h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Breathe, eat, drink, excrete. These are the four things that a human being needs to do in order to survive. Nothing else is necessary. If anyone ever tells you different, they are either lying or misinformed.
Breathing, eating, drinking and excreting make me happy. In fact, theyre on my daily things to do list. They are very simple activities, most of the time I dont even have to actively think about them in order to do them. This allows me to see friends, fly a plane, bake a cake or paint a wall without my needs getting in the way. What more can you ask for? Well, nothing. Many people would see that as the perfect life: pure freedom. If these were the only four needs built into the human mind, we would be able to live like that.
Alas, the survival of humans as a species adds one more need to the previous four: (drum roll please) mating. This secondary need complicates things.
Firstly, because it is not just a need, it is a want. Without humans wanting to mate, the species would have evaporated in the dawn of creation. Adam and Eve would have just sat around all day, listening to snakes and making idle conversation. Then, suddenly, theyd look up from their annual picnic (or something) and see millions of rabbits (or something) breathing, eating, drinking, excreting and... mating. Sure, theyd have lots of rabbits to eat, but when they grew old and eventually died, there would be no Cain or Abel, only rabbits. So, nature saw it in our interest to make us want to mate.
Secondly, (and this is the sad, sad truth behind all we have accomplished and destroyed as a species) in order to get a mate, you have to impress one. There had to be a catch! There just had to be! It was too perfect; the blue skies, the mountains, the animals; everything! If something sounds too good to be true... What a cruel, cruel seed to sow in a mind. Oh, the pain.
Whats wrong with mating? I hear you ask. I like mating! I hear you bellow. Well, theres nothing wrong with the activity itself, a good thrashing between the sheets never did anyone any harm. Its everything that leads up to it and everything that happens afterwards that creates problems.
So, we (males) beat each other up, build houses, shout really loudly and invent ice cream just to impress a potential mate. Most things spawn from this, and everything spirals out of control as the years pass and the population grows until we have spacecraft, digital watches, devastating wars and so on.
And this brings me (finally) to my point, our jobs. We spend countless hours performing menial tasks for a whole host of futile reasons, i.e. any job related to finance, most office jobs etc. These are all things that we dont necessarily want to do in the first place, and as we already know, we only actually need to breathe, eat, drink, excrete.
So think about why you do what you do. Then jack it in and write a book. Or make a film. Or paint a picture. The list goes on.

We do it, the boring jobs and stuff we don't like as we are forced to prostitute ourselves in order that the ruling classes can make fat profets from our labour... or something...

Exactly. The few benefit from the misery of the many. We don't NEED to do any of it. We don't need to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning to get yelled at buy someone who calls themself our 'Boss'. Its all pointless and soul-destroying. All we need to do is just grow vegetable patchs in our gardens and give a two-fingered salute to the world.

I think there is something called the 'heirarchy of needs' by Maslow. I'll see if I can dig it out somewhere. But not now. My head hurts.

We have been brainwashed by the ruling classes to do their biddings and willing sell ourself for less than we are worth to line their pockets. They have instilled in us a unnatural and faulse desire for all the things in modern society that we have to buy but do not need, and through this increasingly serve their own needs via two routes, not only locking us into forced employment, but in so doing we create those items that we use the proportion of the wage we make to then purchase outside work.

I disagree with the consiracy theory. I don't believe any 'brainwashing' has taken place. All this crap has evolved naturally through the pressures of wanting to get a mate. We have done more and more elaborate things in the course of our evolution to ensure the spread of our seed that we now don't even reconise the symptoms.

Imagine the days of early, ape-like humans on the plains of Africa, marking their territories, climbing the tallest rock and beating each other to death all to impress a mate. From this stems everything - art, science, engineering, construction, war, adventure sports, space travel... EVERYTHING!

We need to make a consious effort to think about exactly WHY we do EVERYTHING we do. Just go through your daily routine and see if you can explain to yourself the EXACT reason you do everything on it. See if their is any need for it in order to keep you alive.

It's actually not that difficult to cut most of the crap out of your life and use your time in ways that please you. Other people tend to find it a bit strange, though.

I've simplified my life drastically by doing a few things: don't watch tv so I'm not bombarded with ads designed to make me covet all sorts of unnecessary things. Don't go shopping just to see what's out there. Moved to a neighborhood that's centrally located to everything I like, don't have the expense or hassles of having a car (a bike suits my needs just fine). Have a job doing something I like to do enough that I'd still do it (though admittedly not 40 hours weekly) even if I didn't need the income. I don't care about impressing people, especially not strangers. I live for my own pleasure and comfort and I live within my means. I have time to do the things that make me happy. Life's really good when you don't let a bunch of material things manage your time.

I agree. There are a 1000 little ways to NOT play the game. Simplifying your needs in life is a good start. Clearly distinquish between needs and wants. You'll find you do not *need* as much.

All those *things* need a place to be,have to be cared for,cleaned,insured,protected,updated,replaced. Too many *things* steal precious time and energy from living and loving.

I've given up TV. It's usually mindless rubbish anyway. I only use it for Teletext.

What bugs me most is that we don't necessarily have the option to opt-out of the 'game'. I don't want to do a job that bores me senseless for five days just so I can have a roof over my head and eat so I can stay alive and do a job that bores me senseless for five days. But what else can you do?

I've always been interested in a theory of a friend of mine : "95 percent of the wealth is owned by 5 percent of the people, and the rest of us are being screwed". I'm working for a company working towards someone else's goals and being brainwashed into thinking these goals are mine. All I'm doing is making more money for a fat bloke sat in a chair smoking cigars.

