Cost of Living

A good friend of mine made a good argument for the fact that there exists a cost of living.  I work 45-50 hrs a week and I get paid.  With my money I can afford some lifestyle and I also have vacation days.  On weekends and vacation days, I can determine exactly what I want to do.  Vacations and weekends are my time.  And in order to have this standard of living and have my own time, I must work and for 50 hrs a week for the next maybe 30 yrs of my life, these hours belong to someone else.  If you screw up enough, you lose your job and can no longer maintain the same standard of living.  The argument is that in order to live my current lifestyle in the US with my friends and family, and all the safety and running water and constant internet access, I must have a job and I don't choose what I'm doing.  Sure I can start a company but that is also running a high risk that I may not have the same standard of living.  Sure I can choose my job, which is somewhat of a choice of what I want to do in those hours, but nonetheless, I must add value somewhere.  I can choose a lower standard of living, but that simply lowers the cost.  I'll be free to do what I want with my time, but time and money are interchangeable at this point.  If you want more time, you'll have less money.  If you want to be able to pay for more things and vacations, you need to work more.

Something like 30-40% of my waking hours of my entire life are going to be working somewhere or at school.  I might work at a great job and be doing well for myself relative to the average college graduate, but 35% of my waking hours are dedicated to something that is not determined my me. 

The one thing we have going for us is how we interpret these hours.  In A Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl writes about his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps.  For the prisoners, 100% of their waking hours are determined by someone else.  They have no vacation days and no weekends and are also separated from their families and friends.  But what Frankl finds is that one can find meaning through hardship.  Rather, one is forced to find meaning or become depressed and lose the will to live.  Maslow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs) once said that if you take 3 men from 3 different walks of life.  Beggar, priest, businessman.  You deprive of them of food and sleep for 1 week and they'll become the same person, a hungry fiend.  In practice, Frankl discovered that men are completely different when they are deprived of food and sleep.  Some find meaning in life, some would choose to die rather than give up a name of someone who stole bread from the kitchen.  Some choose to steal or turn their back on the Jewish people.  It is possible to laugh, even in times of great distress and it is possible to be happy. This gives me great hope.

My takeaway from this idea is that
1. Time and money are interchangeable, Cost of Living exists
2. It is possible to be happy at our job, perhaps 'cost' is not the best word
3. Either pick a job you like, or like the job you have

Illusion and Reality

So, I'm a nerd and I'm a big fan of Naruto, which is an anime about ninjas.  There is a character named Sasuke Uchiha who has a brother named Itachi.  Their clan is one of the most powerful in the world because of their special eyes, which they could use to place others into an illusion called 'genjutsu' and also have high levels of perception.  Itachi killed every member of the Uchiha clan, except for Sasuke and Sasuke goes on a quest to kill his brother to seek revenge.  His brother is one of the best ninjas in the world but also loves his little brother.  After Sasuke murders Itachi, he finds out that his brother was forced to murder his own clan because of political reasons.  Thus, Sasuke seeks to destroy the village that forced his brother into such an act.

For the whole beginning of Sasuke's life, he believed one thing, and lived his life around getting stronger so he can one day face his brother.  And after discovering the truth, he changed his beliefs about his brother and turned his anger towards something else.  Perhaps Itachi created this hatred inside Sasuke in order to make him strong, and for what purpose?  Maybe Itachi has even bigger plans for Sasuke's future.

Itachi was able to shape Sasuke's reality with illusions he created.  And after Sasuke discovers 'the truth', perhaps he is still in another illusion.  Sort of like an inception-like illusion within an illusion. This is similar to movies like The Matrix or Inception, where the illusion becomes the reality.  But what I want to leave this with is the fact that our environment has created our reality.  My parents, teachers, friends, NJ, BRHS, Columbia, etc. have shaped my reality.  And my reality is completely different from that of others.  I'm not saying that we might wake up one day and realize robot sentinels have taken over the world, but that perhaps our reality is not the best form of reality.  Do we have the power to change our own illusion/reality?  Can we break free from the illusion/reality that our society has created for us?  What can we gain from experiencing the reality of others?  And of course, is there a difference between an illusion and reality?