I lived in two fairly distinct "worlds" through my life. I was born and raised and trained to live in the "boomer world", or corporate/consumer society, but I liked to be in "the woods". I think it's a really common story, especially when you add in all the other "worlds" people inhabit. For some people it's beach world, others it's boat world, or mountain world. That is, we'd all rather be in that other world than living the boomer world anxiety grind.
When I was in my 20s, I went on a vacation with my girlfriend at the time to the Allegheny National Forest. Her family had what they called a "camp" there. It was a small plot of land her father owned, which I think he inherited from his father, which had a trailer parked there. It was kind of a time capsule, because it was stocked with vintage stuff, like the prior generation of a radio, or a coffee maker, or whatever. It was all very basic, and it was obviously "fine" in fact it was a good place to live. Visiting that place demonstrated that the cost of living could be super low, and that life was very pleasant. I remember asking her why people like us would go "on vacation" away from the boomer world, but then repeatedly return to the boomer world. Neither of us had an answer. In fact, we both slowly transformed from granola/flannel/nature people to just another pair of yuppies. She went full yuppie and I was pretty reluctant and confused about that and really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at the time.
When I was growing up my family went on vacation to a cabin in the Adirondacks a few times. The overall feel of the place was similar to "the camp". The cabin was setup in "lodge" style with pine furniture and similarly dated decor, probably from the early 1960s. (We were there in the 80s.) It was all pretty nice and relaxing. Inevitably we'd return to the boomer world, school, and my parents would go back to "the grind" and my sisters and I went to "kid grind" in school.
What actually keeps people in the boomer world instead of just slipping away to their version of the woods? I've been mulling this question over lately. One potential answer came to me via a very crude girl in a Midwest Safety Video. At some point in the video she (a drunk) becomes incredulous she's being arrested for DUI and she hilariously shrieks to her mom on the phone, "I'm not a nigger!" That video is a hall of famer bodycam edit.
That dumb moment shows one of the ways "it works". She doesn't mean "I'm not black", she really means "I'm not a low status person". People stay at the grind from "status anxiety".
There's a sort of generalized anxiety about maintaining status, meaning a social position, which is for the most part completely imaginary. I've been "out of work" a couple of times in my life. The first time I was laid off during the dot com implosion. I remember feeling sort of hollow and like a pretender once I wasn't working. I think that anxiety was due to my bad finances at the time. I needed to get a job to pay bills and keep my house and the like. I felt like a pretender because my boomer life really was a costume I was renting, including my house. If I were too long out of work, I'd end up homeless trash, that is, I'd lose my social status and fall out of what's essentially a club and it's not a very exclusive club.
Many retards who can barely do anything have fancy high paying jobs. When I was in college, I busted my ass in physics classes and was up late many nights a week studying and doing homework for several years. At the same time, shitloads of people in my school were just partying or taking dumb fuck business classes or whatever and as far as I know, none of those people ended up homeless.
When people have anxiety about losing health care coverage which is tied to their job, they really worry about bouncing down the status ladder into the poverty life because "the loser" is really the driving force in their existence, ironically.
Conversely when they have a job, the same people don't worry about their horrible diet, lack of exercise, totally sedentary life, etc... In fact, many people are sort of kept alive in spite of that unhealthy lifestyle by the medical system which gives them a pill for their ailments.
Anyway, ironically it's a sort of mythic "loser" which terrorizes the eternal boomer and keeps this shit show going. The "loser" is basically like an invisible fence for all the people who briefly escape on vacation.
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