Being-Towards-Death

I see why so many people stick with 9 to 5 jobs – it’s the easiest thing in the world. Running your own life, your own career and trying to direct your own productivity is crippling and takes much trial and error. There are so many possibilities at any given moment that one loses sight of any clear future (and therefore any clear present) and becomes paralysed with the weight of abundant choice. I don’t know what I should be doing, I don’t know where I want to go, and I also don’t know when to just give myself a break, when to say to myself “You’ve worked enough, now rest”, and therefore I just burn myself out.
A person in a 9 to 5 job doesn’t have to worry about the future, about where they wish to steer it – they allow it to come to them. No, not even that. They drag it alongside their present, limply and straight ahead, almost hovering forward through space in undisturbed inertia (Wait, this is pure Heidegger, isn’t it? An authentic Dasein, in that case, would be one that opened its own future possibilities, even without knowing what it is that’s being opened. There is a link here between Heidegger and Deleuze).

They go to their jobs, work their hours, have their breaks, and when the day is done they are left with a few entertainment-designated hours – time in which they are free to forget about work completely. They can actually enjoy their free time, because it is truly freed by dint of the structured sacrifice of the rest of their time to work.

Herzog’s films are full of individuals who live truly solitary lives. Why is it that whenever I think about my life in terms of qualitative worth I think about its benefit to others? Why does something in me instinctively berate some weirdo who’s dedicated his life to living on the edge of the Sahara desert and study an elusive species of lizard for not taking an interest in the world? After all, perhaps in doing so he takes more interest in life. If life isn’t actually about or for anything, then what harm is there in exploring its oddest, most unusual, and even seemingly inconsequential paths? It is the sick, Judaeo-Christian gregarious instinct in me that reacts to this refuser of common sense.