This is a reflection on a friend’s comment. I don’t know why MSN space wouldn’t allow me to reply to people’s comments; another thing for Microsoft to improve.
I agree that society has lots of rules that we’ve to abide to. The implicit types of rules like others’ expectations and values (which usually reflect in salary or price) are the ones we most likely feel pressure about. The society rewards certain things more than others. Since society is made up of people, it means people demand these things more. We live in a world where we’ve to depend on other people on almost everything: foods, services, entertainments, etc. People we depend on are mostly people we have no relationship with; they work not for us, but for their own living. And money is a way society rewards people’s productivity and gives them more motivation to work in things others value. If there are no commercial values, most people may go for artistic or other pursuits they find satisfying, but who’ll produce things other people need? Higher pay jobs may not be more meaningful or valuable, but they exist because people demand them, and one reason some jobs are highly reward is because the job’s intrinsically undesirable (boring, long hours, dangerous, etc.), and people are compensated for it. Maybe that’s why we use the term compensation.
Drawing what one likes is great, but how much does it contribute to others? I’m generally for the individualist, and I don’t believe we should live life for others’ sake. But since we live in a world where we’re dependent on others in one way or another, we have to produce something (or alternative depend on our family’s work). If we live alone, then we won’t have to follow society’s rule, but we will have to grow our own foods, provide our own shelters, and use the spare time left over for leisure and to do things we like. It’s the same. I think we can definitely follow our dreams and imaginations, as long as we’ve a way to support our dependence on others by producing something people need. Money became a shorthand in our world to mean many things: success, productivity, greed, usefulness, etc. Sometimes people lost sight of what it is. I never think it’s rational to go after money for its own sake. What we want is the things or services behind, and we have to find ways to exchange ours with others. It’s definitely a constraint, and there’re trade-offs to make as long as we’re living with other people. But it doesn’t prevent me to follow my way of life if I find it worthy enough.
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume …No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”
–John Donne
I just got a chance to re-read this again, and thank you for providing a clearer view for my question. It seems like sometimes when I think about things there are more questions and confusion being raised rather than answers and certainty. I like your point of view and I have to say that I indeed agree with you, it\’s sort of a mix between an individualist and an economist, isn\’t it? =)