and in the live’s of other PWADs, we often put a high value on our own comfort.  These comforts are often justified to ourselves as necessities.  A couple examples, when we turn our air conditioner on we are in effect saying that the money it will cost us to power that air conditioning to make us feel cooler and more comfortable is more important than using that money in the persuit of your D… D is dream… I’m just going to say “dream” from now on.  When we need cable so we can see the premiere of Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm, we are saying that our comfort and enjoyment is worth more.  When I order the Outback Special medium rare, I am saying that wonderful and delicious steak is worth more.  If I really thought about how much I spend on things to make me more comfortable, it would probably be about half of my income.  If we really believe in our dreams then why don’t we treat them better?

I think, for the most part it is because we are deathly afraid of suffering.  Next to that we are deathly afraid of others perception of our success.  Think about what people ask you about your job, “Are you making good money?”, “I’m comfortable”.  The most decietful thing about comfort is that it not embues a false sense of success but that it discourages and often downright impedes growth.  Viktor Frankl (wikipedia that dude) is one of the founder’s of existential psychology, known for logotherapy or purpose therapy.  His story is incredible and so is his message, a recap here wont do it justice.  But! He says “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”  I think this is very different from our standard mode of operation, do we seek tension?

If you think about this even a little bit, it’s probably a positive thing, if you are suffering there is good and change waiting for you, but you will still suffer and it’s not a bad thing.  The only failure in my book is inaction, in denying your bliss.  Call it bad faith, call it laziness, it is only all too common.  But what upsets me the most is that our conditioning will cause many of you to view this a negative thing, as an indictment of the way you live your life rather than a means to empower or at least consider what true happiness is.

So do I practice what I preach?  Big NO.  If you told me you were going to Outback Steakhouse tonight, I probably couldn’t turn it down, yet.  But I’m trying to be better and more considerate of the things I value.  That’s all.

In closing, a quote from the greatest philosophers I have yet to mention:

“If you wanna live life on your own terms. Gotta be willing to - CRASH AND BURN!”

- Motley Crue (1981 - Eternity)