Sometimes when I’m driving, especially if I’m driving on the highway without the distraction of stoplights and peds and what direction to go next, I like to turn off the stereo in my truck and give my thoughts free reign. My mind often rewards me for this quiet time by giving me inspiration, ideas and just space to work out whatever is challenging me in life at that moment.

Yesterday I drove twenty miles back to the ranch in silence. Just the hot air rushing through the open windows and the open highway in front of me. I thought about something that’s troubled me for years, that I think about a lot. The ethical quandary of making a living at something that is not helpful and is probably hurting civilization. I have a career in advertising. As a copywriter, I pay the bills by thinking of creative ways to sell people things they probably don’t need. People have to buy stuff or else our free market economy would crash, right? So in this respect, I am helping my country. I am true American. A real patriot. Judge me on my livelihood and I am a capitalist through and through. The problem is that even though I understand the importance of consumerism, I don’t agree with it on a philosophical level. Consumerism is really stupid. We’re seeing that now with the end of oil, the end of the ozone layer, the end of the polar bears. It’s a bad way of living if we want to survive another hundred years. It’s crash and burn–I’m surprised anarchists don’t embrace it more. The thing is people don’t need stuff. People don’t really need much at all but I’m part of the propaganda machine that tells people they do need stuff. This bugs me.

So I come back to this thing. I need to pay the bills. Copywriting is something I’m good at and it pays well. I can work at home, something I’ve found that’s critical to my well-being. I can make enough money and only work part-time. It’s a good deal except that I am part of a bad machine. Right? And for the last few months it’s gotten worse because the majority of what I’m selling is TV. Is there anything that can more powerfully dull the mind and spirit than five hours of sitcoms? Is there any propaganda tool more massive now or ever before in the history of human civilization? Do the majority of TV watchers care that our cultural sickness is reflected back to us in the programming we demand from network television? Is The Terminator really ok? Is I Want To Be A Millionaire cultivating the values we need in order to survive another thousand years?

All this bouncing around in my head like a pogo stick possessed. Giving me a headache. On my drive home I think I finally figured it out though. How it’s all ok. I worked it out in my head. I write about it tomorrow.