New Age Hippies in Our Emerald Isle

topper75 wrote: »

Nasty shower them. They always try to roll you into actually having to do work in offices and factories like mere normal people.

Yes because those are the only choices available in life eh? offices and factories. :rolleyes:

I've managed to earn a crust for many years without going near either of them. Shocking I know.

topper75 wrote: »

I was responding to the Intreo story.
You can work at anything you like of course. I was talking about resentment felt towards state authorities who dare enquire about their lack of serious job searching or dare offer them work that they are not wild about. Some high-minded hippy types feel it is their right to stay on the dole. These same types then try to assuage that by claiming to be 'saving the earth'.

Yeah, get lost. A society that tolerates this tolerates far too much.

I think it's more than fair for them to enquire about the seriousness of someone's job searching efforts because you'll always get a few who take the piss and don't want to work, but I think if someone displays an obvious keen interest in a certain type of work and know what they're talking about they should be taken seriously and listened to at least. All he had to do was ask what it was and I would have explained.

"High minded"... well nothing wrong with that but those I know would prefer not to stay on the dole but they feel the jobs on offer don't fit their education. The hippy types I know all have degrees in subjects they're never going to find work in unless they move to Dublin (e.g. Modern History, MA in Classics thinking of two I know) and they didn't come here to move back to the rat race, they want the good life in the country and 'save the earth' jobs like organic growing. One English guy I know with an English Lit. degree from Oxford did compromise and got work as a builder but most don't and they stick to whatever their plans are.

Some people like that don't fit into any neat category of employment Intreo or SW have because some become self employed when they come here in more than one job, have trust funds or inheritances anyway and maybe have something going on in their home country too, or they're in areas that fall between or outside the rules and it comes down then to the discretion of whoever is dealing with them.

Sometimes it works to their advantage if the officials don't know what to do with them. I have two close friends both artists (primarily), and they're working full time yet on the dole for literally decades, but at a reduced rate because they can't make a living from earnings alone (like 90% of artists). The SW know they're working and they just have to show accounts every six months or so to the Inspector to prove how much they're earning from exhibitions or whatever.
I myself was told by a Deciding Officer I could work in self-employment when the front line staff told me this was not possible.

It helps a lot if you have confidence, ask to talk directly to someone higher in the food chain if you get fobbed of at the counter, and go in basically telling them what you want, and you're well spoken and charming.
Or be like another creative German friend in an arse end of no-where town who's smart and knows exactly what she's entitled to with SW and how to work the system to her advantage while keeping within the rules. She often has to explain some things to them or correct some of the front line staff because half of them are frankly clueless and don't even know their own rules and allowances so she bypasses them and goes higher up.
I lived in Germany and had to deal with their Arbeitsamt and you get only exactly what you're entitled to and no more and there's no leniency, discretion or rule bending or flat out ignoring the rules that happens here in officialdom. And by golly they know their job too. It's a lot easier there to just get a job than be on the dole!

Some of these people I know have told me they can't believe how easy it is here to get the dole long term and it's certainly not like that in their own countries where it's more time restricted. Oh and the ones who got called to Turas Nua got out of it in various creative ways too...but that's another story and time for 2nd sleep.

Emme wrote: »

What annoys me about some of these people is that they look down their very well-educated noses at people in regular jobs who have worked at their lives doing the same thing. They think these people are dull and unimaginative. In most cases these so-called "dull and unimaginative" people have no choice but to work for a living. If they have spare time outside work and family responsibilities they do what they want in that time.

I don't look down my nose at anyone but I always get a strong smell of resentment and jealousy in comments like this.
How dare people step outside the 9-5 paradigm! well actually everyone who is fit and able bodied and of sound mind DOES have a choice what they decide to do in life. Yes it's easy to go along with the herd when you're in young (and of course the conservative Irish education system wants people to go down the well trodden path of finding the "good" job and doesn't want people to think for themselves), but like I said previously, we should be expected to have a bit more self-awareness and understanding of the possibilities in life and the drawbacks of the daily grind of 9-5 (if you are not completely satisfied doing that) by the time you reach your thirties. It's never too late then to change course if you don't like what you do.

I know that's not what you want to hear bit it's true. If you (generic not specific) don't like the daily grind step off it and change your life! we only get the one go around. The problem is people are guided too much by what they think is expected of them to be a good citizen by their family, friends, society, and then wonder why they're stressed, overworked, burned out, depressed and in debt.
There's not an epidemic of anti-depressant usage because all those people are happy!

I wasn't happy in the job I had in my twenties (I was in 9-5 wage slavery) so I looked at what I could do to change that. I quit, got redundancy and moved to another country and got a better job with far better working conditions.
After that I spent time in another country working in horticulture and permaculture and began designing knitwear because I had so much time to really think about what I wanted to do with my life and what my passions are. Now I'm back here and continuing with the knitwear business. I know it's not easy but life is short and who wants to spend it on the M50 for hours every day if you hate your job and you could do something you love instead?

I did this by myself btw, I'm not loaded and I don't have any family ready to bail me out like some friends of mine if things went wrong.

Emme wrote: »

The taxes of the "dull and unimaginative" people are funding the lifestyle of the new age types who use their "creativity and imagination" to work the Irish welfare system to their advantage so they can live lives of leisure. On the backs of the "dull and unimaginative" people they look down on. It's the feudal and planter mentality all over again!

What's the point of being well-educated if you don't use that education getting up off your backside, getting a job and paying your way?

I think only a minority live completely on the dole. Most I know pay their own way to some extent at least or have a portfolio of jobs where if one thing goes slack they have something else to bring in money. Most creative people like myself have several irons in the fire. Anyway I'm living my own life, I don't care who "pays their way" to a capitalist system I would gladly see dismantled.

The point of an education primarily is to improve one's mind and become a better skilled, well rounded, thinking individual. How about learning for its own sake? That's why I got my degree.

I have no problem and believe everyone should be in control of work they enjoy doing, it's wage slavery drudgery and the Protestant work ethic I have a problem with. I'd recommend Bertrand Russell' 'In praise of Idleness and other Essays', any of Noam Chomsky's books on anarchism the Idler website and Tom Hodgkinson or Mark Boyles books. They all helped me get off the treadmill.

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

I live just outside Leitrim and I know exactly what youre talking about. Ive lived in Dublin and other parts of the country and have never encountered as many artsy, crustie English people as I have in the west, particularly Leitrim. I wonder has it anything to do with the cheap rent and art colleges close by in both Sligo and Galway.

Cheap rent and cheap land. Very affordable compared to most places in England. Leitrim is the new West Cork Loads settling up there. Also you have the Organic Centre in Rossinver running courses and events and community gardens which is a big draw for them. All started by English horticulturists with degrees in philosophy and politics in the 70s who themselves came here for the Good Life.

We'd hardly have the organic sector we have or the tiny percentage of land we do have under organic certification (less than 2% which is very low by European standards) if it wasn't for all the English, Dutch and Germans who came here in the 70's and later who pioneered growing food without any chemicals. There were very few Irish famers doing so as the supports weren't there and many are wedded to conventional methods and EU farm subsidies.

I know some "blow-ins" in the West who still complain that their farmer neighbours think they're mad not to tear down their cottages and old farmhouses and build new bungalows or why they bother trying permaculture forest farming or no dig on their poor thin soil when they should be grazing cattle or sheep on it :pac::( or growing Sikta forest deserts.