Untitled (I keep thinking...)

I keep thinking that there's something strange about my fellow United Statesians holding high this idea of FREEDOM while they leave for work every day. People get into their vehicles and drive to work at the same time each morning, and they're gone for more than eight hours. So here's my question: What are they doing during all this time? And here's my answer: They're laboring for some business owner. Or a few are laboring for their own business. (Either way, they're laboring, NOT lounging.) Now, if you ask any one of them "Could you stop working like this, if you wanted to?" they will reply "Yes, I have FREEDOM to stop working whenever I like, but the reason I continue laboring every day for so many hours is that I have a mortgage or rent to pay, as well as a car lease or college debt or medical bills. Plus life's basic necessities cost money; and money doesn't grow on trees, no: money is created when a banker presses a button on the keyboard of a computer." 

And if you ask your hardworking-yet-FREE amigo "Why not activate your FREEDOM and simply stop playing this Pay Game? Then you could spend all your waking hours joyriding the elevator at the ritzy hotel down the street, which is your longtime dream." The response you'll get to this is: 

"Ha, that's a funny joke you just told. If I stop playing the Pay Game and refuse to pretend that money is god, then I'll lose all my possessions and get kicked out onto the street, where my family and I will all die of exposure to Mother Nature, who is a coldhearted proprietrix." 

& if, at this point, you say "So when you use the word 'FREEDOM', you mean that mankind's financial system is less harsh than Mother Nature's system of Necessity?" the person you're interviewing will reply: "Yes." So then you can say: 

"But in Mother Nature's system, if you don't want to labor for many hours on any given day, you can attain sustenance by simply shaking a tree until a coconut falls out. Then you can eat that, and fall asleep in the soft grass on an island, where the temperature's always balmy."

"But what if it snows?"

"If the weather turns inclement, just build an automobile out of the rinds of the coconuts that you've been eating, and drive to the Amazon."

"Yet if you need an iron robot to accompany you on your mission thru the jungle, who's going to build that for you? (Before you answer, remember: You just convinced your entire manufacturing industry to move their smithies to the Far Eastern Islands.)"

"I would just lend a prayer to a magician, asking him to supply me with a giant metallic android. The false human would be incapable of emoting, of course, but he'd be able to make decisions that are moral and compassionate; so he could be a genuine help in most Amazonian predicaments."

"Jeez, you DO have it all figured out. I was assuming that the Free Trade Deal that you sealed with a handshake would bar you from innovating a survivable Fantasy Battle Sequence for your avatar in our ongoing hypothetical, but you were smart for maintaining a certified wizard on your payroll."

"These types of exploits are important to me. I always think ahead."

Now, returning to this sacred idea of FREEDOM, I wonder: What would anyone actually do, if they truly had oceans of time? Would people really just recline on the couch and watch television for six days, and then rise and build a work-shed on the seventh day? Or would most city-dwellers make a pilgrimage to that elevator that I mentioned above and spend their whole summer in the luxury hotel gliding up & down? 

And why do all the women on my bus try hard to look pretty, while all the men try to look very ugly? (I'm a bus-driver by trade, in case you didn't know.) What if the opposite were the case: What if women made an effort to look worn and rugged, while men tried to keep their hair combed? 

Why are all trains bullet-shaped, and all bullets fast? Think how many lives would be saved if, using U.S. trains as a model, some scientist were to invent a slow-moving bullet. But this can never happen, because we passed a law that prohibits scientists from caring about life. To care is illogical.

And when you walk into a café, there are always a few customers sitting here and there, perhaps mingling. There's never absolutely zero people, and the place is never packed wall-to-wall with sardines. Unless you visit the café after hours, in the blackest part of the night: THEN the place is deserted; and sardines burst from the door when you open it. This is because we all still follow the dictates of the nine-to-five job schedule; and the last thing that an owner of a café must do before closing up shop is to fill it with packing pellets, in case the café gets shipped overnight to the Far Eastern Islands. And if you don't have packing pellets, just use sardines.

Also: why do all of Shakespeare's play have indistinguishable twins being separated in shipwrecks and then dressing as the opposite sex? And why is everyone always falling in love with the only person in the world who does not like them? 

Finally, I find myself wanting to shout: "Why do all countries still have kings? Let's get rid of them!" Yet, on the other hand, I equally want to shout: "Why did we ever get rid of our kings? Let's bring them back!" Cuz it sux to have a king making bad decisions; but, at least, when bad decisions are made, you have one single person to blame. The thing that I find most annoying is when there's an unknown number of secret, private rulers making bad decisions; yet none of them can be held to account, as they remain in the shadows; thus their badness continues indefinitely as their power increases. Even worse, their powerless victims blame themselves for the bad that they suffer.

P.S.

I live in the Midwest USA, where it's currently winter: snow is everywhere, and it's deathly cold outside. I'm pleased with this. I only wish that everyone could feel so happy. Today is Friday, so I'm going to hit the ski hills; and then I have big weekend plans: On Saturday I'll enjoy the snowmobiling trails on my Polaris; then, on Sunday, I'll spend the afternoon at the open-air skating rink, and maybe even go ice-fishing later. Each night, when I come home, I will cuddle up under my thickest blanket and sip hot cocoa while reading my favorite book.