[at-l] On Topic Quote

[shane@theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

> Leave it up to Shane to quote the Yukon Song after I posted
> my quote from Calvin and Hobbes.

If I didn't, people would think I wasn't paying attention. :)

> There is actually a deeper significance to the quote.

There's a deeper significance to the Yukon Song too...

> In the United States the average American Worker works 935
> hrs more than his/her French counterpart.  No other worker,
> in the world, works more hour than the American worker.  For
> What?  To live in a house made of ticky tacky (apologies to
> Pete Seager), drive on clogged roads so one can work 9, 20,
> 12 hrs a day.  And for What?  Low wages and abuse from ones
> boss.  And then on the weekend we try to normalize or
> relationship with our family and try to do all the work that
> needs to be done around the house and try to get some
> leisure time.

Those are exactly the problems MacKaye detailed in his Regional Planning
article.  The more things change, the more they stay the same...

> It is a magical world out there and we are missing it.

I don't think WE are, but I would agree that a vast majority of Americans
are.  I think this is a good time to repost "Our Greatest Poverty" by Calvin
Rustrum

***

No matter what our affluence, no matter how great our achievement, the
brevity of each individual life hangs inescapably over us. Time is our
greatest poverty. Early in life we tend to regard our fleeting hours as
though they were infinite in number. Toward middle life we are generally
caught in the earning syndrome; speculating, investing, scrounging, as
though we thought we could buy immortality. The greater the dollar
accumulation, the more certain, we seem to think, will be the immortal
transaction. Late in life we look back regretfully of the accumulation of
material and financial gain, wondering how much of our precious life lies
wasted in that pile, which in one way or another will eventually be
dissipated or increased to no avail by the same hours-of-life sacrifice. The
later years become the reflective years. Had we our lives to live over,
those two-week vacations might have become long, repeated leaves-of-absence
instead-times in which the most idealistic pursuits could be realized. The
moments of daily stress, when near panic for results dominated our efforts,
might have been replaced with periods of leisure, where compassion and
magnanimity would have tempered a less noble course. The conventional whip
that was cracked over me earlier in life was not to waste time. It was time
that had to be applied to material and financial gain., Hour after hour had
to be equated with the earning motive, with industry, rather than
self-improvement. I deferred to my employer's every wish with honest effort
and tried to give him even more each day than he asked. When August came
around, when heat and insects tapered off, however, I would take a leave of
absence through August, September, and October. My employer's reaction:
"What's the urgency? Three months?! Wouldn't a week or two be enough?" Like
the lemming horde rushing fatally into the sea, the industrial mass must
move inexorably on. I didn't offer an excuse for my absence. I simply made
it clear that these were the months of greatest wilderness life fulfillment.
Certainly, one could not, I was told, run a business if employees
capriciously ran off for months at a time "just to loaf." I agreed, but
explained that I had a commitment to happiness that could not be preempted.
One employer asked me if I was not literally "making a bum" out of myself.
"No," I said, "I'll be living leisurely for three months just as someone
else would live on a two-week vacation." Another told me that because of my
"reckless leisure," he would blackball me so that I couldn't get a job in
the city the rest of my life. I asked him if in planning to cut off my
chances for subsistence survival, he expected in the process to stay alive
himself. There were also big hearted men among my employers. Several told me
to drop in when I came back and they would try to find something for me to
do. One in confidence discussed my departure with me at some length and
later accompanied me on a canoe trip. Others seemed to envy me, but suffered
in silent desperation. A friend once asked me what I would do if suddenly I
inherited, or was given (not likely) a million dollars. I would, I said, fit
it as rewardingly as I could into the remaining hours of my life. Material
possessions were not what I had in mind. What I had left over, which might
be the larger portion, I would give away to others who richly treasured life
's values and time, even those who pursued the arts in garrets. Having only
one dollar and being compelled to spend it, one might, as a great American
once said, "Spend it as though it were a leaf and you were the owner of
boundless forests. "My mother had a different pecuniary philosophy. She
said, "If you have only a nickel, save a penny of it." That advice was given
to me in my callowest youth. Since that time I nave never been broke, and
fortunately, I honestly believe, not very rich. Had I been, these pages
might not have been written. I might have been more eager to increase that
pile. My mother might also have given some other valuable advice, "Don't
sell any more of your precious hours for dollars than is absolutely
necessary; for beyond that, at any price per hour, you will be badly
cheated." Is it not strange that our greatest national economic problem is
that we have ten million idle people: They want to give some relief to those
who are employed too many weary hours each day and too many days each week.
But we don't have the wisdom to give the employed a little more leisure by
dividing employment with the others. If it takes nine men eight hours to dig
a trench, while the tenth sits idly by and collects wages, is it not rather
elementary that ten men could dig the trench in less than eight hours, with
fewer backaches? One of the problems in employing Indians is that most do
not want to work full time. I asked an Indian why. The answer was brief:
"White man is money crazy." An Indian was asked why he worked only three
days each week while others worked five. "Couldn't make it on two", he said.

***

Shane