I appreciate and concur with everything you are saying . As someone who has worked as both an artist and a mental health and addiction counsellor I can’t tell you how many times people I know have said I was lucky to do work I enjoyed ( translate - low paying ) or too bad I didn’t choose a more lucrative career ..no wonder I couldn’t afford a house until I was almost 50 - and until then the most simplest rents /living conditions .I count myself fortunate that I could afford housing and food . Not so now . A degree means very little these days . And as you mentioned - what friggin “career “ are you supposed to choose ? ( how do you begin to pay for schooling and pay off loans ?!)
There is a scary passivity in western society re challenging this totally unfair equation . Is it ok to spend billions on military “aid” while leaving those in your own country struggling ? And truly shouldn’t everyone have the chance to live their lives in a happy , joyful, safe manner . I fear our culture has been dumbed down . These inequalities are just plain wrong - we’ve been fed a lie for a long time .
Absolutely agree with every word. We have been fed so many lies for sooooo long.
It's pretty crazy.
I'm 45 and we are finally daring to finally try to buy property, and we can't actually get a house - we're settling for a condo because they're marginally less expensive. And I'm still massively grateful that we can even manage that because so many can't.
The fact that mental health and addiction counselor is a job you are expected to be doing for the joy of it and is underpaid is completely insane to me. What we value as society is completely insane to me. And what we don't value.
I really lose it when people start with the 'should have picked better' narrative. Do you want your damn coffee or what??? Do you want your streets cleaned? Want a nurse to take care of you? Someone to pick the fruit you put in your cereal? Ohhh, you want all those things but you ALSO want allllll those people doing those crucial jobs to be constantly struggling at the edge of survival? What is wrong with people.
life is so exhausting right now as a 33 year old single woman. I'm fortunate not to have to worry about my housing because I have most of my mortgage in offset but I spend all of the rest of my income on trying to keep my mental health above water while constantly feeling unfulfilled because what I really want to do is go study and get like three degrees but whats the point these days? none of them would get me a job and would just all give me more debt and I wouldn't be able to take my learning to apply to real life. it takes all my energy just to get through life one day at a time yet I know that this is exactly what society is engineered for because if I'm always tired and burnt out then I can't stand up and speak out and change things!!! def feels like the hamster wheel of old has gotten a little bit TOO literal. what's the next step??? I'm not sure, but I'm personally trying to divest myself from the brainwashing of capitalism as much as possible - avoiding ads and popular tv, reading more books and doing things with my hands and trying to restrict my screen time to one on one conversations with people I know in real life, and reading things like substack that don't have a capitalist agenda trying to worm into my brain. but that's still just all survival tactics, and I don't know when, if ever, I will be able to actually have the energy to do something about it, or what I CAN be doing other than working in a bookshop and sharing the ideas I have just written.
ANYWAY thank you very much for your insights. they always always make me think about how I've designed my life and how I can try to keep improving it slowly.
Yeppppp absolutely feel you on all that!! My lowkey dream is also just learning stuff and making art, but apparently that’s not PrOduCtIVe so…. job-hunting.
On the study side I actually have ideas!! You can google ‘free university courses’ and a ton of stuff is available, some professors publish all their lectures online, some institutions (Harvard among them) have whole courses available totally for free and you only pay if you want a certificate. Depending on where your interests lie you could find some good stuff and no debt!! Of course it’s limited and not quite like actually going to Uni again but I have found some gems on creative writing, insects and reptiles, statistics etc. Sometimes there is a fee but not a big one. Also maybe other countries’ institutions might offer more affordable degrees remotely? US education prices are a joke. (I mean I’m assuming you’re in the US?)
I genuinely think a solid part of why we have the system that we have, the education we have, the work hours we have, is to keep us too addled to actually organize and make something of our communities. Atomization of society has been the clear agenda for a while now and if it’s not being consciously pushed on us then at least it’s not being combated in any way.
I am starting to think living very intentionally and very locally is the key. Everything you’re mentioning sounds amazing. I am looking for small spaces where people have positive ideas - maker spaces and shared workshops, community projects where you can volunteer, community gardens, giving language lessons to immigrants etc, there’s always people with ideas, we’re just too exhausted to find them.
