Today's letter deals with a subject we all struggle with: not being a jobless waste of flesh. Here's the letter:
Dear Arthur,
I'm currently in need of a job and have interviewed at a lot of places, but to no avail. I have noticed that you are also unemployed so I was wondering
how we should go about finding new work? What kind of mindset would you recommend on an interview? What places are the easiest to apply to?
From Sean
Arthur writes:
Hello, Sean. You have asked me a question, in hopes that I will shed light into your darkness and provide you an answer. I shall not. But fear not, I will
indeed help you, as a man is obliged to help his fellow man, but the answer you seek is not the answer to the question you have asked.
No, the question you have asked is, indeed, a symptom of the real problem. You write, "I am currently in need of a job." You think this is background
information to your question; you think the truth of the statement is self-evident and sacrosanct. But I ask, why? Why is it that you "need" a job? Have
you stopped to consider this base assumption before leaping merrily and blindly to the idiot tune of commercial slavery?
A job, a job, a job. Society has expounded into our stupefied and feeble minds the necessity and base goodness of working, of "gainfull employment".
But we have been enured with this concept because the antedeluvian machinery of the capitalist system seeks only to promote it's own well-being, like a massive
worm, blind and sunless white. Indeed, your consensual slavery to the working world does benefit the machinations of society and economy, but at what cost
to the soul? A man is thrown into the cogs of commerce to grease the great and ancient wheels of that machine, his body ground to paste amongst those blood-caked
teeth and creaking mainsprings, with no concern given to the man himself. A selfless act of charity and sacrifice? Hardly. No more a knowing sacrifice than a
humble ant giving his life to protect the hive from the flood, and just as useless.
Consider well your situation, Sean, before giving yourself to that engine. Do YOU need a job? Or does a job need you? I think you might be surprised at the
answer. The nobelest form of humanity is that of the human himself, proud and defiant. You do not need a job, you need pride. I ask that you consider my words,
and see if they ring true in your long-repressed soul.
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Arthur
