If you have internalised marketable values in this globalised world, then chances are your life is miserable. You should keep them away from your own values. Because 1) Marketable values are fundamentally unequal and 2) Marketable values don't necessarily make you happy. I want to observe the game people are now playing(and losing). So. You were born randomly. One thing is sure. We all ought to live. Whoever you are. Whichever country you were born. Whichever gender you have. Whichever race you are. However wealthy your parents are. They are all so random. You didn't choose yourself, did you? Nah, God couldn't be fucked to implement character build. But you were thrown into this open world anyway. So that's that. Let's play this game. Go get something cool out of your life. Well, let's first get some money to unlock some goals. You need a job—a well-paying job. So you apply for a job. You may get rejected. The employer says you lack ability. Uh. Maybe I got less. There is always someone superior. Because you are lazy? No, you mean it. You are willing to work hard. But meritocracy ignores your conditions or whatever. Maybe you couldn't get a better education—maybe just because your parents couldn't afford to. Or maybe you are not smart enough, talented enough, or have enough time to invest in your abilities, while others have plenty of it. You are worth less in the job market. There is always competition. I didn't say worthless. You are just worth "less". Or you could resort back to a less-paying job by paying a certain amount of self-esteem. Fine. Career or money is not everything. Let's just hang out with friends. Let's find a passionate relationship. But you find yourself in the same manner as the free market. You have to be cool or hot enough to be chosen. Don't say you don't remember the days back in school. Cool kids usually hang out with cool kids, and hot boys take hot girls. It's just another form of free market, and everyone chooses their friends or partners; those with less are likely to get rejected. You wouldn't have half of your friends if it weren't for social media, where you constantly advertise and work hard for your own "branding." You are always anxious to text and get reactions on your app 24/7 because you fear knowing you're not cool and worthless in the market. Relationships are more marketable than ever nowadays on dating apps. The highly productive love market, where people have better means to find "the one," is also meant to produce leftovers, while countries marvel at the decreasing birth rate. If you're left alone without a partner, are you a worthless product in the market? Alright. Maybe you're not cool enough. Let's just create something cool and make everyone say wow. Music, art, picture, whatever it is, you worked hard to create it, but only just to realise so little gives a shit to your work while seeing all those nonsense pieces of shit are getting popularity. Does this mean your work is worthless? Or that work being popular might be good, but what if that is because the artist could take enormous time and budget while you were hustling to make ends meet with your less-paying job? This is about time you think you failed or start to resent the world. Failed? Did you? Is that your fault? Yes. You failed. It didn't work. You had been defeated in the market. Game over. This game is totally unfair. Didn't you know that? This is the game of the free market, and it is fundamentally unequal because the goal is to pursue marketable values. Money, jobs, careers, friends, fame, relationships, social status, or even health, anything that is marketable is fundamentally unequal. Anything that can be bought (if not chosen) by others in any form of market cannot be given to you equally. They are unequal because the condition you have does vary in the first place. Maybe you were born in a rich family or rich country, with or without ability or talents. Maybe you're privileged, or maybe not, in the first place. The race you are in is already "conditioned". You must be aware of that. I want to mention that this inequality is the cost we have paid under the name of freedom. Just like you are free to choose your favourite products in a supermarket, you are free to choose jobs, partners, or friends. However, this also means you are also chosen at the same time. You can choose things freely, but this also means you might turn out to be worth less than others. We are free to compete; it's equally true to anyone, but your capital varies. It doesn't assure you have a good chance. Maybe you were born with a good talent, or maybe not. And those who have will be given more. Jesus's right. Money and time can grow by itself if you're smart enough. Smart people get smarter and dumb dumber. It's the battlefield where