(sorry for double post, my comment was too long and on mobile I couldn't see what I was responding to anymore)
and yeah I agree with you - I don't necessarily think that the current state of society was intentional but they certainly want to keep it the way it is because it only benefits those already in power.
I definitely think the answers (at least on an individual level for the global anxiety) lie in engaging in local community and avoiding things like huge shopping malls or massive supermarkets for local shops and greengrocers - these businesses are still struggling to compete but are singularly able to respond rapidly to the needs and demands of their community vs a huge conglomerate. but even then local governments are struggling with getting enough funding and at a certain point the problem is once again with the greater powers in charge. I hope by encouraging everyone to turn their attention to local small businesses where possible we can slowly enact some change though!!!
Agreed with every single word of both of your comments hahah. I totally get you on wanting to learn in a real space, I was talking to my friends about this and I really think we lose one layer of information through remote communication. There’s some sort of vibe-energy that comes from being in the same space with people that can’t be replicated over Zoom.
Being pretty involved in the art community I can tell you there is also a third type of artist who just accepts they will live a scrappy, wealth-free life but in return they get to really devote themselves to what they’re making, and some even build up a good following and do find some degree of financial stability. It’s not a path available to everyone tho, that’s for sure
sometimes I think of all the people like you and I who want to learn more and make more and how maybe one of us is holding inside us something groundbreaking. and more and more I see the only people able to do art full time are either retirees or trust fund babies who don't need to worry about paying bills, and this makes me so sad because we deserve art from all backgrounds. I'm having fomo for other people haha
I have looked into these free uni courses before! unfortunately I really learn best when I'm in a physical space, otherwise I struggle to concentrate or hold myself accountable, and I like the regimen of university semesters and schedules. but you are totally right, it is absolutely achievable if I continue to focus on making time for these things instead of giving into my existential dread and anxiety!! I'm actually in Australia and our tertiary study is not completely inaccessible but our govt (who mostly had completely free tertiary education) is slowly privatising it more and more to be more like the US systems so I'm not optimistic. but it makes sense because they want us to be dumb and incapable of seeing through their propaganda and misinformation!!!
I am literally so exhausted from working my day job and supporting my family that I can't come up with a coherent comment to leave you, so I'll just give you a fist-bump and say "yeah, that."
The most obvious stuff is the most important to say. Otherwise we forget about it, get lost in the details and rarely stop and ask "wait a second... who is all of this actually even for?!"
My pet peeve is how cities are clearly not designed for human beings. They're designed for consumers. It blasted so obviously at me one day when I had a couple of hours to kill in cork city before getting a bus home to wherever else I lived at the time. It started raining and I couldn't find a single place to get shelter where I didn't have to pay to fill my body with sugar and caffeine. I eventually got to the bus station and discovered there's rain shelters FOR THE F-ING BUSES!!! but not for the humans. I felt so insulted. And this Ireland! Where it rains every single day!
I can only logically assume that the imaginary (yet very consequential) concept called money will continue sifting like sand down into the giant holes that are billionaires pockets and we'll keep tending towards the day when one single individual will own 100% of the money rendering the concept entirely meaningless, but hey, I've put a curry on that I made with some of the veggies you grew. Want some? Like what will we humans do at the end of the world? Hang out. Enjoy the views. Share stuff. Hopefully not slaughter each other out of mass superiority psychosis if we can help it, etc. Could be kinda nice.
yeah, there would probably be a mix of both. I really hope people will quietly start to just peel away from the consumerist bullshit and start tending their little urban gardens and stuff like that. Here already there are cute 'fabricatheques' where you have non-profit shared workshops with all the basic tools, you pay like 2$ per month membership and you can show up and work on your stuff without owning band saws or angle grinders or a massive garage to work in. We have community gardens that give half the produce to people in need and share half among the volunteers. There are nice things popping up. We need to look for them and support them.
It struck me when someone said what they love about libraries is that it's the only social space in which you are allowed to exist without spending money. Some book stores tried putting in some armchairs and having, like, chill reading sections. The problem is that even when you have a sweet initiative like that, because other things aren't keeping up, that one isn't gonna work. The armchairs had to be thrown out because they were always covered in pee. People would come in to shoot up and would soil them. We can't have nice things.
