Human Beings Without Work Or Other Valuable Activity Go to Seed
by "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier
Idleness does not only contribute to the human being's going to seed but also irrevocably to decrepitude in the later years or in the life of leisure after going into retirement.
Fundamentally, the ideas of doing nothing, idleness, aversion to work as well as every type of age-related inactivity are all very negative because doing nothing has a detrimental effect on the psyche, consciousness as well as body and drives human beings away from useful social functions.
Human beings, women and men, young and old, who in life indulge in idleness or who retire and then live the life of leisure by way of only doing nothing fall into a serious identity crisis as a rule.
Very often, idlers become addicted to alcohol and drugs and degenerate into asocial excesses during the course of their lives, while inactive retirees who are no longer working feel useless. And very many idlers, as do many retirees, lose the joy of living and commit suicide. And particularly for old-age pensioners, is the suicide rate very high and exceeds that of all other age groups.
The fact is that for all idlers in life – men, women, young persons of all ages as well as senior citizens and those suffering from health complaints of all kinds – new role models are necessary that permeate a life-affirming frame of mind which above all can be realized through a sensible work and appropriate duties.
Human beings who are idlers in life or who after retiring live their lives in such a way that they only indulge in idleness, view life in the wrong way and view old age as a big battle and as a massacre.
That, however, has nothing to do with reality because this attitude arises solely from the incorrect way in which these human beings lead their lives.
Truly life is neither a battle nor a massacre, but a joy and a path of progress and development.
Still all those who complain about life and their situation etc., be it in regards to a lack of health, missing or inadequate interpersonal relationships, lack of money and so on, form their own lives, their prevailing situation, their behavior, their work or their idleness, since every single person is the master of his or her own destiny.
Thus, if they suffer, then they create their suffering themselves, their financial debts, their quarrels with other persons, with their partner, a friend, acquaintance or any other fellow human being.
And if they are sick, then it is also their own attitude and their behavior which determines how they face their sickness, either suffering, grouchy, snivelling, self-pitying – or brave, patient, with a good sense of healing and progress etc.
The fact is that the idlers in life as well as many living pensioners who are in the age-related life of leisure – a large number of early retirees also belong to this group – make the escape from life (suicide) as well as the decay in their consciousness, psyche, physical body and health to the central task of their lives.
Truly, it's all a strange and cowardly self-centeredness that results in an obsession with ones own suffering, unpleasant situations and living conditions, and any self-initiative for a sensible activity is completely destroyed.
In this respect, neither the age nor the gender plays a role, because fundamentally, only the total attitude towards life and its obligations is important, which means: Use it or lose it.
This applies exactly to those who pursue idleness in life as well as to many early or normal retirees of both genders, when they sink into idleness completely lacking any initiative, miserably vegetate away, and in their own irresponsibleness cowardly surrender themselves to all possible sufferings and to the diminishing courage to face life.
In this way a cowardly weariness of living and a cowardly self-pity develops and in the end a cowardly suicide occurs in order to cowardly escape all that what one's own lack of initiative and responsibility could not overcome.
That is the hard and real truth, even if it is challenged by the affected persons as well as by the antagonistic know-it-alls, critics, deniers of the truth and mollycoddled false humanists, who attempt to stamp this fact into the ground. But in spite of all this, the fact remains: Use it or lose it.
And those who during their lifetime, as early retiree or in the non-working state after mandatory retirement indulge in doing nothing, end up succumbing to vices, addictions and all kinds of physical, health-related, consciousness-related and psychological sufferings as well as grumpiness and weariness of living.
These degradations lead to a screaming misery and very often end with suicide, and the suicide rate among the idlers, the slackers with no initiative, is very high. The life expectancy constantly increases, however the sense and responsibility for a healthy activity decrease more and more, for there are increasing calls for early retirement and for further reductions in the working hours as well as for more part-time jobs. Many wrongly believe that they must leave their profession or career they are practicing in order to indulge in idleness. Many also believe wrongly that they can come to grips with their lives through addiction to alcohol, drugs or medication.
Their interests, abilities, possibilities, hobbies as well as their great and life-affirming thoughts and feelings dwindle away with these attitudes, whereby an inevitable wasting away takes place, and an identity crisis and thoughts and feelings of one's own uselessness and of suicide manifest.
