It starting to become clearer to me the more that I look at it that a leisurely lifestyle has never before been part of the human condition, but is increasingly a part of every human's expectation in the modern age. I don't know how we came to this, because the truth hasn't been that far removed from us.
<<< Thinking back to my Great-Grandfather. (that be him, on the left) He had his land. His large (by current standards) family. All the food, water, shelter a man could ever use... and then some. Measured according to the standards of his society, he had it all.
He had earned/acquired leisure in their terms. Not the sitting-on-your-ass-collecting-a-check leisure. Leisure was, for them, leisure from struggle. A state of knowing where your next meal was coming from, along with breakfast ten years hence.
Still, things to do every day: Crops to tend. Sheep to graze. Food to process. Enemies to ward off. A man's work was never done.
It was the farmer's life as well as the life of his family. Every person worked or contributed to the clan's prosperity every day. As elders aged and became less able, less was done by them, of course. But even then, 'less' didn't mean 'nothing'.
One night, Nonuzz (as he is referred to) suffered a stroke after a battle with *Gypsies who'd come 'round to steal sheep. He spent his last couple of years paralyzed and mostly bed-ridden, but still not 'out of the game' as he kept his eye on things and never relinquished leadership.
Naturally, as was customary at the time, he was cared for by family who did all those nurse-ish type things that old crippled folks need done for them.
Today, things are different. We have apparently progressed to the higher levels of civilization, where leisure is some sort of old age entitlement: you sit around, collect a check for it, and produce nothing but a need for ever more medical care, for up to 20 years or longer...
We've come to expect that. But I don't know why.
We are moving ever closer to a state run medical system. (I mean, even
more state run than it is now.) Nothing but an increase in taxation is going to pay it. I think we all know this, despite whatever promises the politicians are making.
The biggest problem with the whole concept, as I see it, will be the larger burden placed on those who are producing, with little asked from the ass-sitting check collectors.
We can't allow people to sit around living for 20 years after their retirement dates without tossing a few coins of their own into the bank. Perfectly able geezers should not be sitting on the labors of the younger. They need to be giving, as well.
*Because that's what Gypsies do.
Those of you that care about it have seen it by now: that smack down Andre Johnson delivered to Cortland Finnegan.