those with less would eventually lose. Is it, then, evil to produce losers? No, because this free market also keeps the world running and productive. Imagine a world without vaccines against diseases. Imagine a world without a transport system. Imagine a world without the Internet. We're all using smartphones to watch contents, communicate with friends, or do whatever with a lowest cost you couldn't have imagined 50 years ago. What makes them possible? It's the higher productivity we developed. What, then, makes the productivity possible? It's the incentive for players to become more productive and competent in the free market. In other words, imagine a world where you are forced to play boring video games once every month just because the government decided to provide "equal opportunities" to incompetent developers. Imagine a world where you have to date someone regardless of your will just to provide everyone with an equal opportunity in a relationship. Imagine a world where you let the least competent people run businesses just to give them equal opportunities. They surely will fuck it up. If you are given a free opportunity like that, then, what's good about getting better at your job, better person, or building a better business, art, or ideas? It's the freedom to act, to choose, to think, to improve that keeps the world running. This freedom is what must be equal, not marketable values. In other words, you need to accept inequality if you choose to be free. The free world is unequal. You might complain, then, what justifies him who's getting things you desire but cannot get? Isn't it unfair? Yes, it is unfair. But you don't want to throw your freedom away, do you? However privileged others are, as long as you require freedom as the premise of your life, you must not deny anyone's freedom. If you do, it ultimately denies your own life, too. Can you steal someone's money just because he's got more? If you do, you grant anyone to steal from your wallet. Because freedom is such a fundamental concept without exception, you will not get away with what you grant to others. But I also think it should come with some conditions. Those who are privileged must always make sure they don't abuse others' freedom, for what makes their achievements possible. In other words, freedom should always come with an absolute respect to others for the fact that they also live, are also able to think and act. If they ignore this condition, they don't deserve the freedom to compete. They must be regulated by system to defend the freedom for anyone to live. If a privileged man truly realises what makes his achievements possible, he must show others that they are also free and ensure that this is true for everyone involved. He needs to be fair about this, although ability or privilege cannot be fair under the condition of freedom. Anyone should not deny anyone's freedom. A business owner should hire people based on competition and their potential. A doctor shall pursue surgical technology as his ability grants him. Still, he shall not abuse others' bodies regardless of their will. An author or a philosopher can only tell their ideas but cannot dogmatise them, which is for readers to judge by their own will. An artist should not decide how the audience feels about their works but should always open the door to its world for them. However privileged they seem, let them be alone. Let them pursue whatever selfish purposes they've got, as we also shall do. But we should always make sure that those who are able will eventually pay back to the world by working hard for their best and making the world better. They owe Noblesse oblige. The sum of the values in this world is not zero-sum. It can grow. By the hands of talented or privileged businessmen, artists, thinkers, politicians, musicians, programmers, doctors, and scientists on the basis of this unfair yet free world. But we keep our eyes on them in case they damn others' freedom. If they do, they must be punished. I'm sure you won't forget the fact that free competition produces losers. What if you happen to be a loser? Note that what I've been referencing as "values" are marketable values. The issue with our age is that we all tend to internalise these market values too much, because of globalisation and the Internet. But marketable values don't necessarily mean your happiness. Money? It's just a generic way to purchase opportunities. We can buy food because we all share the value of those papers with dollar marks or yen. It's the shared value, for sure. Money is a shared value, but your life and happiness are much more unique. Yeah, they say it's good to have friends. I agree with that. But did you actually choose the coolest people in the world for your friends? I guess not. Friendship is rather