Monday, April 23, 2012

On Freesurfe®s.


This time of year, this time of life, always churns up a thousand and one debates about the quotidien balance of energy and focus.  Somewhere some time someone decided that life encompassed two entirely separate, but inter-working worlds called "Life" and "Work." Or someone didn't decide it, it just happened for a certain portion of the population and that population grew to encompass a majority of the world we are operating in.  I'm sure there's a great book on the history of that somewhere that I haven't read.  As this population of livethenworkthenlivethenworkers grew to current proportions, someone noticed that the enforcement of such strict guidelines needed to be mitigated somehow, dreaming up a counter-cultural movement attempting to shift things back into a holistic approach.  Life is work and work is life and we need to get back to those basics and live your dreams and live for today and follow your bliss and et cetera et cetera et cetera.  And most of us have grown up with that kind new propaganda floating around our brains.  Our system is based on the one which necessitates a sort of conceptual deification of the other which is then packaged by somebody else and sold back to someone else which makes that other person work even harder to get the goods.  It's all pretty insane-making.  In the end, thanks to the system, the people who are living the "good" holistic life depend on the people who lead the "bad" dualistic life to pay for their exploits.  All the time the dualists are trying to get to be the holists while the holists are stressing out that even they are not holistic enough. It's that same old story, if by old you mean a time frame of as-of-this-post-indeterminate-length.  Crazy times indeed, but have they ever been otherwise, or even better? Here is a picture of Chris Gentile working away on his laptop over at the Pilgrim shop.

2 comments:

Ross Cauvel said...

Liked that footage of CDM and thoughts on duality.

My mind has been struggling with the duality of income and outcome. After living here for just a year, I think I know why this blog is called The Endless Bummer. The swell I spoke about last week was only good that morning, and just for a few short hours at that.

The pull of central America is gaining until its force will be greater than the friction holding me in place. There's probably an equation with variables that would include, length of time since last great wave, incoming swell size and period, temperature of water, and healthiness of savings account.


The thought of "youth is wasted on the young" swirls around my mind. I am still young, but not for long. Is it best to build a house? Or is it best to build experiences?

EditorialBoard said...

I reckon both are experiences. You just choose one.