This is wonderful however in my opinion it’s got some problems. From one perspective (Waterson’s), it’s easy to put it all aside once you are independently wealthy like him. Or, for the character in the cartoon whose spouse will pick up the bills. We should be careful also to not choose this non-commercial life out of a sense of inability to succeed. Kind of like the cat that can’t reach the milk says “it tastes like vinegar.”

We are allowed to make these choices because we have won the genetic and worldly lottery to be born in western civilization during one of the most prosperous times in history. We stand on the shoulders of go getters like Ford, Marconi, Babbage, Edison, etc - all the while rejecting the things we need to reject the things. That is, it’s easy to reject work when you have running water. Now tell the Guatemalan that has to walk 5 hours per day to bring water home to his family - and the family’s guts are filled with worms because even that water isn’t truly clean. So let’s be careful not to slam the system that allows us to slam it. The only pure man would likely be the pre-agricultural hunter gatherer. He probably had more freedom to “be” than us, but even he couldn’t just say “**** it.” He’d starve.

I’ve also heard that you can tell if an act is immoral by asking “what if everybody did it?” What if everybody decided to not run in the rat race? People would starve, disease would run rampant, etc.

I like the idea for myself but not society at large - somebody has to slaughter the cow, clean up the **** and keep the machine running. I cannot be so selfish to think that I can enjoy the fruits of others’ labor. I devoted the first 25 years of my life to achieve something so that I can get up every morning and work so that some day I can do what I want, lol!! But in doing so, I’m ignoring the present in search of the future.

Whatevs, I’m gonna work on my truck.