random. It all happens in your local context, which is different from the free market, where the biggest capital buys the best. So, your friends are not the coolest people in the world, at least in the context of the open free market. But you still like your friends. Your friends are the best in your local context but are not in the global, shared context. They must have personal value to you, which cannot be shared with others. The same applies to relationships. All the morons in the dating scene are just waiting for "the one" to come. They are never coming. Because what they are picturing is a product's specs that they require from their partner. I have never seen anyone who has objective requirements be successful in dating. Well, you sometimes bump into such a product on the market. But remember, if it can be marketable, it's always for those who have to win. It's not likely you can afford that one. No. Who you end up with is usually much more personal, random, and local to you, aren't they? Why do you care about marketable values that others can evaluate when your partner is an absolutely personal passion to you? Your career? It can be comparable in terms of your income, status, or whatever is objectively observed. I am a programmer, which is a highly skilled job. Still, I probably am earning less than an average American worker. Do I find it unfair? Yes. I find it unfair, especially when I feel like travelling. It is expensive for Japanese to travel, but it does not seem like much for them to come to Japan. Then, do I still find the job satisfying? Yes. It is my profession I love. I find satisfaction in every achievement I earn by my own hand. It is the personal, local value I find in my career, regardless of my success. Success, huh? Whatever they say, it doesn't mean anything to your happiness because they are talking about how valuable you are as a product, not as a human, as a living. You can either be totally useless or worthless in the context of the free market. You can be a loser. You can be unsuccessful. However, they don't matter. You only have one duty to fulfil: to live. You must feed your body with food and your mind with happiness, which is the value you find in your life. I know no other alternatives than hanging yourself. The problem is that this world has become so much more flattened than ever, and we internalised the marketable values -- the shared values they brag -- into our self-esteem. Everything comes with a comparable number, not only your banking account's deposit but also your number of followers or likes on social media, opportunities you could get to have or whatnot. We must take back our local, private, and personal values. However much they claim globalisation shit, you remain local. However visible it is to see others' success on the Internet, you stay personal. The value you pursue should always remain personal. Don't let the global free market decide what you're after. Don't let it define your happiness. Don't let it kill you, even if you are not privileged enough to have a job you would like. Remember, the current system the world has adopted is unequal by its design. But it is also true that you still have the freedom to act accordingly in your local context, which must not be denied by anyone or by you. Don't ignore your privilege. Don't ignore your disadvantages. They are all personal to you. Face them, and think about how you earn the value that matters to you. One who denies his history denies his virtue as a man. つまりこれを英語で書いてるということも、私という存在自体がグローバルな価値体系の中に組み込まれていって、私も頭が良いから適応した結果が半分で、あと半分は自分のパーソナルな価値観から選択した結果なんだけど、だからと言って英語を話せれば幸せになれるわけではない。仕事する上では優位になるというだけです。人は多かれ少なかれのprivilege（および disadvantages）を持って生まれてきたというだけで。これはおそらく自由市場の中で公平かと言ったらそうじゃない。私も今では英語に慣れたようなもんだけど、それでどれだけの時間を失ったかといえば計り知れない。考えるのにも読むのにもextraなコストがかかるし、そりゃネイティブの同じくらい頭いい奴らに比べれば遅れは出ますよ。だからといって偶然ドーンと1996年に日本に生まれてきた私というローカルでランダムなコンテクストが否定されるのかといえばそうではないし、否定するような人間は徹底的に軽蔑する。世界的なミュージシャンやスタートアップが日本から出ないとか言ったって仕方ない、なぜなら私たちは根本的に不公平というコストを払って自由を享受しているから。だから個人の自由を尊重するならば、不公平を認めなくてはならない。ただ、不利な立場にいてもそれぞれが自分のできる精一杯のことをやって、それを笑う人は無視しなくてはならないし、有利な立場にいる人が不利な人の行動し競争する根本的な自由を侵害するなら、それはフェアではない。 私は日本の大阪で生まれてきて、なんか色々とランダムな出来事が人生の中で起こって、全てが全て私の選んだことじゃないし、自分でコントロールできないことの方が多いのだけど、自分は自分の人生だから、自分の面白いと思うことをやりたいし、別に人にどう思われようがかまわないんだけど、自分が自分に自由を認める以上は、私は他者に対しても自由を認めなくてはならない。あなたも私の自由を認めなくてはならない。どれだけ不平等に見えてもね。そして自由を認めるということは、市場競争の不公平を認めることであり、自らのローカル性とグローバル性の間で不安定になるのは当然の帰結なんだ。だからこそローカルを認められない人間は、絶対にグローバルな世界で生き残れない。偶然生まれてきた国、選びもしなかった親、そんなに選択肢のなかった学校。そんなに選択肢のなかった教育システム。選びもしなかった人種、性別、言語。偶然出会った仲間、友達、恋人たち。自分が特別に恵まれていたかというと分からない。でもその歴史を変えられないことは一つの真実であり、そこを肯定できない人間は自由市場化した社会での不安に苦しむことになる。不安とは自由のめまいだとキルケゴールが言ったように。 それに、生きるということは徹底的にローカルな行為で、自分の限られたローカルな現実の中から、一つ一つ自らのやることを選び取ることであるから、その選ぶ基準はローカルなものでなくてはならない。シンエヴァ見直せばわかると思うけど。私はグローバルな不条理の中においてもローカルな幸福を追求する。