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In today's world as an anarchist, it can sometimes be hard to understand why some people find certain things so important; it is merely a state of belief.

For example, two friends of mine are freegans- people who only eat free stuff. They spend their evenings rooting through dumpsters outside supermarkets reclaiming the food that is just past or on its used by date. They barter for their clothes, and they pay their electricity and rent with the money they earn from their music. Quite often they laugh that people in very expensive suits are laughing at them as they root through the dump master. My friends just laugh back- you see, they don't have to worry about their credit debt, their Ikea furniture or getting to work on time. They worry about eating, sleeping, maintaining their house and being happy.

They believe it is an perfect life and in line with their ideals.

It's hard not to look at finance and wonder what people are doing- heads in screen, eyes blank but scanning, checking over other people's electronic money and adding or subtracting numbers here and there- not really moving, hardly breathing. They never see the money, they don't know what it's used for and they are working to pay their mortgage, keep up with their rising phone bill. They believe that this is the way one should spend a fifth of their life.

So why do you go to work? Is it as Nietzsche said in Zarathustra, the "Wisdom of sleeping well"? Can it be that white-collar workers sleep well at price of the heady life they could have led, the dangerous life?

Yes and no. There are people in life that work a nine to five suit and tie job, look out their window and feel content and satisfied at the end of the day; happiness relies upon the belief that you are doing something that makes you happy. The grinning freegan is no less happy than the contented white-collar worker or the retiree savouring life- so long as they believe they are fulfilling their responsibilities.

Why do I not go to work? Is it rebellion? Is it youthful exuberance and high idealism? Is it that I'm unaware of the demands of the world around me? Is it because I decided to live a "Dangerous life"?

The matrix metaphor is a high contrast example of the different worlds people live in. Neo believed he was the One. Trinity believed there was a Matrix, the people in the matrix believed they were in the real world. People only change when by questioning their beliefs they find answers that produce discontent- it's that questioning that lets us grow and overcome.

This is true of the real world; many Christians have lapsed at wondering whether Adam had a belly button, but we only question because within ourselves in someway the belief does not reconcile.

Questioning beliefs is important, for in this we may overcome by knowledge of what we are discontent with and in overcoming be happy.

For I believe life is about happiness.

Learn more about this author, BT Cassidy.
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