Fuck You, Don't Pay Me

So here's a weird thing; I don't like getting paid. Not for my labor, not for goods, not at fucking all. Handling money in general bothers the fuck out of me. I've thought a great deal about why this is and how it happened that the absolute basis of our society came to repulse me. I'm not entirely sure how this state of affairs came about but I do have some reasons.

The main reason, I think, is that being paid to do a thing manipulates the nature of that thing. I'm no longer doing a thing because I want to or because I enjoy it, I'm doing it because I've been bought. At least rented. Now, this is probably some deep-seated fuckery from the circumstances of my rearing or whatever, but that doesn't make it less of a problem. Its to the point that if someone offers to pay me for say, my fucking delicious homemade molasses bacon, I not only don't want to give them any more, but I don't even want to make it anymore. Because clearly this person doesn't appreciate the act of love and attempt at comradery represented by my bacon, and if they don't then what's the fucking point. By offering to pay me it takes a fun, tasty offering of friendship and reduces it, and thus me and my friendship, to a commodity.

That's kind of the rub here, getting paid makes me feel cheap. I don't really value my own survival for its own sake. The things I do are done for earnest companionship, shared and personal joy and, fuck forbid, because I genuinely believe in what's being done. Getting monetarily remunerated just takes all of those great, ephemeral joys and tries to reduce them to a grubby, coke-stained stack of bills. Or worse, a digital means of survival that can only exist theoretically for me. It's saying that yeah, what I do is great and all, but you'd rather wave me away with money than allow a connection to form.

I fully recognize my unacceptable luck at having my needs accounted for, I don't deny for a second that this is a problem evoked only from a position of plenty. Unfortunately, my marketable skills consist of small batch baconry and the ability to swear on the internet, so my prospects are slim on my own. And considering my little neurosis gets worse the more abject my poverty and completely predates my current relative comfort I have, I would be fucked without my goddamn amazing wifemonster. At the same time, I think it says something absolutely disgusting about our culture when the knee jerk response to an attempt at brotherhood or an exercise in delight that results in a physical object, is "Here's some money so you'll keep doing that for me."

Ferris Bueller You're My Heeeeerrooooo

So here's a tricky bitch. The only thing that can make a hero is actual heroism. I know that sounds like a pretty obvious thing but apparently it's difficult for some people. Anyone who goes beyond the realm of reasonable expectation to save another person is heroic. Be they cop, fireman, civilian or solder. Now here's where that gets tricky. When saving people from harm is your job you really only deserve the hero title for going way above and beyond.

That last bit is pretty important. I'm not saying that the fireman who runs headlong into a collapsing building to save someone isn't a hero. I'm not saying the cop who manages to deescalate a tense, possibly terminal, dispute isn't heroic. I am saying that just being a cop, fireman, solder, doctor, or (insert your favorite hero job here) does not fucking make you a hero.

The first point that I feel needs to be made on this front is that all of those things are, at their core, occupations. Now an occupation is something you do, in our society, for compensation in the form of monetary recognition. If nothing else this means that, well, its their fucking job. The fact that their job is hard or potentially dangerous isn't enough to warrant exceptional respect. Heroism requires a degree of exceptional behavior, by definition if you do something for a living there's nothing exceptional about it. Now, if someone from one of these fields helps you personally, sure give 'em a pat on the back and a hearty thank you. But pursuing a career doesn't entitle you to special fucking treatment.

Now, I came to this conclusion (trying as hard as I can not to be a bitter, hateful bastard) for one very simple reason. There is no real way to ensure that someone goes into a line of work for the "right" reasons. Since in this instance that right reason is a desire to help people its an important distinction to make. The fact that a relatively capable sociopath or passingly convincing martyr complex can find their way into the "heroic" vocations necessarily removes the intrinsic heroism of the job.

Its unfortunate, but these things need to play a bigger role in how we think about our society. The term, "hero" comes with some pretty heady perks and if we're just handing it out to anyone willing to go through the right training program its inevitable that the kind of people who will abuse those perks will find their way into those programs.