Judah: The Good Life

As I sit alone in my room studying for a Hebrew exam, I pause and sip tea while listening to Beethoven's Seventh. This is the picture that would come to mind whenever I think about what would be my ideal future (minus the Hebrew exam and plus a good piece of literature and a crackling fire).

We all have pictures, I think, of what the ideal setting for us to spend time would be. But as I start to critically reflect on this picture of mine, I cannot help but notice a few things. First, I am in isolation; yes, I am in the comfort and protection of a warm and dimly lit room, but my ideal picture of time well-spent - of the Good Life - is not a picture of me interacting with others, of me being in interdependent relationships or communing with others in presence and hospitality.

Secondly, In this picture I am merely a passive consumer. I am consuming my imported tea and my Western music and literature. There is no creative energy being spent. Furthermore, this happy picture is entirely dependent on the commodities of global imperialism, which allows the organizations and corporations who manufacture and market these commodities to have exorbitant power over me. My picture of my life has become completely dominated and controlled by the global cultural machine.

Therefore, in this blissful picture I have cut myself off from the real flesh-and-bone people which surround me and have attached myself and share communion with a detached and violent global power system.

I am not suggesting that we eliminate all outside influence from our lives, burning all our Western music and books; it is true that our language - and therefore our picture of the Good Life - comes from outside of ourselves, and no picture of the Good Life can be completely devoid of outside influences.

What I am suggesting is that we move away from the alienating and passive-dominated pictures of what our life is to look like and move towards a picture of the good life that is much more holistic - in that it fully includes the communities we find ourselves in. And if we are to adapt a picture of the Good Life, let it be one that comes from the loving community, and not from the cultural machines which care only for their own interests and self-preservation.