Cities are definitely not designed for human beings. We have a lot of effort here in Mtl to make them more so - lots of bike lanes popping up, for example, lots of free sports activities in parks etc, but it's still a very cityish city and your best bet to hang out is still shelling out money for sugar and caffeine during the day, or salt and alcohol during the night. I guess all we can do is keep nudging things in the right direction. But hard to find the budgets for these things when all the money needs to be invested in murdering Palestinian infants, you know. You gotta economize somewhere.
I've a friend who's a chemical free farmer. He works his butt off regenerating the soil, growing amazing veg for the community and he's struggled to barely scrape a living. I once said to him, yeah but when the apocalypse comes everyone's gonna be knocking on your door and he's like but I thought the apocalypse was gonna be here by now! What's taking it so long!?!
That's what you mean by a mix of both, right? I reckon we gotta stay open to both strategies. Either the monetary system becomes so ludicrously banalised that we get more and more of this great fabricatheque kinda stuff, everyone knocks on my farmer buddy's door and he gets the thriving grass roots community he's been longing for. Or it somehow balances itself out a bit becoming a more fair system. Seems unlikely to be but life's full of surprises. Each way has advantages and disadvantages. And somehow a combo is likely possible. Sticking with the universal needs, while remaining open as to the strategy.
Yep! Also I think we will have different things happening around different places…. Like some places will end up (already are, really) pretty apocalyptic and some might see increased crime etc and some communities will pull together and there will probably be a mix of horrible and inspiring. That’s sort of how it was in our war.
It's crazy how little has changed. My mum worked in public libraries 40 years ago and said the same! The newsletter reading section was where the homeless people could hang out, stress free.
Yessss now imagine if we had those spaces all over… and actual permanent housing for the homeless…. And public shower facilities for those who need them…. This isn’t rocket science, something similar already exists I think for truckers etc. It would not take a lot.
My favorite local homeless shelter is actually pulling all our donations together to set up a permanent housing project with twenty spaces and I am insanely excited they’re taking that direction.
You present the Gordian Knot of what passes for modern civilisation, well.
When I used to be an Executive Coach I would work with people who were “underperforming“ or their own business was struggling.
To a man and woman they couldn’t tell me why they had taken that job, or started that business. They intellectualised and rationalised but they couldn’t tell me how they had made their choice emotionally.
We set about discovering what their deepest non-negotiable core values were and re-evaluated what drove them emotionally.
Quite few were re-energised in the same roles but many others changed careers or closed businesses. Years after, all of them said they were more content. Not always highly paid, but content. Priceless.
yep, definitely helps to be doing something that makes sense to you.
Problem is we have a society that is predicated on having a mass of people doing jobs they are not likely to be content with. And they will never ever be able to afford any sort of executive coaching about it.
Honestly I don't think it's the jobs. Here in Montreal the garbage guys are paid pretty well, as are the city bus drivers. They look super damn happy. The garbage people are always singing, whistling, doing little tricks, hanging off the back of their trucks like a band of ragtag boys playing around, it's joyful to see them.
There are so many jobs I would be content doing, if the conditions surrounding those jobs were conducive to reasonable human life. But for so many jobs they are not. And it's not for reasons inherent to the job - it's because The People Who Make Decisions think it should be possible to force massive numbers of people into what amounts to indentured slavery for the profit of the few.
The concept of core values is fundamental to our lives. Victor Frankl maintained his, including unconditional love for his concentration camp captors. It may be that we are prevented from exercising the privilege of selecting our work, or the nature of the workplace culture, but we must retain our core values, else we lose ourselves completely.
From that place of strength we may be able to exercise some level of influence. Without it we are indeed victims.
When I worked at an all-specialism mega-university for a while, living in staff flats, I witnessed an endless flow of STEM postdocs and junior temp (adjunct, non tenure) etc staff coming in on 1 or 2 year contracts. Some of these folks were in their 40s, with families, struggling from one temp research contract to the next. This was back in 2000 - and things have only turned a lot worse since then. You're absolutely right.
Yap. The squeeze is endless. We like to pretend it’s just the ‘bad jobs’ where people struggle, but honestly any job that isn’t about manipulating money (plus a small smattering of others) has steadily given less and less.
Lidija, I just want to say that this is so on point. It truly resonates with me. We are in the midst of change, I think. How turbulent it will be only time will tell, but it certainly feels that things are fraying at the seams and slowly crumbling.
