We filed our tax returns this week, and this reminded me of my true purpose in life. My primary function is to finance six levels of government. I serve the state. I am a serf. In return, the state lets me keep a portion of my earnings and to maintain a household. The state has calculated how much to let me keep so as to maximize its return from me. It does not let me keep too much, for that would mean less money in the hoard; rather, it lets me keep just enough that I have an incentive to be as productive as I can.
My secondary function is to feed an army of contractors. The bathroom remodel has progressed glacially. Four weeks in, and the downstairs bathroom is not done, and the upstairs one has not even been started. We ran out of wall tile and had to order more from Italy. The commode hasn’t been delivered. The vanity is sitting in the middle of the room. The shower fixtures are in boxes in the foyer, and the shower door hasn’t even been ordered. The floor has not been grouted, and we have had to go to a Laundromat the last couple of weeks because our washer and dryer are in the foyer. On a positive note, the tile we picked out looks great, and the oversize shower promises to be quite satisfactory. The floor is no longer on the verge of collapsing and is level. The room is warm thanks to an expansion of the radiator and a heating system under the floor tiles.
My tertiary function is to satisfy the desires of my canine masters, Jasper and Jesse. I walk them. I pet them. I play ball with them. I let them in and out a hundred times a day. I share my meals with them. I maintain a large fenced yard and pick up their feces for them. I put up with dog hair in my ice cubes.
My quaternary function is to keep the 35 plus species of birds that visit my house well supplied with bird seed and suet and to maintain the pond for the benefit of the goldfish, shiners, crawdads, water snakes, frogs and salamanders who dwell therein.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
One of the most interesting things I've come across recently pointed out that dogs are masters at responding to human cues, so much so that they can be considered to be parasites in symbiotic relationships with their masters. And, so, with complete superiority I let my thinking rest there for awhile. . . until this morning. Then I got to thinking back over my own work life (a benefit of being in retirement) and all the masters that I had learned to please in order to earn my food, the skills I mastered (well. . . semi-mastered), the words I learned to please mommy and poppy, the social tricks for getting along. Well. . . what’s superior to a dog’s life and learning about all the things I learned in order to win my food from the complex culture I found myself born into?
We human animals sure like to pride ourselves on our free wills, but strip away all the ways we try to explain our behavior and down deep, we’ll see that most all of it is learned in order to get food, stay safe within the pack (or herd), and procreate. I don’t know what to make of those of us, like me, who got educations in the arts until I recall the movie, “Dead Poets Society”, and the claim made there that poetry was/is all about getting laid (which I sort of agree with when I think of all the ways I used my education in English and creative writing). The trouble is that most poets don’t put the grub on the kitchen table, unless they teach poetry or literature, and most women will eventually leave them for a man whose got a good job sweeping schoolroom floors.
Post a Comment