In this manner the affected persons suddenly see everything as misery and trouble that has rolled and is rolling over them, but they do not see that it is their own fault, and consequently pass the blame on to the fellow human being, the state and the oh so bad life and its crass conditions.
For earlier generations, the daily work was useful and was maintained and carried out until a ripe old age. Idleness in life was foreign to them, since without work there was no healthy, valuable and progressive existence. When the ripe old age arrived there was then a short time period with a little less work before death came calling.
Today, however, doing less work is already pursued during the highly active phase of life, so this inactiveness, part-time or post-occupational state of inactiveness already constitutes a third or quarter or sometimes even half of the life-span. Actually – and many think so – the human being in this situation should actually be joyful and happy, however this is not the case and cannot be the case, since idleness causes various kinds of suffering and damage.
Indeed, at least in the industrial countries of today, a good portion of the old-age pensioners are in a good financial position as are many others who have not reached the age for retirement and have no or minimal health complaints to speak of; yet suddenly the identity crisis is there because they are confronted with a self-produced inactiveness and do not, or no longer, perform anything reasonable in life.
The inactivity suddenly irritates the nerves, the attitude and the behavior, and instead of the immense freedom from no longer working, doubtful emptiness, as well as thoughts and feelings of uselessness, threaten from now on. Thus, all those who have the plan and fancy that they could rest in life or in retirement and still be happy and joyful, fall into grouchiness and into an identity crisis.
The human being, be it man or woman, young or old, loses control over himself or herself when he or she no longer works; the reason being that he or she cannot cope with the non-working existence and no longer has much social interaction. Interpersonal relationships break down and in the end disappear in order to make place for an indifference and coldness towards the environment and fellow human beings.
With idleness – during life, in or before retirement – the entire status in life is lost as well as the structured day, with the end result that also the social network breaks down, and the human being is lost within himself or herself, appears useless and without value and prepares a violent end to his or her life.
The connection lies in the fact that thoughts and feelings put a strain on the psyche and consciousness and bring them into turmoil in a way where the human being thinks he or she is no longer needed, and therefore feels superfluous, alone and feels helpless and useless with regards to task-related activities.
Many human beings of this kind, whether woman, man, young or old, are not even able to look after themselves in an appropriate and dignified manner, or prepare themselves a meal or do the laundry, not to mention knowing something useful and reasonable to do with their free time. Innumerable idlers, work-shy, early retirees and old age pensioners just sit in front of the television for half or entire days and consume every nonsense and rubbish that flickers before them. That is how they promote their imagined uselessness all the more, whereby they fall into addictions and vices from which they are no longer able to free themselves, be it alcohol, illegal drugs, medication, pleasures, quarrels, hate, jealousy, self-pity or whatever.
The identity becomes fragile and creates great feelings of uncertainty, and the self-esteem deteriorates more and more, which only orientated itself towards what was done and what has not been done. Idleness, doing nothing and life of leisure are repulsive words for every reasonable and still productive human being – be it a man, a woman, young or old – who dedicates himself or herself to a useful work or some other valuable activity. If human beings do not stay productive through useful activities that are within reasonable limits of their capacity, then this means that, while still alive, they are already digging their own grave and descending into it. The truth is that human beings determine their identity and feel acknowledged through their work or other valuable activity and its resulting pay and value; however, if they practice only idleness, doing nothing or simply treat the retired life as a life of leisure, then they lose their identity. A human being who leads his or her life as an idler and loafer, or a human being who upon early or normal retirement is shunted away from his or her working life, falls inevitably and unexpectedly into an identity crisis if he does not, through his own initiative, occupy himself or herself with some valuable work or activity which continuously maintains his or her feeling of self-worth and does not let it diminish.
Dealing with work and also the responsibility in reference to one's own physical-ness as well as suffering, sickness and loss etc. is difficult for many human beings, be it woman, man, young or old, although the male sex is clearly more affected by this then the female sex. The male sex orientates itself mainly by its physical power and strength as well as by its virility, which is, however, increasingly challenged when the amount of useful work diminishes, and the physical fitness becomes very negatively affected along with this, which especially then degenerates, when alcohol and drugs are used or an addiction to medication is present.