What is helping me keeping the faith in humanity and a way out through this mess is reading books by people who are looking at alternative ways of economics as well as other ways we can meet our basic needs in community. The more I see what is already in place and what can be possible the less like giving up I feel.
But it’s a bumpy road we’re on and uncertainty is the only certainty we have to accompany us.
Yessss I also feel we are in a time of massive change and so many people are actually coming up with insanely cool and creative solutions for the issues we’re facing - the problem is they often get sat on by the big guys who profit from the way things are. I think our main role as little peeps will be to notice and support those little blossoms of Good Ideas in whatever small way we can until they gain enough traction to make a difference.
No, never heard of her? But I know there are a few Rich People For Normalcy type initiatives, I think one Disney heiress is part of one? They are few but I definitely appreciate them!!
She's Austrian and co-founded taxmenow to campaign for higher taxes for the super rich. And she set up a council that represented the population of Austria, (a random selection of "normal" people) who decided what would happen to the majority of her inheritance. The causes that were chosen were just such good proof of how money would be spread out if born-rich politicians weren't in charge. It was pretty cool.
She's only active in German-speaking countries, I think, but she is SUCH a good speaker.
That is the most epic thing!!! I know there are some similar initiatives in the States too but haven’t looked into if they’re just talk or are they accomplishing something.
There’s also things like the YouTuber Mr. Beast who, like, just goes and builds wells in Africa etc because he can do whatever he wants because the money just keeps pouring in… and it’s that same feeling, like damn, governments could do this.
And this, ladies and gents, is called digging through ALL the layers. Love love how you so clearly poke holes in the absurd excuses people make to shoot down any complaints about our current system. Excuses that just don't hold up to their own "logical" end.
Omg the more proud people are of how ‘logical their arguments are’ the more I know I’m going to have to roll my eyes through another slobber-pile of half-thought-out shallow self-contrary rubbish.
I appreciate and concur with everything you are saying . As someone who has worked as both an artist and a mental health and addiction counsellor I can’t tell you how many times people I know have said I was lucky to do work I enjoyed ( translate - low paying ) or too bad I didn’t choose a more lucrative career ..no wonder I couldn’t afford a house until I was almost 50 - and until then the most simplest rents /living conditions .I count myself fortunate that I could afford housing and food . Not so now . A degree means very little these days . And as you mentioned - what friggin “career “ are you supposed to choose ? ( how do you begin to pay for schooling and pay off loans ?!)
There is a scary passivity in western society re challenging this totally unfair equation . Is it ok to spend billions on military “aid” while leaving those in your own country struggling ? And truly shouldn’t everyone have the chance to live their lives in a happy , joyful, safe manner . I fear our culture has been dumbed down . These inequalities are just plain wrong - we’ve been fed a lie for a long time .
Absolutely agree with every word. We have been fed so many lies for sooooo long.
It's pretty crazy.
I'm 45 and we are finally daring to finally try to buy property, and we can't actually get a house - we're settling for a condo because they're marginally less expensive. And I'm still massively grateful that we can even manage that because so many can't.
The fact that mental health and addiction counselor is a job you are expected to be doing for the joy of it and is underpaid is completely insane to me. What we value as society is completely insane to me. And what we don't value.
I really lose it when people start with the 'should have picked better' narrative. Do you want your damn coffee or what??? Do you want your streets cleaned? Want a nurse to take care of you? Someone to pick the fruit you put in your cereal? Ohhh, you want all those things but you ALSO want allllll those people doing those crucial jobs to be constantly struggling at the edge of survival? What is wrong with people.
life is so exhausting right now as a 33 year old single woman. I'm fortunate not to have to worry about my housing because I have most of my mortgage in offset but I spend all of the rest of my income on trying to keep my mental health above water while constantly feeling unfulfilled because what I really want to do is go study and get like three degrees but whats the point these days? none of them would get me a job and would just all give me more debt and I wouldn't be able to take my learning to apply to real life. it takes all my energy just to get through life one day at a time yet I know that this is exactly what society is engineered for because if I'm always tired and burnt out then I can't stand up and speak out and change things!!! def feels like the hamster wheel of old has gotten a little bit TOO literal. what's the next step??? I'm not sure, but I'm personally trying to divest myself from the brainwashing of capitalism as much as possible - avoiding ads and popular tv, reading more books and doing things with my hands and trying to restrict my screen time to one on one conversations with people I know in real life, and reading things like substack that don't have a capitalist agenda trying to worm into my brain. but that's still just all survival tactics, and I don't know when, if ever, I will be able to actually have the energy to do something about it, or what I CAN be doing other than working in a bookshop and sharing the ideas I have just written.
