Aspiring to laziness

I posted before about the price we must pay for knowledge.  There's quite a few people who don't like paying the price for much of anything.  In fact they think everything would be much better if we didn't have to earn a living at all.

Let's consider that phrase for a moment, "earning a living".  It mean working so that you have the means to support yourself.  You're able to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly.  It may not be much.  You might be sharing a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment with three other people, and be chowing down on some of that glorious Top Ramen; but you're surviving.  Lots of people start out that way.  They get a job, which may not be great, but it keeps money coming in.  Then eventually, and hopefully they can work their way up to the point where they don't need the three roommates.  Maybe even have a bit of money stashed away in savings.

There are those however who think this concept is completely horrible.  Legislation has been seriously considered in some countries to pay people a minimum wage just for existing.  The notion is that people are happier when they don't have worry about paying their bills.  Happier people are more productive.

Yeah, right.

While there are some people who use their free time for self improvement and community works, we live in the era of Netflix, weed being legalized, and free internet porn.  There's a lot of people who if they didn't have to work they wouldn't be doing anything at all.  I lived at the beach for years.  I worked in a little bar.  I've seen these people.  They only want enough money to pay bills and have some left over for booze and drugs.  If they didn't have to pay bills that would just mean more money for booze and drugs.

Not everyone has the self-motivation to succeed in this world.  By succeed, I mean support yourself.  If it wasn't for hunger and a firm desire not to sleep in one's car a lot of people wouldn't work at all.

Then there's those who say if a person does not want to work then they shouldn't.  They can go write poetry or something.  That's ridiculous.  They have this pipedream about some person being freed from the shackles of employment and being the new Thoreau.  The reality is Thoreau was writing about the beauty of a simple life because he was mooching of his friends, and if you're doing that then you better be expressing the greatness of simplicity.

This isn't anything new.  People throughout history have been trying to build a better economic mousetrap.  Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto because he was lazy dope who wanted the government to pay his bills.  He was so lazy he didn't even finish writing the stupid thing.

My old boss tried convincing us that if we just worked four ten-hour days then we could have three day weekends all the time.  Sounds great, but we were roofers.  You work two ten hour days doing that and you're ready to croak.  And that's when the temperture is decent.

Money to live is motivation to get people to do jobs that no one else wants to do.  Nobody goes into roofing because it looks like fun.  How about sewage treatment?  Road paving?  I don't go out six days a week to build, destroy, paint, replace, lift, load, dismantle, bleed, cough, and everything else I do on the regular because I really enjoy back aches and sore knees.  I do it because there's money to be made, and I've allied myself with men who watch out for me and I'll damn sure do whatever I can to look after their best interests.  We get things done because we don't want to eek out a living, but we want good lives for ourselves and our families.

And we'd give it up if we suddenly didn't have to do it anymore.

But then, who would do it?

This world functions because there's one truth that we cannot escape: we have to earn our way through it a dime at a time.  In earning our way through it the world keep turning.  Money makes the world go round, and our sweat is the lubricant.  Take that away, and watch it all grind to halt.

Marty versus the church

I teach Karate at a church. It works out nicely. After we beat the crap out of each other we pray for each other to get better. My father started the Karate Club at the church in 1990 and I helped out as best I can. With his retirement and moving from the area I took over since I'm not only his son, but his senior student. I run and adult class and a kids class. I charge a small fee per month which is less than half of what a person would pay anywhere else. I also offer discounts for people with multiple family members in the program. It's not about the money. It shouldn't be.

So, what happens when someone else decides that it should be about the money?

I've been affiliated with this church for a very long time. I grew up there. The church grew with me. Additions were built onto the building because the church kept attracting new members. The pastor at the time was very well liked, was good at tending the needs of the congregation and knew the value of fellowship.

However, things change and so do churches. Pastors get reassigned. A new pastor was brought in and it did not go well. You see, it doesn't take all seven of the deadly sins to kill a church. Pride and greed did a very good job on their own. The church was no longer about fellowship and the Word of God. It became about getting the money out of the people's pockets. I stopped attending church services there after a month long series about how we need to give more to the church.

Events like out annual Bazaar and Vacation Bible school were continued but diminished. Things like our annual talent show and Halloween party just went away. People left. Most of my family did. My father and I continued to teach there and continued to make monthly donations to the church from the fee we charged out students.

So then I hear complaints about keeping too much Karate gear at the church. Valid complaint and I took much of it out of there. Then they decide that I need to pay more rent. I don't pay rent. We've never paid rent. We made month donations. We were never asked to pay anything. I raised the amounts of my donations. I continued to tend to the upkeep of the areas we use. I continued putting together Karate shows for the annual Bazaar. I continued to donate months of lessons to Church fund raising events.

And I show up last night to find all the doors locked to every room that has a lock on it. Including half of the bathrooms. I confronted some of the people in charge. They told me what I was going to be paying weekly and that was going to increase next year and that I would not be allowed access to other areas of the church.

And I told them that wasn't going to happen.

I'll be appearing before a committee meeting in a couple weeks. See, unlike the vast majority of the people would run these meetings, I remember what made the church grow and I remember what nearly killed it. They want to keep using the same methods that broke the church to fix. Honestly it's not their fault, because they don't know any better.

You don't demand more money from programs that are serving to bring new faces to the church. You don't put the squeeze on your supporters.

There's a new pastor now, the second in about as many years. She seems to be a good egg. Quick to pour oil over troubled waters. She seems to be the type of person I can work with to keep not only the doors of the karate Club open, but the doors of the church as well. Like I said, I grew up in that church. Despite much of the drama that's reared it's ugly head there recently, it's still very dear to me.

Churches need money to survive. This is true and unavoidable. More than money, it needs people. You don't keep people by demanding their money.

Seems I may have to teach more than just Karate very soon.