(washingtoncitypaper.com)

Doing More With Less: In Defense Of Creative Loafing

A thought-provoking article by Franklin Schneider.

"I’ve been on unemployment three times in the past six years. Each time was better than the last, and each time I stayed on until the last cent was exhausted. I didn’t even try to get a job; it was a paid vacation. This is somewhat unusual from what I can tell. There’s a deep vein of antipathy in this country toward collecting checks from the government.....

.....When you’re miserable, you buy things. It’s the American Way; whatever your problem, there’s a product that can solve it. Have a bad day? Buy some jeans! Just realize that your best years are a distant memory? Buy a big car! This is why a lot of people who make six figures still live check to check—perhaps this 50-inch plasma screen/Louis Vuitton bag/waterfront condo will make my soul hurt less?
But once you’re off the hamster wheel, you find you no longer need to overcompensate. You don’t need consumable solutions because your essential problem—your life sucked—is solved."

via MetaFilter

See also: The Drone Ranger , another great article by the same author:

"If, like me, you go to work each morning and sit in front of a desk, you belong in the professional lineage of Sisyphus, the mythical figure damned to roll a massive boulder up a mountain, only to do it all over again when the rock rolls back down. After all, do you really make any substantial difference from your cubicle? Even if you carry a lot of weight in your office, does it matter, in the big picture, if you move 10 percent more units this quarter than the last? For anyone living a conscious life, office culture inevitably brings the onset of a mild sort of existential despair. Call it the blahs if you’d like: What am I doing? Am I just flushing 40 hours a week down the toilet? And unless you’re a heart surgeon or something, the answer is generally a resounding 'yes.' "