ANYWAY thank you very much for your insights. they always always make me think about how I've designed my life and how I can try to keep improving it slowly.
Yeppppp absolutely feel you on all that!! My lowkey dream is also just learning stuff and making art, but apparently that’s not PrOduCtIVe so…. job-hunting.
On the study side I actually have ideas!! You can google ‘free university courses’ and a ton of stuff is available, some professors publish all their lectures online, some institutions (Harvard among them) have whole courses available totally for free and you only pay if you want a certificate. Depending on where your interests lie you could find some good stuff and no debt!! Of course it’s limited and not quite like actually going to Uni again but I have found some gems on creative writing, insects and reptiles, statistics etc. Sometimes there is a fee but not a big one. Also maybe other countries’ institutions might offer more affordable degrees remotely? US education prices are a joke. (I mean I’m assuming you’re in the US?)
I genuinely think a solid part of why we have the system that we have, the education we have, the work hours we have, is to keep us too addled to actually organize and make something of our communities. Atomization of society has been the clear agenda for a while now and if it’s not being consciously pushed on us then at least it’s not being combated in any way.
I am starting to think living very intentionally and very locally is the key. Everything you’re mentioning sounds amazing. I am looking for small spaces where people have positive ideas - maker spaces and shared workshops, community projects where you can volunteer, community gardens, giving language lessons to immigrants etc, there’s always people with ideas, we’re just too exhausted to find them.
(sorry for double post, my comment was too long and on mobile I couldn't see what I was responding to anymore)
and yeah I agree with you - I don't necessarily think that the current state of society was intentional but they certainly want to keep it the way it is because it only benefits those already in power.
I definitely think the answers (at least on an individual level for the global anxiety) lie in engaging in local community and avoiding things like huge shopping malls or massive supermarkets for local shops and greengrocers - these businesses are still struggling to compete but are singularly able to respond rapidly to the needs and demands of their community vs a huge conglomerate. but even then local governments are struggling with getting enough funding and at a certain point the problem is once again with the greater powers in charge. I hope by encouraging everyone to turn their attention to local small businesses where possible we can slowly enact some change though!!!
Agreed with every single word of both of your comments hahah. I totally get you on wanting to learn in a real space, I was talking to my friends about this and I really think we lose one layer of information through remote communication. There’s some sort of vibe-energy that comes from being in the same space with people that can’t be replicated over Zoom.
Being pretty involved in the art community I can tell you there is also a third type of artist who just accepts they will live a scrappy, wealth-free life but in return they get to really devote themselves to what they’re making, and some even build up a good following and do find some degree of financial stability. It’s not a path available to everyone tho, that’s for sure
sometimes I think of all the people like you and I who want to learn more and make more and how maybe one of us is holding inside us something groundbreaking. and more and more I see the only people able to do art full time are either retirees or trust fund babies who don't need to worry about paying bills, and this makes me so sad because we deserve art from all backgrounds. I'm having fomo for other people haha
I have looked into these free uni courses before! unfortunately I really learn best when I'm in a physical space, otherwise I struggle to concentrate or hold myself accountable, and I like the regimen of university semesters and schedules. but you are totally right, it is absolutely achievable if I continue to focus on making time for these things instead of giving into my existential dread and anxiety!! I'm actually in Australia and our tertiary study is not completely inaccessible but our govt (who mostly had completely free tertiary education) is slowly privatising it more and more to be more like the US systems so I'm not optimistic. but it makes sense because they want us to be dumb and incapable of seeing through their propaganda and misinformation!!!
I am literally so exhausted from working my day job and supporting my family that I can't come up with a coherent comment to leave you, so I'll just give you a fist-bump and say "yeah, that."
Love this ❤️ Fist bump back! ⭐️
The most obvious stuff is the most important to say. Otherwise we forget about it, get lost in the details and rarely stop and ask "wait a second... who is all of this actually even for?!"
