“I don’t want to work for a capitalist.”
“I don’t want to charge people money to do things I could do for free.”
“Actually, I don’t want money at all.”
Why do I do this to myself?
Well, at least I have wi-fi and phone charge. Could be worse.
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“I don’t want to charge people money to do things I could do for free.”
I used to be this way. But my time and effort are labor and worth it. If someone can’t afford it, I don’t charge or work out a barter. I also volunteer. But food, shelter, toiletries cost money. And plenty of people can very easily afford it, and those are the ones who want a lot for little. No, pay me.
I mean, I will do that. If I dislike someone or think they’re genuinely a bad person, or too rich, or whatever, I’ll take as much money as I can possibly get from them.
But how do you build a life when you see financial transactions as inherently predatory and will only participate if it’s with someone you think deserves to have less? Especially when those people also generally make the worst and most unreliable customers?
It’s not about the value of my work, for me. It’s about the idea that material or financial “value” can ever be compared with or placed above the value of life, wellbeing, contentment, and so on of those actually involved.
It’s not about the value of my work, for me. It’s about the idea that material or financial “value” can ever be compared with or placed above the value of life, wellbeing, contentment, and so on of those actually involved.
Value your life. Isn’t it worth supporting as best you can? I’m not saying sign up for ICE, can you rake leaves, wash dishes, type a paper, grammar check it, help an elderly person?
And if I can do those things, why should I do them for money? You are all but outright stating my life is only as valuable as the value of my work.
This is ableist, speciesist, and classist outright, and leans into sexism (women exist to breed more working bodies) and homophobia (less valuable because they aren’t breeding) as well.
Why should I participate in that? Why should I encourage that?
The only time it makes sense to tie survival to work is when the work is sanitation, medicine, food production. Raking leaves in particular is evironmentally destructive (a tidy yard supports no life outside of usually a single usually invasive usually selectively bred species), and typing papers in academic settings is often busywork related to examining loyalty and “work ethic” of the person who is meant to be writing it which also consumes energy and resources that could be spent in many other ways to much greater effect on general welfare and personal mental health. Why should I do those things? Because people who aren’t thinking about anything but their personal gain want me to?
I’d rather die, and if starving weren’t so tortuous and slow, I would have let myself die long ago. This world is twisted and honestly, your advice kind of is too, and the fact you (and nearly everyone, generally) see it as normal and acceptable is even more twisted.
We with with what is material fact, while working for what c/should be. If you starve to death or succumb to the elements, does that serve your personal sense of purpose? You have that right. I didn’t tie your value to work. I tied your survival to your value.
If you starve to death or succumb to the elements, does that serve your personal sense of purpose?
The idea that I inherently serve an important purpose is already narcissistic and reactionary, reminding of the beliefs of Elon Musk or Benito Mussolini.
If you think your individual life is more important than your values, you don’t actually have any values.
Well go live your values then.
Why do I do this to myself?
Because we know how things should be (or at least we feel/believe strongly that we do), and to give up on that ideal is akin to completely losing our purpose in life. If we can’t live life in a manner compatible with our ideals, then why bother? How are we to be motivated? How do we enjoy life when we know it’s all wrong?
I wish I had the answers to those questions because I’ve wasted my life searching for them in a world that couldn’t care much less.
Good luck to you, kindred spirit. I hope it doesn’t get too rough out there for you.