That Joke Isn't Funny

An article from The Onion has been making the rounds:  "Find the Thing You're Most Passionate About, and Then Do It on Nights and Weekends For the Rest of Your Life." Essentially, it's about how your job will leave you so exhausted that after you take care of the basic necessities of living such as eating and sleeping, you won't have time to do the things you're most passionate about.  How fucked up is it that this is true and we, as individuals and a society, accept it?  It's not funny, it's horrific. 

I have a particular inner skeptical voice that I think of as the "practical, obstinate undergraduate student." This is the student who, whenever we, as a class, would address system systemic injustices or irrationalities within our society, would just tell us that we ought to accept them because "that's just the way things are.  We have to accept reality."  This same character is the one who loves to be what they see as the voice of reason when others get to talking about what they see as high falutin' ideas that have little practical grounding.

This character frustrates the hell out of me, in part because of the inevitability of its appearance within certain kinds of discussions, but also because it demonstrates an ignorance of history and the evolution of ideas and practices, and the way it tries to make a virtue out of accepting fucked up shit within the status quo.  It is also accompanied by a kind of obstinateness and deliberate obtuseness, hidden under a guise of common sense and rationality.  It's fruitless to attempt to argue against this character, because you have already been dismissed as impractical, airy-fairy, pie in the ski, etc. etc.  Your arguments will not be considered.  Regardless of what you say, this character will respond with a smug look that says, "Yeah, you would say that but we all know the way the world really works."

And it's a denial of personal responsibility, while assuming the guise of virtue.  Acceptance of the status quo and the belief that the status quo must remain the status quo are what perpetuate the status quo.  

Anyway, I read this article after several of my friends posted it to Facebook.  To find this article funny is to be that practical, obstinate undergraduate student.  It is to say, "Yes, I have passions and I will never, ever pursue them, because of the kind of life I am living.  It says, "I know that the kind of life I'm living prevents me from living a life of purpose, meaning, and passion, and I accept this because that's just the way things are."  The humor comes from recognizing ourselves in this article, seeing our ongoing and what-we-believe-to-be-doomed efforts to find a few moments in our lives to pursue the things that make life worth living.

Here's my point:  When we laugh at this, we become the practical, obstinate undergraduate student who says, "Yeah, that's the way the world works, and we need to just accept it."

But we don't need to accept it, there are other ways of being.  Further, and what's infuriating to me is that it's the individual and collective belief that the world works this way that makes the world work this way.   Those who read this article laugh and go about their business are responsible--they are the ones who make choices about how to live that perpetuate this way of being for themselves and for everyone else.  Me, I don't think that's funny.