David McElroy

For most of human history, the notion of job satisfaction would have seemed like a puzzling concept. Life was short and difficult. Just finding a way to survive and produce a family was a big deal. You grew your own food or hunted what you ate. The idea of a job — doing work for someone else in exchange for pay — would have seemed alien.

Today, though, survival is a given. Some of us might struggle financially — especially in an economic downturn such as this one — but we’re not worrying about starving to death. We have such a standard of living in this country that even someone who’s poor today would have been wealthy by historical standards. Our middle class families have things beyond comprehension to those in most of human history.

We’ve created a complicated economy that’s capable of delivering all this, and it’s a marvel. But there’s a dark side — and I’m wondering whether it has to be this way or if it’s an indication that most people are settling for being cogs in machines instead of making positive choices about what to do with their lives.

A new Gallup survey says that 70 percent of Americans are basically bored with or hate their jobs. The study says most people are “checked out” at their jobs or are “actively disengaged” from what they’re supposed to be doing. If this is true — and it fits my anecdotal observations — how did we manage to get here? And how can it change?

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The test of free speech is whether you can say what you want to say when other people — including politicians — disagree with what you’re saying. When government bodies start voting to demand that you shut up, something has gone dreadfully wrong.

There’s apparently a matchmaking service called Arrangement Finders, but it’s a bit different from most online dating services. This outfit specializes in matching an “Established Man” with a “Perfect Princess,” in the words of the site. Is it dating or is it glorified prostitution? I can’t tell for sure, but it looks to me as though it’s really a legitimate service for men and women who are looking for others to fill a specific role.

An ABC News story says that men pay a monthly fee to the service and women join for free. It’s apparently been controversial in other cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles. The site’s FAQs say your profile will be deleted if you advertise any kind of escort services.

I’d never heard of the service, but the company did something smart. It placed one billboard in Birmingham, about a mile from the airport, in a rundown part of town where billboards are probably cheap. And then outraged local people — and pandering politicians — gave them all the free publicity they could possibly want.

Last week, the Jefferson County Commission voted to ask the company to remove the billboard. Commission president David Carrington played the “it’s for the children” card when he told the Birmingham News why the billboard should come down.

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I was talking with a friend Sunday about some things that bother us about mainstream middle-class American culture. She was telling me about having to go to the home of a relative for holidays for years. Everyone was expected to buy expensive presents for everyone at Christmas.

She was describing her sister’s house, which had five bedrooms, five baths, work room, weight room, art room, pool, trampoline, built-in everything, eight televisions with eight cable boxes and a three-car garage.

It sounds like a really nice house, doesn’t it? So why was my friend bothered by it all? And why did the description sound so suffocating and sickening to me?

It was hard to put my finger on it, but I thought about it for much of the afternoon. I’ve thought about this issue before and I sometimes have trouble justifying the revulsion I feel for such things. I can try to justify my feelings in practical terms by talking about the waste of money and resources that go into such places, but the real answer goes much deeper than that. (Here’s another attempt I made about 18 months ago to answer the same question.)

Trying to understand why I feel this way is making it easier for me to understand why punks, goths, rappers and other “weirdos” of the world dress as they do and reject acting and looking like what we consider normal.

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