My pet peeve is how cities are clearly not designed for human beings. They're designed for consumers. It blasted so obviously at me one day when I had a couple of hours to kill in cork city before getting a bus home to wherever else I lived at the time. It started raining and I couldn't find a single place to get shelter where I didn't have to pay to fill my body with sugar and caffeine. I eventually got to the bus station and discovered there's rain shelters FOR THE F-ING BUSES!!! but not for the humans. I felt so insulted. And this Ireland! Where it rains every single day!
I can only logically assume that the imaginary (yet very consequential) concept called money will continue sifting like sand down into the giant holes that are billionaires pockets and we'll keep tending towards the day when one single individual will own 100% of the money rendering the concept entirely meaningless, but hey, I've put a curry on that I made with some of the veggies you grew. Want some? Like what will we humans do at the end of the world? Hang out. Enjoy the views. Share stuff. Hopefully not slaughter each other out of mass superiority psychosis if we can help it, etc. Could be kinda nice.
yeah, there would probably be a mix of both. I really hope people will quietly start to just peel away from the consumerist bullshit and start tending their little urban gardens and stuff like that. Here already there are cute 'fabricatheques' where you have non-profit shared workshops with all the basic tools, you pay like 2$ per month membership and you can show up and work on your stuff without owning band saws or angle grinders or a massive garage to work in. We have community gardens that give half the produce to people in need and share half among the volunteers. There are nice things popping up. We need to look for them and support them.
It struck me when someone said what they love about libraries is that it's the only social space in which you are allowed to exist without spending money. Some book stores tried putting in some armchairs and having, like, chill reading sections. The problem is that even when you have a sweet initiative like that, because other things aren't keeping up, that one isn't gonna work. The armchairs had to be thrown out because they were always covered in pee. People would come in to shoot up and would soil them. We can't have nice things.
Cities are definitely not designed for human beings. We have a lot of effort here in Mtl to make them more so - lots of bike lanes popping up, for example, lots of free sports activities in parks etc, but it's still a very cityish city and your best bet to hang out is still shelling out money for sugar and caffeine during the day, or salt and alcohol during the night. I guess all we can do is keep nudging things in the right direction. But hard to find the budgets for these things when all the money needs to be invested in murdering Palestinian infants, you know. You gotta economize somewhere.
So much muchness here!
I've a friend who's a chemical free farmer. He works his butt off regenerating the soil, growing amazing veg for the community and he's struggled to barely scrape a living. I once said to him, yeah but when the apocalypse comes everyone's gonna be knocking on your door and he's like but I thought the apocalypse was gonna be here by now! What's taking it so long!?!
That's what you mean by a mix of both, right? I reckon we gotta stay open to both strategies. Either the monetary system becomes so ludicrously banalised that we get more and more of this great fabricatheque kinda stuff, everyone knocks on my farmer buddy's door and he gets the thriving grass roots community he's been longing for. Or it somehow balances itself out a bit becoming a more fair system. Seems unlikely to be but life's full of surprises. Each way has advantages and disadvantages. And somehow a combo is likely possible. Sticking with the universal needs, while remaining open as to the strategy.
Yep! Also I think we will have different things happening around different places…. Like some places will end up (already are, really) pretty apocalyptic and some might see increased crime etc and some communities will pull together and there will probably be a mix of horrible and inspiring. That’s sort of how it was in our war.
Quote attributed to William Gibson: "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed."
This is it. I thought it was Clarke? But yeah, so true.
It's crazy how little has changed. My mum worked in public libraries 40 years ago and said the same! The newsletter reading section was where the homeless people could hang out, stress free.
Yessss now imagine if we had those spaces all over… and actual permanent housing for the homeless…. And public shower facilities for those who need them…. This isn’t rocket science, something similar already exists I think for truckers etc. It would not take a lot.
My favorite local homeless shelter is actually pulling all our donations together to set up a permanent housing project with twenty spaces and I am insanely excited they’re taking that direction.
You present the Gordian Knot of what passes for modern civilisation, well.
When I used to be an Executive Coach I would work with people who were “underperforming“ or their own business was struggling.
To a man and woman they couldn’t tell me why they had taken that job, or started that business. They intellectualised and rationalised but they couldn’t tell me how they had made their choice emotionally.
