Today we talk about isolation as a consequence of labour under capitalism. Going beyond symbolic fixes can only lead us to demand more free time to go and be social.
Hi Michelle, I stumbled upon this post thanks to the Substack algorithm. I'm a Californian who happens to spend a lot of time in Germany I'm also self-employed for 15 years with a little travel company for teenagers + side income from writing books about self-directed learning and helping teenagers escape the hell which is high school. I own the vast majority of the time of my life, I'm very self-directed, and when I do work, I usually really enjoy it, and I feel like I'm genuinely doing it on my terms. I also spend very little, don't have a house/apartment, and am pretty much a permanent traveler—but more out of choice than necessity, because I have friends all over the world who I want to see IRL, and I enjoy using my body, cycling, doing lots of stuff outdoors, being in the sun, and partner dancing. Those activities constitute most of my existence. But none of this happened due to a mandates x-hour work-week. As far as I can tell, I'm wholly operating within the neoliberal capitalist framework, yet I still own the time of my life. I'm dirtbag rich: https://letters.blakeboles.com/p/dirtbag-rich.
I'm just curious where people like me fall into your social or political framework. I have lots of friends on the left + far left whose goals for society I agree with, but their reliance on the state to fulfill these goals feels heavily weighted. If the idea is to live one's life with genuinely large blocks of self-directed time, here, now, in this lifetime, I don't see a slightly shorter work-week or longer paid vacation as the individual solution. A positive direction, collectively speaking, yes. But what about individuals?
Hi Michelle, I stumbled upon this post thanks to the Substack algorithm. I'm a Californian who happens to spend a lot of time in Germany I'm also self-employed for 15 years with a little travel company for teenagers + side income from writing books about self-directed learning and helping teenagers escape the hell which is high school. I own the vast majority of the time of my life, I'm very self-directed, and when I do work, I usually really enjoy it, and I feel like I'm genuinely doing it on my terms. I also spend very little, don't have a house/apartment, and am pretty much a permanent traveler—but more out of choice than necessity, because I have friends all over the world who I want to see IRL, and I enjoy using my body, cycling, doing lots of stuff outdoors, being in the sun, and partner dancing. Those activities constitute most of my existence. But none of this happened due to a mandates x-hour work-week. As far as I can tell, I'm wholly operating within the neoliberal capitalist framework, yet I still own the time of my life. I'm dirtbag rich: https://letters.blakeboles.com/p/dirtbag-rich.
I'm just curious where people like me fall into your social or political framework. I have lots of friends on the left + far left whose goals for society I agree with, but their reliance on the state to fulfill these goals feels heavily weighted. If the idea is to live one's life with genuinely large blocks of self-directed time, here, now, in this lifetime, I don't see a slightly shorter work-week or longer paid vacation as the individual solution. A positive direction, collectively speaking, yes. But what about individuals?