Why earn the money? If you've been poor, you should know the answer to that: to live on whenever the income dries up. As it surely will do, sooner or later, unless you die early.
Precisely. But this brings us back to the deferred gratification that is, in a way goalless. There's a big psychological difference (for me, anyway) in thinking "I'm earning this money so that I can buy a CD at the end of the week and go out with my friends" and "I'm earning this money for some unspecified purpose in the unspecified future, but I'm sure that I will need it".
I remember when I was 18 in my first proper "summer" job. as I took home my £23 or thereabouts, I bought myself an album (it was "Tarkus", by Emerson Lake and Palmer, actually) for £2.30, or something like that, at a shop in St John Street near the Angel tube station. Two things operated here. The first was that it was a kind of instant gratification for my week's work, and the second was that it was something I would not have been able to buy without having done that week's work. Now, if you fast-forward to today, there isn't much in the way of consumer durables that I couldn't go out and buy tomorrow, let alone a single CD. The link between work (unpleasant) and spending (pleasant) has been all but shattered. As it happens, I don't dislike my "work", although it does restrict some of the pleasurable things I might do (because of the time factor). This makes the unpleasant/pleasant relationship even more complex. Should I play poker (which I sort of enjoy) and earn $15 an hour, or go to the opera (which I really enjoy) and spend $100 an hour?
There's a hell of a lot of complexity here in a number of different areas. Marginal use of current time, deferred vs instant gratification, and general entire aims in life. In this sense, I feel that my "balance" is wrong (but not horrifically so), in shades of Koyaanisqatsi. I guess that I am embarking on a kind of quest to find a solution.
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Re: Money, wine, and sf
Date: 2006-02-21 08:33 pm (UTC)Why earn the money? If you've been poor, you should know the answer to that: to live on whenever the income dries up. As it surely will do, sooner or later, unless you die early.
Precisely. But this brings us back to the deferred gratification that is, in a way goalless. There's a big psychological difference (for me, anyway) in thinking "I'm earning this money so that I can buy a CD at the end of the week and go out with my friends" and "I'm earning this money for some unspecified purpose in the unspecified future, but I'm sure that I will need it".
I remember when I was 18 in my first proper "summer" job. as I took home my £23 or thereabouts, I bought myself an album (it was "Tarkus", by Emerson Lake and Palmer, actually) for £2.30, or something like that, at a shop in St John Street near the Angel tube station. Two things operated here. The first was that it was a kind of instant gratification for my week's work, and the second was that it was something I would not have been able to buy without having done that week's work. Now, if you fast-forward to today, there isn't much in the way of consumer durables that I couldn't go out and buy tomorrow, let alone a single CD. The link between work (unpleasant) and spending (pleasant) has been all but shattered. As it happens, I don't dislike my "work", although it does restrict some of the pleasurable things I might do (because of the time factor). This makes the unpleasant/pleasant relationship even more complex. Should I play poker (which I sort of enjoy) and earn $15 an hour, or go to the opera (which I really enjoy) and spend $100 an hour?
There's a hell of a lot of complexity here in a number of different areas. Marginal use of current time, deferred vs instant gratification, and general entire aims in life. In this sense, I feel that my "balance" is wrong (but not horrifically so), in shades of Koyaanisqatsi. I guess that I am embarking on a kind of quest to find a solution.
PJ