A friend of mine recently made a comment about just wanting a job that he didn’t hate given the US job market which values scientific, technical or engineering skill over other abilities.

My reaction was, why does anyone need a job? I like asking questions like this which seem to have obvious answers… Here is my edited reply.

You only need a job because this society goes out of its way to prevent you from living self sustainably. You can’t live anywhere unless you pay for it. You can only pay with money. You can only get money if you get a job (with a few exceptions). If you want a job you have to pay for an education. See how it loops? Vicious circle. Add to that the whole indoctrination that in order to be happy you need a car, a nice PC, a big TV set, blu-ray disk, brand name clothes, i.e. stuff that only multinational corporations can make, and it becomes impossible for people to imagine that it is possible to live a clean, happy, healthy, rewarding life without any of that stuff. Some of it is nice to have, but it isn’t essential for even a high level of comfort and happiness. In fact, it is irrelevant, irrelevant in much the same way that the difference between wearing Levis and wearing Levi knock-offs made at the same factory is irrelevant. It is only a matter of perception, what you believe.
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