Lately I’ve been finding life here to be quite difficult. Most of it is centered around the fact that I am working long days and have no time for myself.
I swore six months ago that I would never do the exact thing I am doing now.
Poet, essayist, novelist, and farmer Wendell Berry opines that here in these United States we have lost the understanding of the connection between life and work and that we have instead seperated the two, the result being pursuit of career and loss of personal satisfaction and happiness.
To me, it makes sense. Where I lived in Honduras, life was work and work was life. This notion was commonplace in the rural areas where subsistence agriculture was the most represented way and means of life. Life and work were one in the same.
Here, we have lost that notion, allowing our rural communities to die out in the name of large-scale agro-business corporations, shopping malls, box stores, etc.
We want the product fast and cheap, the same way our lives are passing obliviously by us. We go in search of the high salary and bonus pay, only to consume more, work more and lose life…more.
I am tired of working more. I am angry that my socialization and culturalization has produced in me a non-connection between life and work.
I don’t want a career. I want life.
But, how do I do it in a society that places value in the dollar and measures success by how big my house is?
I don’t want to live in Disney World or Ronald MacDonald land.
(written 14 May 2000)
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