Life Good, Capitalism Bad

Y’know, there is so much to celebrate, so much to live for, so much to love and to appreciate, to savour and to revel in.

There is also, however, capitalism. And even on an individual, day to day level, capitalism fucks with us and fucks with all that is good and decent in the world.

The simple things that make life good – tasty food slow-cooked with wine and conversation; time to move and work your body and breathe deep and feel yourself get stronger; space to love slowly, to love playfully, to enjoy your partner; room to spend with a kid not doing anything but simply being together, making that open space that kids need to talk; mornings to sleep late, wake slow, taste coffee and cream. Music and literature and reflection and art. These are not great demands, in the grand scheme of the universe. But damned if capitalism doesn’t undermine them all.

The last few days I have really felt the conflict of demand and desire. Exercise, writing time, music, visits with friends once or twice a week – seems pretty reasonable. But Meg and I have been finding lately that these don’t happen unless we formally schedule them. Which means earlier risings, more hectic daytimes, later dinners. And which means, too, that nothing comes naturally, organically, but all is turned into yet one more task in a workday that starts before the office and ends long after.

Funny, that. Capitalism doesn’t simply turn our economic activity into work. It turns much of living into work as well, establishing such an order to the day that even those activities that start with  ‘I want to’ soon morph into ‘I have to’. So it’s a bit of a conundrum – a life organized around work does not offer the openness of time and space to allow art, exercise, play, sex, community, conversation to simply arise organically. If we want those things, we need to make them happen, by making them another thing in the calendar. But the very act of scheduling what should be lived takes its toll on those activities, changing the way we relate to them and changing, then, something core to those activities themselves.

Drag. Capitalism indeed. All life as economy, all life as work, all relationships – including relationships with our bodies, our minds, our human-ness – as tasks to be managed. But as much as this is troubling, as much as this frutrates and srresses and overwhelms, it is just as clear that we cannot simply refuse to schedule. Because writing and song and games and movement and love and community are all so integral to us. And I am not prepared to let them fall away simply because I am unwilling to live with the fact that they must take on a discipline and an order I would prefer to avoid.

Yeah, capitalism sucks. How disheartening that such fundamentals of our humanity -  time for loved ones, basic physical health, the raising of children and the building of community – have all become subordinated to labour, and now become things to be chased and nailed down rather than moments of everyday living. But I’m not giving them up. We’re not giving them up.

Sometimes even things that feel like tasks are worth fighting for.