In this essay I want to talk briefly about how most affluent people live in “gilded cages.” Just like bullshit jobs, gilded cages promise meaning and fulfillment, but more often deliver a sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness.
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There is much research out there on peer group dynamics, and I am not going to rehash it. But I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and spend a fair amount of my mentorship time hectoring folks about avoiding peer group pressure, so here are some thoughts.
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In life — work, home, relationships of all kinds — there are people who “brung ya to the dance.” Sometimes we forget them, and this is a mistake. It is essential to remember them, both because gratitude is a noble emotion and so you also remember to pass it on.
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My own behavior has changed over the last two years in the course of Amasia’s research into sustainability and climate change. For this new year of 2021, I am sharing a more personal manifesto.
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Modern life doesn’t present the same opportunities for belonging that existed in generations past. It is a defining characteristic of our age. But belonging is an elemental human need, and in the modern world, we have to be very “intentional” about finding it.
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How did we get to the point that a man (for they are mostly men) sitting behind a screen on a high floor in an office building in Manhattan can make, in comfort, millions, perhaps billions, more than the laborer who, at risk to life and limb, helped build that office building? And what lies ahead in the networked episteme?
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The structure of modern life, from the conveniences in the First World to the massive poverty alleviation that has taken place in the Third World, is dependent on energy consumption. Nobody is going to sign up for being back in the Stone Age, foraging for berries and communicating by smoke signal. And yet: there are simple things we can all do to “do our bit” without feeling like we’ve taken a hatchet to that which makes life worth living.
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