"It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called "American" only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis.It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis.
You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experience. In the latter stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun.
As for your food, no one denies that the Americans excel in one narrow rubric: the snack. And I suspect there's something symbolic in that."
11 comments:
That's one of the best passages in the book. Great minds...I dog-eared that page so I'd remember to post that on my blog.
This book is FANTASTIC!! I am almost done. Hel just got caught at the airport in London.
What if anything, does so called work have to do with 'morals'
Mechanical energy made that point mute around 1913 when it eclipsed the human being in 'work' power.
Because of the North American resource base, we can get away with murder.
This is a land of milk and honey.
Our system is run by a bunch of idiots.
Run for and by fools and charlatans.
Fat, lazy minded, ignorant, belligerent and brainwashed sums up Americans.
Take their car keys away, and you have a jabbering ape on your hands.
The nation that put a man on the moon is now led by an ignorant hairless ape.
I am officially pulling out my raggidy old copy for read #2.
The guy that wrote the book is a dumb ass. Period.
Agreed up until the fun part. Calling "having fun" a trivial activity is smug.
Has America become a decadent society? Yes. If you want to say that we're reduced to decadence, then I can understand that. But to made to feel that wanting to enjoy myself somehow makes me mentally or spiritual inferior to another is bullshit.
But one can still have fun by being good at something.
The work it took to get to the top is also often looked back on as having been fun.
IMOHO - I think he may be thinking of fun at the wrong time.
Doing homework is work - knowing the material and acing a test is fun.
Football practice is work - having a great game is fun.
Most people who fail do so because they do this backwards.
Most don't study and fail tests.
Many others take it easy in practice and then struggle through games.
Excellence is Fun.
fun is a low level experience.
fulfillment is a higher level experience.
Americans are consumers who operate on relatively low level frequencies.
in love with your blog,
cheers
"Fun" is the highest of all experiences.
To many children this comes naturally - as we become adults many forget how to get to this level.
Watch Kobe play - he's having fun.
Watch Buffet or Gates give away billions - they are having fun.
"Fun" is the state of being which all mystics and religious men seek to return to.
"Fun" is the state of mind to which all addicts become addicted.
"Fun" is rare and highly prized.
"Fun" is effortless, it's being in The Zone, it's hardly ever attained.
What most think of as fun is just a synthetic version which requires constant hits to retain the high.
"Fun", for most adults, requires work.
To me it sounds like y'all are intermingling fun with enjoyment.
Or are they one and the same?
Even as a buddhist I can appreciate fulfillment and I get enjoyment from it, but I wouldn't call meditating "fun".
UBJ: The definitions you are supplying for fun are your own. I can understand where you get them from but I can't agree with them. Then again, I try not to over complicate things.
Fun to me is an activity which inspires laughter.
I may enjoy giving money away to those in need, but it doesn't inspire laughter in me.
Big Ups Anonymous, Cheers, You make a good point. Get a nickname. Can't tell one anonymous from the others. Just be Anonymous 008 or Anonymous 009 or something.
I like to keep track of these intersecting intellects and personalities.
But yes.
Bingo.
Fun ... like a snack ... gives short term pleasure ... but doesn't NOURISH the body or soul.
Americans eat foods that are fun.
Pizza.
Burgers.
Chicken Fuggin McNuggets.
Microwaved Anything.
Fun foods.
Umm.
Hit the spot.
Fun.
For a minute.
Until your colon starts to drop out your ass.
Till you need pills to keep your heart from exploding.
Until the estrogen and GMO causes grown men to grow breasts.
Till the doctor tells you you might have to get a few toes amputated because of the diabetes...
aint so much fun now, huh?
Nah.
Fuck fun.
Spend your energy seeking fulfillment.
That not which only satisfies you, but also nourishes you. That which makes you stronger. That which makes you happier. That which appeals to the better angels of our nature.
I'm drinking a dark green juice for breakfast. Kale. Cliantro. Celery. Whole bunch of stuff I don't even know how to spell. So green it looks black.
Sprinkled about a teaspoon of pink Himilayan salt in it.
Doesn't taste that bad to me.
But it aint "fun".
Aint my favorite thing to drink.
But it's fulfilling.
Got me weighing what I weighed in college.
Keeps the cocoa butta complexion smooth and silky.
Keeps the wig looking like mink without a strand of gray.
I aint gettin' my muhfuggin toes cut off.
Shibumi muhfuggas.
Shibumi.
"Fun ... like a snack ... gives short term pleasure ... but doesn't NOURISH the body or soul."
Sorry. I have fun when I play basketball and it nourishes my body. I certainly do not get fulfillment from playing ball.
I don't equate food with fun, but I get your analogy, LOL.
I'm sure it sounds very intellectual to say "I don't have fun I have fulfillment", but yet I don't believe they are mutually exclusive.
Should a person not tell a joke because it is not fulfilling?
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