If work, the physical fitness and the mental-block – which includes the consciousness, thoughts, feelings and psyche – are neglected, then this also carries on into the retirement age when the life of leisure presents itself through retirement and the negative consequences from neglecting the work and the physical as well as mental fitness take their toll. So there is not much of this that doesn't leave its mark on the human being and this carries on with age; namely because many suppress the important aspects of life, thereby creating underlying fears which persist for the duration of their lives. Thus, emotions as well as thoughts, feelings, love, affection and friendships are neglected, suppressed and repressed, whereby it is not possible to live out all these values.
If human beings – men, women, young or old – fail to question the role they have in life, then they are, sooner or later, in danger of ending up on the scrap heap of life. In this respect, human beings turn themselves into, so to speak, human bulky rubbish, because they present themselves as being completely useless and they stand in the way of all those who, in regards to the fulfillment of life's duties, consciously, honestly and seriously strive towards the fulfillment of life. Thus, they impede the development of all those who fulfill life in a good way and are consciously connected to progress and evolution, and they cannot do anything about the human bulky rubbish which does not listen to reason and is not willing to live life correctly but only complains, suffers and doesn't make any effort to change for the better. Therefore, they have no choice but to do their human obligation by looking after the incorrigible ones, coddling them up and doing everything possible in order to keep them alive and to somehow ensure them a life where their self-created suffering is alleviated and in the end they are able to die a humane death.
The idleness, the inactivity of many women and men, regardless of age, frequently leads – along with the aforementioned problems – to the breakdown of existing marital relationships and divorce because one partner can no longer bear the inactiveness and shiftlessness of the other and wants to go his or her own way again in order to be able to really and truly live. Thus it is necessary that man and woman also acquire manual skills regarding work and other activities in order to be a support for their partner and to be able to helpfully stand by each other. This also refers to what has to be learned, namely, to establish their own and mutual social relationships and to develop competence in thinking and in the areas related to the consciousness, feeling as well as psyche. In a joined relationship – no matter how the relationship is formed – it is necessary that the partners respond uncomplainingly to one another and that they are ready to be responsible for and deliver the infrastructure that lays in their respective areas or rather for the organizational and real provisions and for the use in the existing union.
The older a human being becomes the more hurt and wounded are the reactions of very many vis-à-vis aging and the age itself, and that again is a strong drive for them to fall into severe addictions and vices, especially alcohol and drugs as well as medications that numb the consciousness. In turn, an impoverishment in regards to the thinking-feeling occurs as well as a social isolation, where in many cases suicide is the final result; indeed for both males and females, although males outweigh females when it comes to the increased suicidal tendency which increases especially with increasing age and after retirement. And in fact, in this day and age the number of suicides is rising strongly, because the more time that passes, the more human beings there are who no longer find any purpose in life and are weary of living.
Truly, in regards to a conscious and responsible evolution, human beings impoverish more and more, consequently they become incapable of thinking and acting humanely and become unfit for life, and through suicide they seek a wrongly hoped for release. And the more the world population increases uncontrollably, the more human beings become impersonal, foreign as well as indifferent to one another. Thereby the isolation of the individual is just as pre-programmed as are the vices of idleness, conscious and parasitic inactiveness and unwillingness to work, as are also the giving up of every work and activity as well as the mental and physical fitness during the pre- and post-retirement life.
The suicide of human beings is played down scandalously and even promoted through the state by allowing those irresponsible ones with a lust to kill to practice their trade of indirect assisted suicides. In fact, among young people but above all among retirees in particular, suicide has, in its general form, become a symptom for a very widespread identity crisis, and for a wrongly conceived senselessness of life. As already mentioned, alcoholism, medication abuse and drug addiction also play a major role which is, however, as a rule, wrapped in silence or even ignored, in spite of being alarm-signals for a broken psyche.
The young like the old, who are in danger of becoming addicted, are affected by this, though the number affected constantly rises for those who scrape by in life as retirees. The young alcohol, drug and medication addicts as well as the work-shy and idlers go to seed in life and end up down and out on the street, become tramps, turn to crime, become ill by contracting HIV, etc., and end up as a corpse in the gutter, or are placed in institutions only to again succumb to their addiction and vice after their discharge. Whereas the early and old-age retirees are placed in nursing and old-age homes and are maltreated with psycho-tropic drugs in order to keep them quiet so that they do not generate too much work. But that is in no way of any help, quite to the contrary, since human beings, young like old, who are placed in institutions and homes and have no duties, no work or other valuable activity hopelessly go to seed, deteriorate and become ill.
