Jab, jab, duck. Jab. Right hook to the head. Left to the body. KO! The crowd goes wild! Thanks, Brock—this piece was a knockout and left me eager to take a bigger bite out of life!
‘Its about passion and reaching the beyond’ are very vague feelings. We can’t explain them to a society that thrives on quantifying one’s value based on their net worth.
When someone asks ‘What do you do for a living?’, they’re actually assessing how much respect do you deserve?
Shahrukh Khan, a big actor from the East, has very rightly said that - ‘First become a high net worth individual. Earn that money and status. Only once you’ve done that, then start preaching about humility, passion, gratitude etc’.
Without attaining that material status one’s philosophy of passion, love, and other feelings are just empty bags of air.
I would strongly disagree with the last statement there, but putting that aside - I kept that sentence vague for brevity and since I hyperlinked the video explaining Kierkegaard’s concept of the ‘Leap of Faith’. By “reaching beyond” I’m referencing beyond material items which will inevitably fail to bring us sustained emotional happiness and meaning. Of course one needs money for basic necessities, I’m speaking about pursuing passion vs sustaining a mechanical, soulless life
As usual, you wrote an excellent essay. However, I do have a question about the following statement in your post - "40% of our paycheck is siphoned to another calamitous war." What is the source for this information? The highest federal tax bracket is 37% for income over $609, 351 for an individual or $731,201 for married filing jointly.
Individual wage earners with less than $100,000 are paying less than 15% of their income in federal taxes and a big part of that money goes for non-military spending (interest on the debt, healthcare subsidies, border patrol, etc.)
Mostly just a rough estimate of federal income, state income, property, sales, etc. I could’ve been more exact with the %, but a few points off is fairly negligible. Mainly shedding a spotlight on the financial hardship of most American citizens and frivolous spending of our federal government. Not anti-taxes, as I know they go towards non-military spending, but the military spending is out of control (ex: Pentagon admitted accounting error of $2B missing in Ukraine package)
I agree with your reply to my comment. However, it's not consistent with the statement in your post. You gave the impression that 40% of our earnings goes to places like Israel and Ukraine when the correct percentage is less than 1%. (Did you revise your post and change the number to 30%?)
Yes, I revised it to 30%, and of course it’s not all going to wars. The post isn’t centered on that so I avoided any tangent. The remark was a jab at frivolous spending.
Jab, jab, duck. Jab. Right hook to the head. Left to the body. KO! The crowd goes wild! Thanks, Brock—this piece was a knockout and left me eager to take a bigger bite out of life!
Haha thank you. Happy to hear it inspired!
"... live aggressively, fighting to protect our individuality" Definitely part of the puzzle I've been figuring to get hold of.
Chuffed to relate, remotely once again ...
‘Its about passion and reaching the beyond’ are very vague feelings. We can’t explain them to a society that thrives on quantifying one’s value based on their net worth.
When someone asks ‘What do you do for a living?’, they’re actually assessing how much respect do you deserve?
Shahrukh Khan, a big actor from the East, has very rightly said that - ‘First become a high net worth individual. Earn that money and status. Only once you’ve done that, then start preaching about humility, passion, gratitude etc’.
Without attaining that material status one’s philosophy of passion, love, and other feelings are just empty bags of air.
I would strongly disagree with the last statement there, but putting that aside - I kept that sentence vague for brevity and since I hyperlinked the video explaining Kierkegaard’s concept of the ‘Leap of Faith’. By “reaching beyond” I’m referencing beyond material items which will inevitably fail to bring us sustained emotional happiness and meaning. Of course one needs money for basic necessities, I’m speaking about pursuing passion vs sustaining a mechanical, soulless life
As usual, you wrote an excellent essay. However, I do have a question about the following statement in your post - "40% of our paycheck is siphoned to another calamitous war." What is the source for this information? The highest federal tax bracket is 37% for income over $609, 351 for an individual or $731,201 for married filing jointly.
Individual wage earners with less than $100,000 are paying less than 15% of their income in federal taxes and a big part of that money goes for non-military spending (interest on the debt, healthcare subsidies, border patrol, etc.)
Mostly just a rough estimate of federal income, state income, property, sales, etc. I could’ve been more exact with the %, but a few points off is fairly negligible. Mainly shedding a spotlight on the financial hardship of most American citizens and frivolous spending of our federal government. Not anti-taxes, as I know they go towards non-military spending, but the military spending is out of control (ex: Pentagon admitted accounting error of $2B missing in Ukraine package)
It could be better to find a different way of putting your point across. such as "the drudgery of work while being robbed by the man".
Are you familiar with, Desiderata? it is a great piece of writing.
I agree, I could've phrased it better rather than alluding to an argument that I didn't plan to expound on in this particular post
I agree with your reply to my comment. However, it's not consistent with the statement in your post. You gave the impression that 40% of our earnings goes to places like Israel and Ukraine when the correct percentage is less than 1%. (Did you revise your post and change the number to 30%?)
Yes, I revised it to 30%, and of course it’s not all going to wars. The post isn’t centered on that so I avoided any tangent. The remark was a jab at frivolous spending.