“I Would Prefer Not To”

I find myself thinking about Herman Melville’s masterpiece of short fiction, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.”

In the story, a newly hired clerk named Bartleby is subjected to an intense day’s work. After being overworked he answers every task with a simple, “I would prefer not to,” and then he does nothing. He arrives at the office daily, but sits and stares at a brick wall. When pushed for productivity, he always gives the same answer: “I would prefer not to.” He enrages his colleagues, but holds steadfast with this routine to the end. He’d rather sit and think than succumb to industrialized society.

Bartleby is the hero of the story: he does not let others impose their realities over his own.

I look at my own to-do list and think that sometimes “doing” is overrated. Sometimes task completion is arbitrary.

Yet leisure, always, is underrated, especially in hustle culture. The morning ritual of drinking coffee or tea should arguably last for hours, not seconds. It should be a joy, not a chore.

We should dream when we sleep, and remember our dreams, and aspire to spend much of our lives asleep, not under-slept. Sleep should not be a hindrance to work: it should be the amplifier of livelihood.

And what about the to-do list?

“I would prefer not to.”

Weekly Plunder: Week 24 - Plotting

“You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life a point to which few have attained!” - Seneca

I understand why most relevant religious figures warn about money (and in most cases avoid it like a plague).

Fortune is one of the great paradoxes of humanity. What one gains inevitably becomes the point of anxiety over what one may lose. It will render the brief time you have to live perceptibly briefer, because a simple, miserable, thoughtless, begrudged chase for more will dominate your memory.

Fortune’s woes are timeless. Its ills conquer us now the same as they have conquered our progenitors for thousands of years. Fortune may, as it did to Roman aristocrats, render you paranoid of your usurpers, and it may give your heirs ruthless malevolence in the quest for your inheritance.

Inevitably, what promises utopia, “enough money,” creates strife, collusion, plotting, and fretting.

Money sells us the lie that we “only need more” to finally be “happy”, to “rest” and “enjoy the sunshine.”

“I’m ready to build my empire,” I hear a lot of young people say or suggest these days. To that I say, all empires fall. Build a home, and then build a garden!

At some point, the lie that money will bring you utopia will be shattered. For each stage from birth to death, you will create your own problems from money.

If you live for the chase you will die with regret.

Wrote Seneca on those who waste time planning in his famous letter, On the Shortness of Life: “They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes today.”

Money is a major reason why we stave off today for a better tomorrow, though so long as a better tomorrow hinges on money, it will never arrive. Money is why we kneel to the stopwatches of those who do not consider our health or interests, and why we cannot feel adequate with the present breath that escapes us with such tragic haste.

Wealth is a catalyst to our plotting, scheming, and fretting.

For this reason, my unknown friend, I say this, and may you and I both take it to heart: beware of money. Enjoy what it can offer, but don’t fret over it. Don’t let it own you.

What I’m watching: I have two episodes left of All of Us are Dead. What a stellar show.

What I’m reading: On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. The beautiful thing about philosophy is that is spans every era and that it allows one to realize that often, the best wisdom is found by looking back, not by pushing forward.

What I’m listening to: “Dialectic Chaos” by Megadeth. This is a showcase of Mustaine’s and Broderick’s guitar virtuoso.

What I’m doing: I bought a new GPS for my gravel bike (Garmin), not to track my mileage but to route new maps to places I haven’t been. Tomorrow I’m going to take a route I haven’t taken. Exploration is the aim.