The young and old human beings who are affected in this way are released from their life and duties, and precisely this – being the number one factor –, is what leads to heavy depressions as well as to rebellion against the governmental system, the social order and the law. But this is of no surprise because there is no future orientation for the idlers, work-shy, inactive, addicts and reprobates as well as for the early and old-age retirees when they are dealt with in this way. There are exceptions among the old-age pensioners, yet these exceptions are in constant decline because seniors are more and more only observers when it comes to the real life that takes place outside of their circle of influence. This is also equally valid for the strikers, the alcohol-, drug- and medication-addicts, the work-shy, inactive and idlers. Truly no one waits for them in an honorable way since no one expects anything worthwhile from them, so they are, in a social sense, simply written-off and dead.
Idlers, those inactive and work-shy, addicts and reprobates are placed on the sidelines, where they vegetate and degenerate in the gutter. Early retirees and old-age pensioners are also frequently pushed onto the sidelines and are removed of every responsibility concerning societal involvement, and this results in creating the same existential void that develops in the addicts, reprobates, idlers and those work-shy and inactive.
All these human beings, young like old, are insufficiently or not at all positioned in the middle of society and have no position in the public space where they would be able to participate responsibly. The social participation is completely withheld from them even though the human being is a social being and only develops properly through his or her positive and responsible-minded action in the community.
Truly, we as responsible human beings cannot afford to have all these young and old human beings standing on the sidelines of life only because they have fallen outside of the social framework or have reached the retirement age. Thus, it is essential that an appropriate culture be developed where all these human beings are included and are able to lead their lives in a social way. The young freaks may not be simply written-off, just as the retirees may not be allowed to simply withdraw themselves or be neglected, but they must occupy themselves with all conceivable possibilities concerning work or any other valuable activity, and in fact also in the social sense, within society and also in politics.
Freaks of all kinds must be taught and informed through governmental efforts the correct and positive way to lead a life so that they can find their way from their addictions, vices, their aversion to work, their inactiveness and idleness to a proper life of work and to being part of society, while those young and old who are in retirement must be protected from each and every discrimination that labels them as being unfit for social, community and political activities. Any exclusion of human beings from the social life and society is criminal and is in no way suitable for the future. All the human being's prosperity is dependent on creativity and innovativeness, or rather on the capability of renewing and changing, on the planned and controlled changes and reforms in the social system through new ideas, techniques and political progress.
The point is not to require the freaks and pensioners to unwillingly commit themselves as temporary stand-ins for any work or activities, but to instruct them in regards to their responsibility and to show them ways and give them possibilities so that they are able to find something of value to do and not fall into depressions, addictions and vices etc. They must be treated and spoken to as jointly responsible human beings capable of working and carrying out tasks, who can take on a position in the public life, which will be fulfilling for them. Nothing is accomplished by simply paying freaks, addicts, reprobates, work-shy, fake-invalids, idlers and other inactive ones and malingers a ridiculous pension/benefit and by increasing the pension of retirees when they are abandoned and shut out from the common work and job process.
This does not necessarily mean that a gainful employment has to be pursued, but any work or other activity through which the consciousness, thoughts, feelings, psyche and body are able to be kept healthy and also through which a release from addictions, vices and depressions occurs or through which they are prevented. And if the human being, while in his or her younger and middle years or in his or her pre-retirement or retirement life, pursues a job or other worthwhile activity then he or she is presented time and again with new liberties in various ways. And when the work or other valuable activity is carried out voluntarily and in liberty then all compulsions disappear and new valuable perspectives present themselves again and again. In this way the daily routine is no longer characterized by a programmed system and competition, whereby an unrecognized development potential concerning creativity frequently comes to light.
This is a new liberty, which is equally valid for both man and woman as well as for young persons and the old who are retired. And truly each and every human being has it in their own hands to change their life for the better, to give it a new direction through a reasonable work or other valuable activity since everyone is the master of their own destiny.
00:58 AM June 20, 2008
"Billy" Eduard Albert Meier
Semjase-Silver-Star-Center
Translated by Willem Mondria