June 12, 2025

Jelleabearer, Kolkata, ca. 1799
(कोलकाता)

Thursday:
My views on the vocation – June 12, 2025

In modern times, the vocation—the call to engage with the transcendental in the form of the art of the hard work—has been reduced to a animistic and primitive pursuit for short term gain, when in the past the vocation was part an parcel with man himself, an art, and something that shaped, the land, the culture, and the features of the guild. Only the men of true character could pass onto their sons the art and the tradition of their vocation, thus making hard work for something far greater than man himself central to life and to civilization, a feature of ancient times that has shaped everything men hold dear. But ever since the industrial revolution, and the inception of the nation-state, with ideas such as egalitarianism and nationalism becoming ever more manifest as a central part of life to modern man, the call for becoming, as a part of entering a vocation has faded, and today the forces of Social Darwinism in the form of capitalism have swept aside any transcendent or sacred meaning in what used to be the art of hard work, and anything that isn't material has been cleansed from the vocation. Secularization is a necessary prerequisite for modern economies that are purely based on the material, in the transactional sense.

    To work hard and to acquire patience and to ascend the material is the art of the vocation – to become part of the land and part of the fabric of hard work itself and to truly understand the quality of hard work and to learn to produce quality, but modern man has decided to completely separate himself from his work, his vocation, because for him, work is only for one purpose, to better his own material conditions, never to truly engage with the art of his vocation. In the modern world, only a very small fraction of work is considered true art, and even within the domain of art, more and more of that art is becoming corrupt and degenerate. Well indeed, the vocation, the call to engage with the transcendent has become corrupted by the forces of hedonism and short term material pursuits, always to increase already enormous quantities, in what appears to be the unsustainable machinery of the modern world. The modern world is not sustainable, but the industrial phase has hit the point, where the machine of the modern world can go on to live far longer than any individual man, and as such, the state of the world, the decay and the degeneration, is hidden behind this thin layer, this veil of modernity, that keeps up the big lie and the ever growing machinery, and the ever growing need to feed that machinery.

Lord Rama (राम), symbol of
patience and hard work

    In the past, men worked for the purpose of becoming nearer to the source, and to sustain themselves, but in modern times, the only purpose of work is to sustain the material lifestyle, and the ever growing needs for more un-sustainability, to feed modern man's soul, empty of meaning and of true sacrifice. Indeed, there is no such thing as skillful means in the modern world, since everything is based on the premise that there will be an ever more plentiful tomorrow, and that the debt against future generations can somehow be paid off without the need for great and adverse sacrifice on the part of future generations; all while the material un-sustainability has gone into high gear and is starting to surpass any material solutions man may be able to come up with, in shear speed alone, to save future generations from complete destruction – the Armageddon. The western world is past the point of no return, and is in the present moment spiraling toward the Armageddon, the close of the Kali Yuga, but do not fear this, instead embrace the dawn of a new era. As the western world falls into disarray and enters the final phase of the disease of modernity, the east will rise like a tiger and embrace his true place in the world, as the paramount civilization, and truly nonparail in the anals of history – this will become the beginning of a new era as the Kali Yuga comes to it's close. The end is near, and the rebirth of man is iminent – see the light and walk towards it.

Reginald Drax – June 12, 2025.