So just think how I feel... I don't even have a mate!

Maslow's heirarchy of needs -

1. Self Actualization
2. Ego Needs
3. Social Needs
4. Security Needs
5. Body Needs

from http://www.connect.net/georgen/maslow.htm

"Breathe, eat, drink, excrete. These are the four things that a human being needs to do in order to survive. "

i would add the need for shelter - without this your body soon stops working.

i think these are all the essential survival needs. but it isn't usually enough for humans to just survive.

also, if you don't have a job someone else has to support you.

growing veges is an excellent idea. most people won't last long growing their own food without animal protein though.

simplifying is good, and we are all interdependant too. i.e. we need each other.

Kea

I completly agree with you on everything you said (that is very rare for me). I will even concede that people also need some form of shelter (although it probably depends on where you are in the world, climate, season etc).

Now that we have these 'needs' established we can get on to the thing that really bothers me - work. In the history of our evolution and migration from Africa, work is a relatively new way for a human being to spend their time. Work really came about when agriculture arrived (i.e. having to do certin things at certain times of the day). Before this, most males would be hunter/gatherers, while the women would raise the children and so on. Now, the hunters would probably spend most of their day looking for food, laughing, joking, drawing plans for lighter-than-air flight on cave walls. Generally having a laugh. They knew what they needed to do and they did it. Just as they women did back at the village (or whatever). Although we may think we are better off now (only having to go to the supermarket to 'catch me a beef') I don't actually think that we are any happier than those ancient hunters.

So, agriculture comes along, and jobs are found for people - harvesting, delivery etc. Then the industrial revolution falls from... err... space, and suddenly we have so called 'jobs' to do. These jobs include, lawyers (although they've probably always existed, in one form or another), finacial advisors (boo, hiss!) and all the other crap we concern ourselves with.

Its really in the last 1000 years or so of human development that work, as we know it, has evolved. I think most people would agree that they would not do their job if they had the choice, and that they would much rather go travelling, write a book etc. Most of what we do with our day is pointless. At least the hunters we doing REAL 'work'.

In the future I believe we are going to go full circle. Once we have machines to do the farming completely autonomosly, and an infrastructure in place that assures an even (global) spread of the food, all our 'jobs' will fall away, and we'll get back to being human beings again. And the best part is, we wont even have to spend our day hunting - we'll get it delivered, for free! I believe this is going to be one of the hardest challenges mankind will ever face - the so-called 'dis-invention of work'. But after the initial storm, we will be as happy as we were in Africa.

>What bugs me most is that we don't necessarily have the option to opt-out of the 'game'. I don't want to do a job that bores me senseless for five days just so I can have a roof over my head and eat so I can stay alive and do a job that bores me senseless for five days. But what else can you do? <

I think a lot of people feel this way. Owning your life isn't necessarily easy and it doesn't come without certain sacrifices. I guess the first thing to do is spend some time seriously thinking about what matters to you, setting priorities. Then you have to take action towards doing what you want and make that happen.

A little over a year ago I was totally bitter and depressed, working for a company and feeling totally dehumanized there. The money wasn't bad, though, and it kept me hanging on because I didn't think I could make it on less. Something happened which forced me to reevaluate my needs and I ended up taking a 30% cut in pay to change jobs. Now I can't buy things like I could before and I can't go out and blow money whenever I feel like it. My choice. It's given me the time and energy to do what I love, though. Now I can paint and play with photoshop and write and enjoy the beach. I do some freelance work when I need extra cash and it always seems to pop up just when I need it most. Not a bad tradeoff at all, in my opinion. I just had to give up a bit of 'security'.

Flake, do you really think people were happy in the way we think of happiness when their time was spent avoiding starvation and struggling to survive their environment? I don't... I think they just didn't have any choice and probably didn't have the time to think about how things could be 'better'.

I sure there was a proportion of the population that was just avoiding starvation, but whats the difference between then and now? In the richest cities in the world there are people starving to death on the streets! And it needent be like that.

Im sure you know the figures, the western world have all the food, far more than we need, and people in africa and asia are starving. Not t mention people on the streets in London, Paris, New York... all the most fashionable and rich places of the world. And I am positive that there are more people starving today than 30000 years ago in Africa, simply because our population is bigger.

If you don't want to work in a boring office doing boring work you're not interested in then don't. Unless you get a job where you get paid for doing something you DO want to do, you'll just have to go without all the things one has to pay for. Build your own house, grow your own food, and write your books. Start a hippy commune. I don't mean to sound dismissive, in fact if you do start a hippy commune let me know before you log off for good and I'll come!

The difference between then and now is that there are soooo many options out there for people who have the courage to explore them.

Rich people don't have a bigger savings account of happiness than the people they're 'exploiting'. Just different obligations tugging at their time.

I agree with you to a certain extent. There are more options - bungee jumping, running in circles, opening and closing doors, swimming.

But these options aren't available to "people who have the courage to explore them'. They are only available to people who have the OPPERTUNITY to explore them. Homeless people cant afford to bungee jump, in fact, most homeless people want exactly what I hate- a job.

Also, these new options arrive over time, not because we are suddenly more intelligent than the humans of 30000 years ago. As Newton said 'we stand on the shoulders of giants'.

I think Newton said;
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
But close enough. Anyway, apart from that, I like what you've said in this thread very much.
Respect.

Thanks. I try.