What's the point

The prompt to this story has nothing to do with it, per sé. Truth is, yesterday I went to my office of my old IT business. The office is technically a glorified storage unit right now. I'm slowly shifting stuff out of it, but there's still a lot of things to clear out. However, I have until December to get it all out of there as this is where my rent is paid up to.

While at the office, I spoke to the other IT guy next door to me. Somehow the topic of time came up. He said that there are measurements for everything. However, time has always eluded people.

I retorted with "Well, time is made up, perhaps not time itself, but the value it has had put on it was made up based on observations over a long period of.... well... time. Everything is made up. It's all invented."

There was a moment of silence.

Much deep thought over what I just said. There was very little spoken, but a lot to digest.

Instead of 60 seconds in a minute, why not 75 or 80. Then maybe we'd only work 6 hours a day instead of 8. Don't do the maths on that, I could be way off. But that's the point. I could make up any number. The number 8 has that value because it was made up. Much in the same way one minute equals sixty seconds and not sixty one or more. Or less!

Prices are made up. When you decide to sell your house, there's no value on it. The real estate agent comes in and guesses a price based on what other agents guessed around your neighbourhood. A $5 dollar note is printed on the same piece of paper as the $50 note. So why are the two not the same value?

My house is just as nice as the one next door. But theirs might sell for $50,000 more. Why? They're both identical.

Words are made up too. They're all just stupid sounds when you think about it. Yet somehow we make them just right so we all understand each other.

The letter "E" makes an "eh" sound. But why doesn't it make a "joo" sound?

If you think that sounds silly, an "E" can't possibly make a "joo" sound. Then think about how in other languages an "X" has an "heh" sound, or the letter "J" makes a "ye" sound.

And when I later thought about it all, I asked myself, "What IS the point of it all?"

Why is there money when we use to live for hundreds if not thousands of years before hand using a barter system just fine?

Why do we have to "work" for someone else, so we can survive?

Think about that for a minute. Why do you work? To get money.

Why do you need money? To pay bills and buy things.

Why do you need to pay bills? Because you use other peoples things.

Why do you need to buy things? Because we want something or need it but don't have it.

Why do we need it? Because we've been told so.

What if everyone took their money out of the bank tomorrow and kept it under their pillow? All the banks would go broke. But how will you get paid? Well, it worked in the good ol' days when you got an actual pay packet. An envelope with money in it. In fact, I use to get paid like that only 10 years ago when I was a motorcycle mechanic.

Then I could use my money to save or to spend.

I still have to pay my bills. So I get some solar panels, cut myself off the grid and no longer have an electricity bill. Phone? Nah, just allow people to pop in if they're passing by, again, like the good ol' days.

What about land rates? Last time I looked, I bought my land. But I still have to pay someone else rates on my own land. And that someone else is the government. So there's almost no choice there. But what if you didn't pay your land rates? What's the point of the rates? I understand water rates, power, waste disposal. But land tax, on land I already bought and paid tax on when I bought it? Hmm, why?

What's the point?

It's all made up. Someone, one day decided to create land rates. And everyone paid it. And now, hundreds of years later, it has morphed from bully tactics of the chief or king to our dark overlords, otherwise known as Government.

I once read a book that suggested the more money you make, the more expenses you have. At the time I thought it was stupid. Now, I think it's even dumber!

Why? Because as your wages go up, so does the cost of living. I know when I bought my house 10 years ago. Our power bill was $140 per quarter. Now it's up around $320. Our water bill use to be $80 a quarter. Now it's $180. We could fill a grocery cart at the supermarket and not spend over $100. Now I spend $100 bucks and walk out with two plastic bags.

I don't want to make it sound like doom and gloom. But I can't help but think that a group of people, or in fact many groups of people someone pulled the wool over everyones eyes. And the general public is paying for it.

The other day I was listening to the radio and they were talking about the safety signs that go up in school areas to remind motorists to slow down, reducing or preventing the likelihood of children getting killed during the times when school is about to start, and finish. This gives children a safe period of time to walk home, or to the car, or cross the street.

The subject on the radio was about the cost of the signs. These signs are large, have flashing, high brightness LED's. And are also solar powered. A couple of three metre tall poles, and add some labour to erect each sign and according to our latest government information via the budget reports, each sign cost $90,000 to erect.

Ninety Thousand Dollars!!!

I think each sign is worth about $2000, and a lot of the cost would be shared between the labour hire and the solar panels. The rest is a $5 electronics kit from Dick Smith.

$90,000.00

Talk about making up stuff. Someone made that price up, and some other idiot agreed to it, spent millions on a couple of flashing lights and walked away, proud of themselves because they are looking after our community.

But then, my friend would say "But you voted for the government". Which makes it my problem because it was my choice. I voted for these idiots.

Truth is, the people I vote for never end up in power. But I don't even want to vote. Though I have to because it's compulsory.

The real truth is, I'm starting to lose the plot. I can't see the point of working so damn hard to enjoy what little time I have left in the day to enjoy my life.

Maybe that's a really negative way to look at things. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just the same old guy I always was. Realistic. Or I'm talking complete crap and you can tell me to shut up. Either way. I'm done for now.