Golden Prison Sells

I was thinking, that if I could go back in time and not buy the house we are in now, I would still choose to buy it. It is going to get a bit difficult at some point if I am unable to find some work, but I still think that had we stayed where were were in an apartment, we wouldn't be in a very different position than today, because anything extra would have probably been spent on stuff that didn't hold value, or generate any value. We might have travelled more in the last five years, but would it have made much of a difference to our lives?

I don't think so.

Travel is great of course, but I am not sure how "valuable" it is to just go on beach holidays to warm places, to get out of the winter cold or autumn rains. And travelling with a child changes things too, especially one with food allergies. We went to Croatia a couple years ago and it was great to get away for our first ever family holiday abroad, but as an experience it wasn't much of one. The things that Smallsteps really remembers, was a bumbling waiter who reminded me a little bit of Basil Fawlty. As she gets older though, travel definitely does become an experience of value.

It is almost an expectation from many of the people I know that they are able to travel to other countries a couple times a year, and for increasingly long periods. I get it from those who really are financially secure, but I know many who can't really afford the costs, but feel that it is something worth getting into debt for, using credit cards and even taking personal loans.

I feel that there has been a bit of a bait-and-switch, where the saying is "buy experience" but experience has become a consumer good, that isn't necessarily delivering much of an experience. It is a similar thing to a lot of consumer activity these days, where there is a substitute product that gives a similar feeling to the original, but doesn't actually deliver the value of it. It is like fruit flavouring, but not having any of the vitamins of a fruit. Everything from food to love has had some level of substitution applied.

Yet, I am not sure if we even acknowledge the conditions we have created for ourselves, where we expect to be able to spend, even if we don't have the money for it. It is like we feel we are entitled to have something now, regardless of our situation. Or something as a reward for good behaviour, even if we can't afford it. Or more commonly than for good behaviour, a reward for working at a terrible job - even if it isn't a terrible job at all.

Most don't know what a terrible job really is.

Most of us are probably pretty spoiled, because we likely have never had to work a truly terrible job in order to make ends meet. But, many of us have probably worked some pretty crappy jobs. I know I have worked many food prep jobs when young, which weren't that bad all of the time, but were pretty bad some of the time. Especially since when I started, I was vegetarian. But, the reality is that once there is a "lifestyle" to maintain, it means that a certain amount of income is required, and if it is not coming in, the lifestyle has to change.

Any crappy job?

The employment market is pretty terrible in Finland at the moment, and it isn't about being uneducated. The amount of people with degrees who are unemployed has never been higher, which indicates at some level what kind of impact automation is having on multiple fields. It doesn't take that much to have a significant impact, and some of it can be "invisible" because while it is clear that many are put out of work, it is less clear when it is that companies don't need to even create a role in the first place. Smaller growth companies are where the largest amount of new jobs come from, but a lot of the tasks they used to need someone for, can be automated. And, a lot of the small businesses that used to rely on human services, have applications that fill the gaps.

What this means is that while over the last however many years, people have built up lifestyles steadily, that are becoming increasingly unsustainable because of cost of living pressures, stagnant wage growth, and increasing professional unemployment. It doesn't matter to the majority of the population if the companies and institutions are making record profits and trading at all time highs, for the people who are forced to lower their earned standard of living.

There is an imbalance in the economic results of participants, where a system that should be looking to improve human experience, is doing the opposite. And, we are all prisoners of the system, because even as it improves its wealth generation activities, daily conditions degrade. This can be evidenced by the increasing amounts of homelessness, drug addiction, loneliness, depression, and a thousand other things that were never considered a future risk of being an epidemic.

But here we are.

All of life is an experience, including the difficulties and struggles we each face. Yet, I think that ultimately we should be looking to improve the quality of experiences we have as humans, not reduce the quality in order to produce more wealth for a small percentage of people. I don't think it benefits those that get wealthy in the long run either, because while money buys some freedom, if society degrades enough, they won't be free to travel anywhere safely. They will have to put up walls, arms the guards, and they will be in golden prisons also.

Taraz
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