get a job

so, i'm finally catching up a little bit with the world and ripping my cd's into itunes. it's awfully tedious, but there's a box of cd's that's been sitting in my room taking up precious space and not being listened to. at least this way, i can hear some of my collection while eventually being able to put this box away. i'm hoping this tedious work doesn't bother my computer too much.

these days, i've started to complain a bit about how expensive things are and the advice i keep getting is: get a job. i suppose being unemployed hoping for understanding from people who are working is pretty useless. i suppose hoping for understanding from people about anything is pretty useless. or maybe complaining in the first place is the useless thing.

i started reading chuang tzu yesterday. there are several stories about a huge old tree which is so twisted and knotted as to be useless for a carpenter. chuang tzu's comment is that the reason the tree is so old is because it is useless. if it were useful for making furniture or other things, it would have been cut down long ago. it would be tempting for me to reason that being unemployed and useless is best because you'll never be bothered and thus be free to live as you please, but i hardly believe i could get away with it. instead, i'd like to think this story isn't encouraging uselessness over usefulness. inaction over action. the tree didn't decide to be useless or try to live long, but it was able to see a benefit just by being itself. if it were a useless weed in a garden instead, it would be the first thing to get cut down. so, being useless in itself is not a final solution, and being yourself is no guarantee of an easy life either. maybe the point is just that you should find every advantage you can with what you already are before you look to being something else.