Everyone's a Pimp

Chris Matthews, the cackling host of MSNBC's Hardball, pushed his new book "Life's a Campaign" recently on The Daily Show, declaring everyone should manage their life like politicians. It seems the key to success (the old glories of power and wealth) is to run your life like a politican campaign, or at least, act strategically to get what you want. It's all about YOU and YOUR wants, you see.

This is the basic attribute of the human species - we are genetically encoded to put ourselves first. Darwin called it "survival of the fittest," although some folks may consider it "selfishness". While there are exceptions (Christ, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King), most of us are simply pimps, pimping our friends, our charitable activities, our avocations, indeed, ourselves.

Perhaps this is the inside joke of religion, asking you to emulate the selflessness of Christ or Buddha. In doing so, the rest of us can grab the land, oil, and control. The curious behavior of some wealthy people is that once they get the wealth, they give it away. Is that to assuage their conscience? Do they feel guilty about how they got to where they are? Apparently giving feels good.

The human condition is a kind of consciousness battle between the ego and the collective - do you serve yourself or others? Do we, as Matthews suggests, manage one's life as a campaign, because the old adage that "money can't buy happiness" is plain wrong? Does money, indeed, buy happiness? Matthews would have us believe that.

We either accept the concept that money creates happiness and accept our inner pimp, and spend our lives in pursuit of getting. For those who do, Matthews' advice is quite sound. However, if your mind is wired another way, where you seek something else, some other reward, perhaps life doesn't need to be a campaign. That doesn't make you a sucker. That makes you a Buddha (or Christ).