By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com
There Are Many Ways To Fuck Up Your Life.
Contrary To Popular Belief – You Can Fuck Up Your Life Both IN THE SYSTEM & AS AN OUTSIDER.
Yes It Is Silly To Pass A ‘Bum In The Streets’ & Think That Rich People Can’t Be Just As Fucked Up.
Note The ‘Bum On The Streets’ Is a Term Used By Uncaring Nouveau Riche Types in The USA.
I Do Not Condone It Here By My Use Of It – I Only Use It As It Has Poetic Cache.
Now Let me Return To My Theme.
The ‘Bum On The Streets’ For Anyone That Has Dug Only A Little Under The Surface,
Has Usually Not Actually Specifically Fucked Up Their Lives Via A Singular Bad Decision.
It Has Happened Due To A Underlying Vulnerability (Say Bad Mental Health),
And A Cascading Series Of Bad Life Outcomes Meaning The Dam Of Wellbeing Breaks’.
This Is The Scary Thing About That Much Said Cliche – “It Could Happen To Anyone”.
The Scary Thing It Is Basically True & Can Actually Happen To At Least 75% Of People.
Of Course, 25% Of People That Are Daddies & Mommies Girls & Boys Are Insulated.
Although Perhaps Push Comes To Shove – Even Half Of Them Could End Up ‘Down & Out’.
So That Being Said We Can Conclude It Is Quite Easy For Almost Everyone To “Fuck Up Their Life”.
So That Being Known – Let me Talk Of The Next Higher Order Reason Why Almost Anyone Can ‘Fuck Up Their Life’.
Industrial Society, Industrial Society, Industrial Society.
It Is The Bad Fit Of The Social Structure Of Industrial Society & Our Construction As Smart Animals.
That Is The Higher Order Reason For The Ridiculous Ease Of Fucking Up One’s Life.
The Industrial Society Only Cares For Commodities & Judges Harshly Anyone Who Breaks From It.
If You Break From Being A Commodity, You Will Become Invisible to the Systems Reward System.
Without The Rewards You Cannot Sleep Or Eat Well Or Have The Required Social Feedings Of Kindly Attention.
Yes There Is An Exception – The Person That Goes Bush & Lives “Off Grid” & Just Survives.
But As Always – The Exception Proves The Rule.
So Now Let Us Imagine Before Industrialisation.
You Were Either Landed Gentry Or Higher Such As A Lord Or King Or You Were A Serf.
A Serf Tilled The Earth To Raise Crops For Society, His Family Was Afforded Accommodation & A Percentage Of What He Grew.
If He Dared To Stop the Toil – He Was Punished Thusly:
He Was Fined, He Was Put It Stocks He Was Mutilated Or Killed.
Thus If A Serf “Fucked Up Their Life” By Disobeying Authority – He Wouldn’t Exist Long In That State.
Thus We Can Say The Agrarian Serf-Lord-King Economy Was A More “Blunt & Untechnical” Version Of Industrial Society.
Of Course This Is Sensible – For Industrial Society Is The Child The Medieval Society.
The Main Difference Is In Industrial Society The “One That Fucked Up” Survives Longer, Forms A Subgroup & Is Seen More.
‘Enlightenment’ Scolars Say That Science Sprung Forth & This Unique Force Made a ‘Radical Rupture In Society”.
But I Think This Is Too Romantic – Industrial Society Was Just As As Much “More Of The Same” As “Radically Different”.
This Fact Is Best Known By Intuition More That Anything.
Most Exist As An ‘Industrial Employee’ Which Trades Labour For Money To Live – Similar In Quality To A Medieval Serf.
An Industrial Employee Cannot Just Stop Trading Labour For Money.
This Reality Is Felt Acutely By The Well Seasoned Industrail Employee – They Know They Are Stuck.
The Industrial Employee Has Two Outcomes To Keep Toiling Or Face Fucking Up Their Lives & Join The Fuckups Collective.
The Medieval Serf Has Two Outcomes To Keep Toiling Or Face Fucking Up Their Lives & Then Be Killed.
Thus, We Can Say Confidently That Where The Medieval System Culls The Industrial Society Tends To Factory Produce Them.
I Could Now Talk Much Of Pre Medieval/Agrarian Times – & Talk Of Hunter Gatherer Societies.
But To Me The Answer Is Obvious.
In Hunter Gatherer Society You Could Rebell Against ‘The System’ Which Was Essentially “Man Hunt Woman Forage & Birth”.
Like Medieval Society You Would Either Be Killed, Maybe Banished Maimed or Shamed
BUT There Was Another Option Available That Beats The Medieval Or Industrial Counterparts:
They Could Take Their Chances & Disappear Into The Night Lie Low Forever Or Even Choose To Join A New Tribe.
In Fact The Hunter & Gatherer Fuckup Who Rebels Could Do this Re-iteratively Ther Entire (If Also Shortened) Life.
Thus My Conclusion To This Philosophical Treatment On “Fucking Up Ones Life” Is As Follows:
You Could Be Easy Killed For Being A Fuckup In Medieval & Hunter Gatherer Societies.
In Industrial Society The Fuckup Is A Byproduct Of a Mechanical Technocratic Society & Kept Alive For The System’s Strategy.
The ‘Fuckup’ Survives As An Object Of Permanent Derision – A Permanent Warning To Always Obey.
A Walking Sign that Says “Don’t Do What I Did – Keep Toiling Away No Matter How Maddening It Is”.
All In All IF You Have Voluntarily or Involuntarily ‘Fucked Up Your Life”,
You’d Be Best To Live As A Hunter Gatherer Who Has Fled Into The Night, & Can Survive On The Earth’s Wares Alone,
Or Join Another Tribe That May Be Wacky Enough To Invite A Total Fuckup Into Their Open Arms.
The Beauty Of Hunter Gather Tribes, I Think, Probably Lay In Thier Socio-cultural Inhomogeneity: Subcultures Aplenty.
The Worse Place To Be A Fuckup Is In The Here & Now So Called ‘Advanced Industrial Society’.
Instead Of Being Dead Or Walking Free Into The Wild, They’ll Turn You Into A Constant Visible Symbol Of Disobedience.
Thus, Industrial Society Is Not A Welfare State At All – It Is A Surveillance Control State That Farms Fuckups For Fun.
Perhaps The Meek (Aka ‘The Fuckups’) Will Inherit The Earth & It Will Be Well & Good.
As A Final Aside, I’d Like To Admit This:
Yes, My Bumper Sticker Reads “The Fuckups Will Win In The End”
[note: I have republished this work & added a long introduction to it with extra thoughts on the issues involved. Read it on my other wordpress site here https://martinantonsmith.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/my-bumper-sticker-reads-the-fuckups-will-win-in-the-end-new-intro-for-this-blog/)
Anton Martin Smith Writer 