Beyond a pay-to-live life

Looking at today’s way of life, it is hard to imagine any other way of life than a pay-tolive one. It is hard to imagine life without having to buy something so much that the absence of money in one’s wallet can be a cause of distress.

It is even hard to imagine life without a grocery shop or a mall, because it would equate to a life of suffering and desperation. Perhaps the one big question to ask is how we got here. The other important question to ask is one of sustainability, and whether a life without money is even possible to start with.

In an attempt to answer these prominent questions, the one thing we must look at is the history of human existence. If we go back, say a century ago, there were generations that lived with no money, grocery stores and malls. Yet, they lived well and had all the necessities they needed at the time. Even in this era of paying to live, there are still people who live the same way, although it may be minimally supplemented with money. For most of us who grew up in rural areas, we have had first-hand experience of having the means of production for food security. We knew exactly where what we ate came from and when there was a shortage, we made use of the bartering system. If one had run out of mahangu but had livestock, they would slaughter one and sell in exchange for mahangu, and so on. This was good and sustainable at the time for as long as the rains were good. However, when drought hit and the livestock perished, one had to face hardships or sometimes even famine.

With that said, it is also worth noting that in the last two decades or three, so much has changed. These decades saw a continued influx of a large part of the population to urban areas.

In this case, and instances, we leave productive land behind. We leave the productive land on which, if we invest the energy and time, we can live off and be selfreliant.

Instead, we move at the attraction of the city lights and skyscrapers, only to become beggars so that we can get money to buy tomatoes we could grow for consumption and possibly even for trade. We also need money to pay for a place to stay when we could live on the land that we left behind rent-free.

So, the question still stands on whether life beyond paying-to-live is possible. Maybe it may not completely be possible but partly, with a little mix of paying, to simply supplement – which may be better than completely living a pay-to-live life. At the end of the day, economics matter, and one must adapt, but questions need to be asked especially when the gap between the few haves and masses of have-nots is increasingly widening.

This may mean that as a people and society, we may need to seriously re-evaluate every one of our ways of living, and decide whether this is the path we want to continue on – a path to self-destruction, or a need to pave a new path that leads to prosperity for all humankind.

* E-mail: karlsimbumusic@gmail.com Uncommon Sense is published every Friday in the New Era newspaper with contributions from Karlos Naimwhaka.