I've been musing on the state of our society lately, so don't read this if you hate hypothetical situations and purely unanswerable questions. Let me begin by saying that I like America; I don't necessarily love it, but I will say that I'm fairly attached, just not unconditionally so. I enjoy having a car to get wherever I feel like going, I like having running water and plumbing, and I don't mind having a phone with which I can contact whomever I need at the push of a button. I like these things, but what about the cost-to-benefit ratio?
What am I talking about? Bear with me and I'll tell you. Now let's speak hypothetically for a moment. How much does it cost to live? Let's say you're an American living in a relatively inexpensive region of the country, such as where I live. To keep things as cheap as possible, let's pose that you're single, have no children, have no mortgage, no car payment, no credit card bills, and no medical payments. Now let's say that you have found some VERY cheap rent somewhere for $200/mo, and you only spend $50 dollars on your cell phone bill and insurance each month (I know, that's about as cheap as can be fathomed, but this is hypothetical). Actually, drop the phone: you don't need that. Okay, so let's say you're in $200 for rent, $25 for insurance, and $50 for basic utilities. And tag on another $75 per month for gas and food. That's about as cheap as I can imagine anyone living in this country. $200 + $25 + $50 + $75 = $350. So, at the absolute minimum it will cost an American $350/month just to exist.
Now I'm not saying that the world sucks and is out to get us, I only think that occasionally. What I'm saying is that the $350 cost is the absolute minimum and almost everyone has expenses far higher than that. People get up each day, spend most of that day working at a job that they've hopefully learned to tolerate, and then go home to spend a few hours at the home they work so hard to pay for. Our society revolves around earning enough to exist. No one planned for our society to become this way, and there's no turning back now, but is this what we really want? Are we really better off than the pioneers of 200 years ago? Or the free-ranging tribes of a few millennia ago? Sure, the government we pay so much to exist supposedly protects us and our rights from oppression, and with enough money you can now pay to extend your life, but do the benefits really outweigh the costs?
If I could reduce my standard of living in order to radically reduce my cost of existence, you bet I would. I'm just not sure anymore if the trajectory our society has placed itself on is the right one. Buy a car, buy a home, buy health insurance so you can afford kids, buy a TV, buy internet, buy a phone, buy a nicer car than your neighbor's, buy a bigger home for the extra kids, buy more food, buy dental insurance, accrue some harmless debt, buy some more stuff, and then spend 25 years enjoying your assorted outdated items and trying to pay off your debts until you kick the bucket. Was all the work and worry worth it? I don't know because I don't own much, but it doesn't seem like it to me. It's a shame that the whole world is in such a hurry to follow our lead.
3 comments:
I have been thinking about this same exact thing SO much lately. But you probably already knew that since we had about a two hour talk about it last week. I say we move to Thailand and sell t-shirts on the beach. Much more time to play and enjoy life :)
Dallin you're a freaking genius you know that?! Seriously, I've thought that same thing for ages but never managed to put it into a concise well worded form, you on the other hand have done just that! And I love your blog..it's brilliant really :)
I do agree with what you said, the real question is how do we change???? We could sell every thing we own and buy a little farm and live off the land, chop wood, hunt, grow a garden, raise a few animals, and not use electric just be natural, but there are still things you need to buy, cloth, flour, sugar etc... before long we would be right back to where we are now. So find something you really enjoy doing and learn how to make a living doing it. And pray the Lord will come soon to save us from destroying ourselves.
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