Was visiting a older gentleman in my family whom I respect. He lives in a very beautiful area and his partner is just the nicest. He’s retired and spends his time fishing.
I was complimenting him and said. ‘You really are a lucky guy.’
he said ‘OH. I hate it when people say that. This was a plan and I worked hard’.
He then told me about how he worked for the same school district for 30 years! And got a pension and spent wisely.
Damn. 30 whole years.
You can’t make plans without a stable environment. This man’s environment was so stable that his plan of “work as a teacher for 30 years” was able to play out successfully. Do you know how few people can even guarantee that their field will exist in 30 years, let alone their specific employer?
some motherfuckers just aren’t able to think this abstractly, and they really, really want to believe they have more agency than they actually do, because to admit that you’re a couple of bad days away from homelessness or worse is scary.
This is the outcome I wish for everyone. But God damn the gall. Just judging people based on outcome. Everyone works hard. Not taking into consideration the shear luck of so many thing lining up in your favor. Did you plan on being born in the imperial core, white, able, educated during the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen?
Me I! I did this! All me! Me!
Ugh.
You’re not appreciating all the planning that went into being born at an earlier time in order to take advantage of better housing prices.
Nah bro, I see these kids around with avocado on toast and think to myself “I ate muesli and beans and with the $36 I saved from that I bought several houses.”
I think movies may have trained some of us to not notice luck. Like, if your born at the right time or to the right parents, you don’t notice that for all the “hard-work, bravery, and can-do attitude” protagonists may exhibit, the story still wouldn’t work if they weren’t just plain old right-place-right-time lucky. Manufactured luck, narrative luck, yes. But still luck. Maybe if your born on third-base, these narrative leaps just seem… realistic?
…is that too cynical?
Also intelligence, strength, skill, health, and attitude are all luck. I find the logical leap from “I have superior attributes as a biological specimen” to “I deserve better privileges” absurd and vaguely fascist
health is a real crapshoot, i’ll give you that
But the rest of that list is behaviors and qualities you can cultivate. Intelligence isn’t some hard stat like the calculations-per-second in a computer, it’s a process of clear methodical thinking that is learned. How fast or slow you may think doesn’t limit how smart you can be. And a ‘skill’ is just a set of behaviors that have been refined with practice, you’re not born with them. Attitude is… harder, but it’s something you learn to work with as you get a better sense of the inputs and patterns behind it.
The ability to practice and cultivate useful attributes is also luck.
yeah, i think liberal ideology is steeped in the idea that “opportunities” come along now and again that the plucky and entrepreneurial take advantage of. there’s some element of luck, but it’s the kind of luck that is presumed to be sort of generally available to everyone, and then it’s the hard work etc. that does the rest and propels them to success. it’s a way of excusing and ignoring the systemic violence that determines just who actually gets access to what sorts of opportunities.
That is actually really easily over looked. Not too cynical. ‘I’m not lucky. I’m the God damn protagonist of this story!’
The ruling class is such a hivemind that even though it’s essentially scientifically proven that you get better work from well-paid, well-rested, happy workers they’ll never allow it to happen. I’m convinced that when all the huge corporations run the numbers on how much to pay people, they completely ignore things like:
- experienced workers make less mistakes and are therefore more productive
- a constant revolving door keeps wages down but constantly training new people is a huge waste of time and money
- remote work will save the company a ton of money (once the lease is up) and people do better work in place where they’re comfortable
None of this matters if they have to give up a modicum of power. So many companies are stripped to the bone by sociopaths and then crumble and fail in the name of doing harm to workers but this also harms the future prospects of the executive class as more and more of these industries are consolidated. There has to be some executive board that sees the writing on the wall. If every company fails and is bought out/liquidated or merges, there won’t be many positions for these ghouls left. I get that most of them are barely able to breathe without being reminded to by their secretary but there have to be a few that understand they will be thrown to the wolves at a certain point once all the free money dries up.
I think mistakes are forced by the falling rate of profit. These irrational actions are to me a great indication of the way that the capitalist class has to undermine itself to chase the rate of profit. It introduces ways that the class undermines itself even worse due to haste
Imagine not needing to job hop to keep up with rent…
My mother told my kids that they should stay at their job for at least a year to show future employers that they’re dependable.
I told them to disregard this advice. Disregard with extreme prejudice.
“Dependable” to an employer means just as expendable as the rest but willing to put up with extra bullshit for zero additional compensation
DependableExploitable
I wish I could psychologically handle that one more instability in my life right now.
Step 1: be born in the 1950s
Step 2: be born
Step 3: don’t be born poor
Maybe have less respect for him and call him out on his bullshit. In the nicest way possible of course.
He’ll either see reason or be a liberal scratched, either way you’ll learn something valuable from him.
