You Go To My Head – Lee Morgan + ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) – Duke Pearson

As a capitalist society, but Americans more specifically, our conception of success is rooted in excess and greed, especially when it comes to material goods. Someone is categorized as “rich” or “successful” when they visibly show that they possess a plethora of what is desired most. More money than they could spend in a lifetime, more house than they need, more cars than they can drive at once, and more things to own. We are programmed to see contentment as failure. If you’re not aspiring to acquire more (as in ego-satisfying material possessions), then what are you aspiring to? Beyond that, I notice that in the pursuit of material success, the cost of that tangible success is often the loss of meaningful, robust relationships.

This relationship has always dumbstruck me. The higher we conventionally climb, the more community and connection we seem to lose. But what’s the point of having the world if there’s no one there to share it with? I’m not here to dissuade anyone from the power, or more importantly, the freedom that monetary gain can provide. However, I do find myself asking, if we lived under a different societal structure where money wasn’t at the top of the hierarchy as a marker of success, would people still pursue success in the same way or with the same vigor? (bc I highkey know I wouldn’t.)

Why does excess have to be the benchmark of success and not contentment? (Because we live under a capitalist system that incentivizes productivity and output over rest and process. But in favor of poetic form, let’s suspend the conclusion to the blaringly obvious answer.)  

The topic calls me to reminisce about an unyielding conversation I had with a friend at the time over whether people would still have a purpose if no one had to work to live. I was of the position that I could eagerly and painlessly fill my days with only shit I wanna do and mentioned how much fulfillment it would bring me to be able to devote the same amount of time that I would to a full-time job to my own hobbies, interests, desires, etc. Dissimilarly, he felt that if no one worked, no one would have purpose; therefore, no one would be motivated. Candidly, I still struggle to wrap my head around his argument. Nonetheless, the conversation highlighted a blind spot I had within my generation. 

I realized that people (within Gen Z, not even on some millennial and older shit) still subscribe to the time-worn belief that one’s purpose is directly correlated with one’s ability to work, to strive to achieve those indicative symbols of success. And not the type of work you would perform in a community, adding to the betterment of your localized society. No, no, no, they’re referring to the inside-all-day, at-the-computer-from-9–5, fluorescent-lighting, Microsoft Teams, corporate bussdown type of work.

That’s not to yuck someone else’s yum if they genuinely enjoy that kind of work. Nor is it to say that I don’t value hard work or the meaningful work that can be done at a high level within corporate spaces. However, I am saying that work done for a corporation will never surpass the importance of work done in your community for others and for yourself.

Unfailingly, I want to stress that I am not asking why people think this way under the current conditions, or even that you aren’t, to a degree, forced to. Rather, if we were to remove the current framework that rules societies (C.ash R.ules E.verything A.round M.e), do you think society would be able to redefine success? 

I feel like this discussion can sometimes lean into the territory of asking a finance bro, “Well, why not just print more money?” (literally the conversation I had with my friend at the time). People get so into the political and systemic weeds of theoretical questions like that, but I always challenge someone who answers the question so rigidly to apply the notion that if we were the ones to set that system up, and the only reason the system still continues is because there are enough people subscribing to it, we are in turn the only ones who can dismantle it.

I think that because people are so mentally infected with capitalist venom, it dilutes their ability to even ideate a different or better world (socialism tease, who saw it lurking in the shadows?!).

So what if success means living within a commutable distance from your community? What if success meant subduing the perpetual feeling of racing against the fear of running out of time, even though when we cease to exist, the clock continues unmoved by one’s absence? What if success means having an illustrious, rich mosaic of people who paint your life? A world in which you can imagine is a world in which you can achieve. But if your brain is too entrenched to imagine change, it’s too entrenched to enact it.