Sunday, June 18, 2017

The "Steve Jobs is Dead" Principle

Work is your enemy.  Not your friend.
Your boss is your arch-nemesis.  Not your colleague.
Your career is your slavemaster.  Not your life.



9 comments:

LBD said...

Dearest Captain, a few flaws in your reasoning:

1. A guy who looks like Bill Gates would never have gotten a woman like Malinda had he not been a zillionaire, so,there was never a choice between working and spendtime with her.

2. It's all very well to live minimally while you are young, but trust me--as a senior citizen I am very happy my husband and I worked hard and deferred gratification to the degree we did. A paid off mortgage and double pensions as well as substantial savings are making our lives very pleasant now. I recall very clearly the anxiety and limited choices I had when money was tight in the past. Short of winning the powerball lottery, there is no better way to accumulate wealth than to work and spend less than earned. Passive income is delicious.

liberranter said...

Cappy, I'm going to send the link to this to my workaholic Boomer bosses (one a SIW who, though married, lives on the opposite coast from her "husband;" the other a sociopathic retired Army officer who never took off the uniform and has all but abandoned his wife and kids in pursuit of "success").

Both of these people are probably beyond salvaging, but if it plants even a tiny seedlet of doubt and introspection, it will have been worth it.

Tucanae Services said...

Agree that 'work till you drop in the cube farm' is a worthless pursuit but I have to point out:

* Melinda did not enter Bill's life till later. They married in '94. So I don't think Bill is exactly your best example. One I might suggest is Warren Buffet. Worth billions, he can't spend it all if he tried. So why is he still slaving away?

* Work exists for two things -- acquiring assets or having fun. On the former it is wise to assemble the two things most important, shelter and food. Multiple ways of achieving that. And fun? The luckiest person in the world is the individual whose passion is their work. To achieve the latter it requires truly knowing one's self. Without it you can't meld the two for a cohesive experience.

I have to point out one other thing about retirement. By all that is Holy, find something you enjoy outside of work unless you have made the meld. Make time for it while you are working. My father had two uncles who raised him. Both worked for the railroads, did their 40, got the gold watch & pension, sat down on the porch and died two years later. If you want a longer life you must keep the brain engaged in something. Otherwise both mentally and physically you atrophy before your time.

Jim Scrummy said...

Yep, spent Father's Day with my kids at our neighborhood pool. Good times! Had a swim race with one of the kids and they almost beat the old man! Still barely holding on, but it was in good fun. Sure making more money would be nice, but, having the time to spend with my family is more valuable.

Unknown said...

My God, you are sleeping with a Marxist Feminist now aren't you? What good is money? Is it an April Fool's Joke in June? You should never do anything just for money. Bill Gates would have lived just as long if he was a clerk at IBM and married a fat woman who acted like a bitch that complained constantly. You can probably get better ass driving a Beamer than you can a Honda. The BMW has a lousy record of performance on the road, but the pussy value alone is worth it. Sure Hondas are fast and take you where you want to go, as long as its not young girls with tight asses and major league cleavage.
Gold is not an end, just a means. Materialism is ultimately empty. But those chicks aren't gonna date you for your witty quips loser. Fill you wallet with clams, and gold diggers will deliver bearded clams to you.

Kurt said...

Tucanane, Buffett has said many times his investing is actually his passion in life. If he wasn't investing for Berkshire he'd just spend all of his time investing for himself anyway.

On top of that, he is giving all his money to charity, so he doesn't plan on spending it all himself.

And yes, Melinda met Bill after she was hired to work at Microsoft.

Troy Lee Messer said...

Shut the fuck up boomer you fucking parasite. Thanks for selling your grandkids in 20 trillion in debt slavery so you can brag about ur fucking pension. Please shut the fuck up,or, better yet, die.

Troy Lee Messer said...

If working is the only way u can keep ur brain engaged, u r an idiot and deserve ur quick death. Go on a hike, lift some weights, travel.

mts1 said...

Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer, and ran around trying various alternative medicine treatments for whatever reason, instead of the usual round of cancer treatments that may have saved his life. I understand Andy Kaufman went the same witch doctor route in regards to his lung cancer, which he had at 34. Maybe these two wickedly smart guys were too clever by half when it came to knowing the best way to survive cancer. Maybe the lesson is to have frequent health screenings. Then again, Gilda Radner was hopelessly misdiagnosed by the medical establishment regarding her cancer, and died young from not having her status correctly diagnosed, so there's the counterpoint that the doctors may also be as off target as a self-prescribing celebrity.

Work to live, not live to work may be good advice whether or not one lives long. Pick your parents well as DNA may be an equal or greater indicator of how long you're here. Gates may be programmed to live until 95 but get Alzheimer's at 80. Jobs may have expired at the same time whether he was a beach bum or corporate maven. There was one dude who survived both atomic blasts in Japan and lived on into his 90s in spite of two doses of radiation bombing.

My point? What the narrator of Common Filth Radio once said. You go through the cemetery and look at the headstones and what they say about the buried. Wife, mother, father, brother, son. None say, "He worked a lot, went home and played video games, then went to sleep. Days off, did some traveling, saw some concerts."