I was looking for a job, and then I found a job. And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In the movie American Splendor, Harvey wakes up from a nightmare to his comforting reality: "I got a job! I got a job!"

For me "I got a job" is the nightmare from which to wake.

Most people seem to treat a job as a necessity. They wish me luck in finding gainful employment. They treat it as if I'm missing out on something.

I do not see it that way.

Work is not a necessity. Work is usually only a means to fulfil other (real) necessities. Satisfying work may also be a luxury.

Further I submit that no woman or man is truly free who needs to do work for someone else in order to eat. I realize I'm speaking of an ideal world and not the reality we currently exist in, but I do believe that almost no one is truly free in our world (for this and any multitude of other reasons).

If you are forced to do the work that another commands, just so you are able to survive, then you are a slave. Even if work is inescapable in life, a free person would at least do work according to her own will, not the will of others.

I think most would vehemently disagree, because most feel they need their jobs (and they pretty much do, because they're enslaved by employers and a society built to avoid making it easy to not work), and the thought that "this is how reality is" is easier to accept than the thought that "there are many other options, but they're kept from me." It is more comforting to believe that we are in control of a reality with many inherent limits, than it is to accept being controlled and limited by others.

Until things change (and they will, whether in a hundred, or a thousand, or a million years), it seems the only way to escape the "work is a necessity" mentality is not just a change in attitude, but some combination of a change in lifestyle, luck, ... and hard work.

Oh no, I've said too much

Recent versions of the Wikipedia entry on Buddhism began with the intro, "Buddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of liberation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality." This was enough to hook me, to tell me that this is a spiritual philosophy worth investigating further.

It struck me that different religions are based more on values than on beliefs. Beliefs are things we tend to form around those values. Buddhism is instantly appealing to me because it values understanding reality. It seems it would encourage questioning our beliefs in order to figure them out. This likely makes it popular among people seeking new faiths, especially if they are at odds with their former belief system due to questioning it. Some religions neither encourage nor deal well with questioning. Christianity for example values faith over figuring out reality. This isn't to say that one religion has a more accurate description of reality than another, but that a religion can for example be less concerned with accuracy in describing reality than another, and perhaps more concerned with things like trusting in reality, whatever it may be.

Religions can give us guidance and they can be a way of dealing with unknowns in our reality. Various religions appeal to various individuals depending on our individual values. If we feel a need to figure things out and have things make sense, we may be drawn to religions that focus on the nature of reality. If we value trusting in the unknown without needing to figure it out, we may be drawn to religions that focus on faith and deities that will take care of us. If we have a strong need for security, we may accept dogma over personal choice, and be drawn to religions with strict beliefs.

And so, if you find yourself debating religions with others, keep in mind that you're not just debating which specific beliefs are the "correct" ones, you are making judgments of others' values. Determining which beliefs are "correct" tends not to even matter -- if a person's beliefs line up well with their values, then those beliefs are likely correct for them.

If, however, one's beliefs are not working well for them, they might be considered incorrect in that case. Many religions tend to value loyalty, which discourages people from choosing a better-fitting option. Most tend to have human leaders, whose values become indoctrinated. But we each have varying values. These individual values combined with loyalty to a named religion lead to different flavors of religion that can seem strange to outsiders. If you value questioning your faith, you should do so, but if others do not value it, it may be best to just respect their choice. If you feel inclined to question your own faith, ask yourself these two questions: First, do my religious beliefs coincide with my personal beliefs? If not, then your religion may, for you, be a source of confusion and gloom, instead of understanding and hope. Second, do the values of my religion coincide with my personal values? If not, your religion may be like a prison, discouraging thoughts or behaviors that you might find more fulfilling.

It is unfortunate in my most humble of opinings, that religions tend to be evaluated more on beliefs than on values. Ironically, though I said I wanted to investigate Buddhism further, I didn't read much past the opening line, satisfied with the value and not wanting to hear about specific beliefs. Fittingly enough, that line was removed in recent edits to the Wikipedia page, due to it being a "point of view". So it looks like I might have to create my own religion, starting with the values and building on my own beliefs.

I wonder... is starting a religion still a good way to make a lot of money?

Stay tuned (but don't hold your breath) for Part II: On the Nature of God