pie eating contest

PIE EATING CONTEST

Today, another break from Beer Virus, because we can and because we must. I ran across the phrase “a pie eating contest in which the prize is another pie”. I can't remember the context it was used in, but the phrase was priceless. Doesn't that sum up so much of our dysfunctional behavior? Now, I'm of the mind that most of said behavior is actually necessary and useful, evolutionary speaking, but the trick is to find out the why and how. Why do we “spin our wheels”, as it were? I might have an idea, but as usual it is conjecture.

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Ever notice how we work hard so that we can be rewarded by more hard work? I'm not saying this is a bad thing, don't misunderstand me. Lazy and slacking has produced our current culture which does nobody any good. Of course, you have to laugh as you view the leisure and soft life of the elites as they look down their noses at the lazy slackers of the welfare class. Rush Limbaugh personifies this, although he is more a moneyed servant to, rather than one of the rich humpers he so diligently serves. I won't go off on a Rush tangent. I'll just say, he does kind of look like that bastard George Washington, doesn't he?

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The harder we work, the more we are rewarded with more work. Let us say you never went to college. The only reason I refused to attend, other than the only thing studying history is good for ( career wise ) is to teach history, which did not really appeal to me, was because I refused to take a couple of math classes ( such is my hatred and loathing of the subject ). School was relatively affordable at the time, and sort-of PC free. But I worked my up the food chain, instead. You work harder than anyone else, to be rewarded with more work at proportionately less pay.

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The steps above retail store management constitute LESS physical labor, true, but at the cost of your soul, your peace of mind and your stomach lining. You are still working yourself into an early grave. Every promotion is more time working, more stress, less of a personal life. What are you gaining? Mostly, money that others get to enjoy far more than yourself. Not just the corporate CEO who profits far more than you, but the gold digging wife, the ingrate children, the salesmen who sold you an illusion of a reward.

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I understand a fair number of people use credit responsibly enough, and can discipline themselves and pay off balances and etcetera. I was not one of them. To me, credit is cocaine. I do everything I can to avoid it, simply because no one likes a junkie, especially not themselves. But at least I have a modicum of pride and never debased myself completely. I never used debt to get a better credit rating so I could get into even more debt. Sure, if the fools offered me a credit card, I abused it.

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But I never played the game of paying interest far longer to get more debt. I overdosed early and then went into withdrawals and avoided the poison thereafter. But to dance to your masters tune to keep his supply of credit coming, for a lifetime of indentured servitude? No. I never could understand or condone that. I knew enough to eventually stop playing the game. And what about all that wonderful crap you bought, with that credit? What was the point? The more stuff you bought, the more stuff you needed to buy to maintain and feed the stuff you bought in the first place.

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Granted, no tool is without maintenance. Something as simple as a shovel still needs items to prevent rust and wood rot, a file for sharpening, and a shelter for it as well, with its own maintenance costs. You'll use the preservatives for other tools, as well as the file and shed, so the cost in both investment and time is minimal ( although, to minimize that cost you are just feeding the whole cycle of more stuff ). But stuff needs stuff. You cannot avoid that, only maximize effectiveness. I'm not questioning owning tools, a necessity. I'm not a dirty hippie trying to emulate Turd World monks.

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But surely you see the escalating problems? Or, look at that peculiar breed of Yuppie Scum who is deathly afraid of germs, to the point the mental condition makes them sicker from stress, feeding their need of paranoia. It almost seems those people think themselves into an early grave, after much hospital visits and needless quests for exotic vitamin sources ( and probably a crystal in there, the weirdo's. What is in the water in California? ).

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Could this just be as simple as needing a hobby? Keeping busy, to fill in the moments between crapping our infant diapers to crapping our adult ones? If there isn't enough challenges, do we create them? It almost seems so, doesn't it? No one wants another pie after eating so much pie you nearly puke. It was the contest that mattered, not the prize. The journey, not the destination. If life doesn't challenge us, we create challenges. Have you noticed the amount of drama a non-working mother creates around her? The kids are too old to look after, the robots do all the chores and she is now without a purpose.

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After WWII, in that brief period of time the average worker was rewarded for fighting to colonize the non-Soviet world, making the colonies the bankers and corporations bitches, a period barely over twenty years ( and that is being generous as the economic malaise returned in about a dozen, the cure far worse than the disease. Sound familiar? ), housewives were popping pills at a rate that would make the soon arriving hippies look sober in comparison. They were bored and depressed. That found things to do, but they still had no purpose. There was no more journey.

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The “why” of all this escapes me, of course. Although just knowing to do something is sometimes good enough. Cause and effect. Dammit! Perhaps this does tie in with Beer Virus, as we ponder life, the universe, and everything.

( .Y. )

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