busy little bee. oh what a grand feeling it is to be productive, to feel like you're contributing to society, to be working metaphorical shoulder to metaphorical shoulder with your fellow man. it's glorious at the end of each day to feel like you've accomplished something. people who feel satisfied lounging around all day, doing nothing, should be casatigated for their laziness. this message has been brought to you by the new me -- which, if these work hours continue, will soon be the dead me.

one of rand's central tenets is to be a productive member of a capitalistic society. i've failed at this pretty miserably for most of my life. but now with a ten to six (or ten to three am) job, am i suddenly vaulted into the lofty ranks of the productive? am i finally on the path toward rand's version of the ideal man?

well, it depends on how you define productivity doesn't it? i mean, i'm contributing my part to the billion dollar video game industry so even though i'm not actually doing anything for the betterment of mankind (saving lives, creating products, defending freedom, etc), it could be said that my small part is equal to anybody else's small parts. sure i'm not directly responsible for this game but aren't i as crucial a cog -- albeit an easily replaceable cog -- as a line worker at mcdonald's? without minimum wage fast food workers we would all starve; without me, you would all be gameless. the horror.

so the question is, can you be productive outside of the working world? is it a waste to spend your god given time here on earth doing absolutely nothing? we can all feel productive by doing tasks each day. we can cook, we can clean, we can work out, we can do laundry, we can check/respond to email, we can make our days full -- lists go a long way towards feeling (falsely) productive i've found.

but if we never step outside of our self contained me-o-spheres, are we actually being productive in the big picture scheme of things? i used to spend my days waking up well past noon, lounging around, eating some food, napping here or there, playing a little basketball, watching a few movies, and then getting on the computer to catch up on the events of the day before passing out around sunrise.

god i miss those days.

but was that being productive? wasn't i just being a colossal waste of space? don't i feel better working (relatively) hard each day, getting a paycheck, inserting myself into the big money making machine? i mean, isn't that why we're here? to drive society forward with our indomitable work ethics? i mean, is that why we're here? according to rand, yes. according to me? hell no.

give me lazy. give me beach days. give me naps, no getting up before noons and lists checked off with insignifcant accomplishments. give me clean laundry. give me my life back. dammit.