Ever feel like your life is not your own?
I turn 36 this year. Now depending who you are that's either old, young or right were you are yourself. As I get older there are things that are considered the norm that make less and less sense to me.
I often refer to myself as "a man with too many hobbies." I'm a musician, gamer and, more recently, a writer and illustrator of my own graphic novel. All of which I don't get to commit myself to as much as I'd like due to every day life getting in the way. And that's my issue, why should "every day life" get in the way of the things that make me happy. Each week I'm conscious of the fact that I am getting older and the majority of my time is spent for the benefit of others.
I work the ol' fashioned 9-5. So for every 24 hour day I'm in an office for 8 hours, but before that I'm travelling to work for approximately an hour, and then another hour after work travelling home. So that's 10 hours our of 24 lost to work. Then approximately 8 hours of a day is sleeping, if I want to get a decent night's sleep that is. So after 18 hours work and sleep, out of 24 hours I get 6 hours of time that's my own, during which I'm usually too exhausted to really achieve anything. You then have to subtract time making meals, eating, housework (if you can be bothered), showering, shopping etc. So when I get the two days off at a weekend it's a mad rush to squeeze every last drop of free time into being productive.
There's just something that doesn't compute with me that I should lose 10 hours a day of my time to make someone else rich. The only benefit to me is the wage, and admittedly I'm now in the highest paid job I've ever had. But those 10 hours benefit others more than they do me in my humble opinion.
Having said all this, I acknowledge that this is just the capitalist society we live in and we are all just cogs in the corporate machine. I am grateful I have a job that feeds me and allows me to afford the cost of the pastimes I enjoy. It's just an irony that it also interferes with them. It's just now and again I look at how society functions and thing "it's all a bit unnatural."
Another thing that elicits the "that's a bit weird" reaction is how we live by the clock. Especially meals.
I'm in the process of trying to be healthier and have added a new function to my man cave. On top of it being recording studio and library, it's now also home gym. (Oh look exercise, something else to take up my time!) At the same time I'm trying to eat more healthily and one thing that occurs to me is in this society, we don't eat when we're hungry we eat when it is the allotted time to. 12pm = lunch time etc. I find this wholly unnatural, this isn't how we're designed to eat; big meals at specific times. We're meant to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're no longer hungry. Instead we let our lives be dictated by routine.
Anyway, that's just something I wanted to get off my chest.
I often refer to myself as "a man with too many hobbies." I'm a musician, gamer and, more recently, a writer and illustrator of my own graphic novel. All of which I don't get to commit myself to as much as I'd like due to every day life getting in the way. And that's my issue, why should "every day life" get in the way of the things that make me happy. Each week I'm conscious of the fact that I am getting older and the majority of my time is spent for the benefit of others.
I work the ol' fashioned 9-5. So for every 24 hour day I'm in an office for 8 hours, but before that I'm travelling to work for approximately an hour, and then another hour after work travelling home. So that's 10 hours our of 24 lost to work. Then approximately 8 hours of a day is sleeping, if I want to get a decent night's sleep that is. So after 18 hours work and sleep, out of 24 hours I get 6 hours of time that's my own, during which I'm usually too exhausted to really achieve anything. You then have to subtract time making meals, eating, housework (if you can be bothered), showering, shopping etc. So when I get the two days off at a weekend it's a mad rush to squeeze every last drop of free time into being productive.
There's just something that doesn't compute with me that I should lose 10 hours a day of my time to make someone else rich. The only benefit to me is the wage, and admittedly I'm now in the highest paid job I've ever had. But those 10 hours benefit others more than they do me in my humble opinion.
Having said all this, I acknowledge that this is just the capitalist society we live in and we are all just cogs in the corporate machine. I am grateful I have a job that feeds me and allows me to afford the cost of the pastimes I enjoy. It's just an irony that it also interferes with them. It's just now and again I look at how society functions and thing "it's all a bit unnatural."
Another thing that elicits the "that's a bit weird" reaction is how we live by the clock. Especially meals.
I'm in the process of trying to be healthier and have added a new function to my man cave. On top of it being recording studio and library, it's now also home gym. (Oh look exercise, something else to take up my time!) At the same time I'm trying to eat more healthily and one thing that occurs to me is in this society, we don't eat when we're hungry we eat when it is the allotted time to. 12pm = lunch time etc. I find this wholly unnatural, this isn't how we're designed to eat; big meals at specific times. We're meant to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're no longer hungry. Instead we let our lives be dictated by routine.
Anyway, that's just something I wanted to get off my chest.
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