We set about discovering what their deepest non-negotiable core values were and re-evaluated what drove them emotionally.
Quite few were re-energised in the same roles but many others changed careers or closed businesses. Years after, all of them said they were more content. Not always highly paid, but content. Priceless.
yep, definitely helps to be doing something that makes sense to you.
Problem is we have a society that is predicated on having a mass of people doing jobs they are not likely to be content with. And they will never ever be able to afford any sort of executive coaching about it.
Honestly I don't think it's the jobs. Here in Montreal the garbage guys are paid pretty well, as are the city bus drivers. They look super damn happy. The garbage people are always singing, whistling, doing little tricks, hanging off the back of their trucks like a band of ragtag boys playing around, it's joyful to see them.
There are so many jobs I would be content doing, if the conditions surrounding those jobs were conducive to reasonable human life. But for so many jobs they are not. And it's not for reasons inherent to the job - it's because The People Who Make Decisions think it should be possible to force massive numbers of people into what amounts to indentured slavery for the profit of the few.
I believe we are as one in many respects.
The concept of core values is fundamental to our lives. Victor Frankl maintained his, including unconditional love for his concentration camp captors. It may be that we are prevented from exercising the privilege of selecting our work, or the nature of the workplace culture, but we must retain our core values, else we lose ourselves completely.
From that place of strength we may be able to exercise some level of influence. Without it we are indeed victims.
When I worked at an all-specialism mega-university for a while, living in staff flats, I witnessed an endless flow of STEM postdocs and junior temp (adjunct, non tenure) etc staff coming in on 1 or 2 year contracts. Some of these folks were in their 40s, with families, struggling from one temp research contract to the next. This was back in 2000 - and things have only turned a lot worse since then. You're absolutely right.
Yap. The squeeze is endless. We like to pretend it’s just the ‘bad jobs’ where people struggle, but honestly any job that isn’t about manipulating money (plus a small smattering of others) has steadily given less and less.
Lidija, I just want to say that this is so on point. It truly resonates with me. We are in the midst of change, I think. How turbulent it will be only time will tell, but it certainly feels that things are fraying at the seams and slowly crumbling.
What is helping me keeping the faith in humanity and a way out through this mess is reading books by people who are looking at alternative ways of economics as well as other ways we can meet our basic needs in community. The more I see what is already in place and what can be possible the less like giving up I feel.
But it’s a bumpy road we’re on and uncertainty is the only certainty we have to accompany us.
Yessss I also feel we are in a time of massive change and so many people are actually coming up with insanely cool and creative solutions for the issues we’re facing - the problem is they often get sat on by the big guys who profit from the way things are. I think our main role as little peeps will be to notice and support those little blossoms of Good Ideas in whatever small way we can until they gain enough traction to make a difference.
💯
Is Marlene Engelhorn well known where you are? One of the very very few of the super rich who gives me hope.
No, never heard of her? But I know there are a few Rich People For Normalcy type initiatives, I think one Disney heiress is part of one? They are few but I definitely appreciate them!!
She's Austrian and co-founded taxmenow to campaign for higher taxes for the super rich. And she set up a council that represented the population of Austria, (a random selection of "normal" people) who decided what would happen to the majority of her inheritance. The causes that were chosen were just such good proof of how money would be spread out if born-rich politicians weren't in charge. It was pretty cool.
She's only active in German-speaking countries, I think, but she is SUCH a good speaker.
That is the most epic thing!!! I know there are some similar initiatives in the States too but haven’t looked into if they’re just talk or are they accomplishing something.
There’s also things like the YouTuber Mr. Beast who, like, just goes and builds wells in Africa etc because he can do whatever he wants because the money just keeps pouring in… and it’s that same feeling, like damn, governments could do this.
And this, ladies and gents, is called digging through ALL the layers. Love love how you so clearly poke holes in the absurd excuses people make to shoot down any complaints about our current system. Excuses that just don't hold up to their own "logical" end.
Omg the more proud people are of how ‘logical their arguments are’ the more I know I’m going to have to roll my eyes through another slobber-pile of half-thought-out shallow self-contrary rubbish.
A quotation from the Six Million Dollar Man was not on my bingo card for today. But of course the rest of what you said was.
Never let them see you coming ;)
You’re reading my mind!!!!
We're all boiling in the same pot :)