MAN UP! HEAD DOWN!

Life isn't to be enjoyed. It's to be tolerated. I think that's undeniable. You can breakdown in the face of this truth or you can man up. If you choose to man up, you get your head down. You get your head down and you get your work done and you pay your way. There isn't much joy in it, but there is dignity in it. Don't be a freeloader. Don't expect anyone else's share. Take care of yourself. It's about competition, not cooperation. The only time you cooperate is to beat the competition. We're all rivals and you know it. Deep down, you know that only too well. Sure, the minus is that no one owes you anything, but the plus is that you don't owe anyone anything. Just get your head down, provide for yourself and try not to die in too much pain.

You see, you've got to be a tough guy in this world because this world is tough, guys. You don't measure the worth of your world with intangible notions like personal contentment and a sense of community. That stuff isn't quantifiable. You don't see that shit on graphs. Community can be best validated by measurable collective economic stability. That way we keep the road to the workplace smoothly tarred. Anything else and you're on your own. You've got to man up and compete. You've got to generate the income to partake of resources. There isn't enough to go around so you've got to earn your share. There's a scarcity and even if there isn't a scarcity, we should act as if there is or else there will be. Got me?

Way back in the way back when, F.W. Taylor knew that internal gratification didn't get us anywhere. He knew that external reward is the way to go. You're not a craftsman, you're a cog, but you're a cog that gets paid a heck of a lot more than a craftsman and shit gets made quicker too. Where would we be without quick shit? Waiting, that's where. It's about efficiency guys. Efficiency trumps all and if you're efficient you get paid more and you can spend your pay on quick shit.

Of course, I know what you're thinking. You're complaining that your income has been cut despite your hard work. If your income has been cut you man up. Work harder! The frontiersmen of old didn't bitch when their crops failed. Oh no. They steeled themselves for a hungry winter and tried again next year. People died, yeah. People die all the time. The cog gets rusty and it's replaced. Big deal. The machine has to keep running and that's all that matters because without the machine, well, without the machine we'd all have to go without wouldn't we? Yeah, we would. We'd all just be spare parts with no purpose. We'd have no reason to get our heads down and we'd have to look up and look around and if we did that then who knows what we'd see. What would we see then? It could be anything. Anything under the sun. The thought is too awful to contemplate. Just get your head down, that's the only way. For the love of God, whatever you do, get your head down and don't look up. Don't look up, just man up! Man up and get your head down!

...DiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiNG!

What I want you to imagine today is an orchestra. An orchestra that doesn't know it's an orchestra. An orchestra of competing sections: brass, woodwind, percussion and strings. Each of these sections thinks the other sections are stupid and doing everything wrong. The brass wonders why the string section isn't blowing into its instruments and the percussion wonders why everyone isn't just hitting their instruments with sticks. The woodwind thinks the brass lacks decorum, a bit 'brassy' if you like, and the brass thinks the woodwind is really 'stuck up'. As far as each section is concerned, it is engaged in a sonic war against the others. Each section attempts to assault the others with waves of sound. The loudest is the victor and each section feels it is always winning because, from where a given section's musicians are sitting, they are the loudest. No one gets discouraged and the war goes on. Kettledrums rumble like tanks. Violin bows are drawn like arrows. Brass blunderbusses blast and clarinets, flutes, oboes and bassoons are raised and fired like guns, rifles, mortars and bazookas.

The conductor is there too of course, on his podium. A stressed out secretary general of sorts, attempting to maintain some kind of order. He waves his baton frantically, favouring one section one moment and another the next. He doesn't really know what's going on. He clumsily turns sheets of notation as he mops his brow. He wishes the whole zero-sum composition would just fucking end.

And the cruel joke is that from a distance all this tumult and enmity harmonises into a single stirring composition, the woodwind soaring over the strings and the percussion and brass propelling things forward. From the seats in the auditorium, the ominous score builds to an unnerving crescendo that explodes and then lulls into the saddest adagio ever heard that then fades before it all happens again but in a different order and with some variations. It's such a tragic twist that those upon the stage are unaware of this and labour in the mistaken belief that they are separate competing entities and not, simply, 'one'. The sections do not know that they are all playing the same music and that the music could be joyful and celebratory instead of frightening and heartbreaking.

But there is one musician who knows the truth. An orchestra member who realises that every orchestra member, no matter what section, is part of an indivisible whole. One guy, sitting all by himself, down the back and to the side a bit. One fella who knows it would be a waste of time to share his wisdom with the others because he'd be laughed out of the concert hall. One member of the orchestra who, quietly and in his own mind, has it completely and utterly right.

He stands there, stoic, poised and mindful. He understands the great cacophony as a symphony and bides his time to prove this to the others. He waits and waits and waits until a great musical swell rises and then crashes. As the crescendo subsides he raises his instrument, holds out his wand and strikes once. Only once and with a perfectly restrained amount of force. The rage from the rest of the instruments dies out and silence rules but for the fading resonance of his modest contribution. The triangle goes ...DiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiNG!