cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/14891969
ANTI-CAPITALIST AFFIRMATIONS
- i am allowed to spend my time creating things, even if they are not beautiful.
- there is no such thing as a “real Job”. all forms of work are real and vlid.
- there is nothing that i need to accomplish to be worthy. i am already worthy.
- doing nothing ls good for my soul.
- i am not deflined by what I produce.
- my worth cannot be measured by my paycheck, my job title, or a list of professional or academic achievements.
- i də not need to monetize my hobbles, It is enough to spend time doing something i love.
- | will not let society decide what success looks like. I can define what successful life looks like for me.
I hate that this feels so “you shouldn’t live/act conventionally” instead of “you don’t need to live/act conventionally”. Like, I don’t sell things I make because I want the money, I sell things I make because I love things I make being out and about in the world. It helps give me a reason to make them, because I struggle to make things for myself. Doing nothing absolutely kills me, and that’s ok. Making things is one of the only things I truly like about myself, of course I’m going to heavily identify with that.
Feel that. Girlfriend made candles as a hobby. I took them to work. Coworkers tried to buy them. Skip ahead a year later and she’s got an inventory of nearly 200 candles and a bunch of scents and doing shows and making money. Still in the red overall, but seeing people’s eyes light up when they smell them is better than any profit.
Yep. And you know what? If you weren’t selling them and just doing it for fun you’d still be in red. So it’s not something to worry about.
Hm, maybe that is your own insecurity with the subject speaking? Because the affirmations clearly state that “you don’t need to” and not that you shouldn’t. Obviously it is fine to capitalize on your passion. But often when you are really interested in any topic or good at something, you get told by all sorts of people that you should make money out of it. So there is a certain societal pressure based on capitalism to do so. And these affirmations just state that you don’t need to. But it is with stay at home moms maybe. You sure can stay at home and do the household and care for the kids etc. But you definitely don’t need to and it is important to get the message out that these expectations are highly problematic. Same goes for the expectation to capitalize on your interests.
I mean clearly this is through the lens of my own experiences and feelings, that’s why I said “I don’t like that this feels like” instead of “I don’t like that this is”.
I understand “hustle culture” and the things that this is addressing, I just don’t like the… absolute? feel of it. And that’s fine, I’m not out here demanding all the memes on the internet be made specifically to my tastes. I just felt the desire to put my thoughts out there, and didn’t restrain it for once.
Oh sure, you are totally right about that. I didn’t mean for you to feel attacked or anything. I was trying to discuss if the meme actually did play into some lefty norms of its own. Since you already took up this position I just tried arguing from the opposite position. There are definitely a lot of norms in lefty culture as well, what you describe as “absolute” I guess. And imo it is crucial to keep reflecting upon this and be vary of those norms.