Hi Quintessential readers! Long time to write. I’ve been taking a late summer hiatus from my blog to look inwards and start new journeys after my birthday. I hope you all still like me!!
Why Am I Decentering Capitalism?
Anyone who knows me knows that I am extremely passionate and serious about my job and my industry, so this may be confusing news for you to consider. I don’t have any big switch ups planned for my near future and I’m chilling in my current job. Decentering capitalism does not include any major differences in my professional journey, so stay calm but listen up.
The Life Script
Anyone who comes from a family like mine, middle class, white, suburban, knows the call to study hard in school to get into a good college, grind your way through a lucrative major in business or STEM, and then land a cushy white-collar job. Then, you’ll buy a house, start a family, save up for retirement, and then you finally retire into blissful freedom and travel around while your kids get started as young adults. It is the script for a perfect life.
I was the front runner on the field for my generational cohort. I’ve got it all, a graduate degree, a senior analyst job in my preferred industry, a house. But then some things at work changed. Like, a lot of changes all really fast. I’m finding that trying to be a stable person at an unstable organization is proving to be too difficult. I can’t keep talking about the nonsense with everyone I know, can I? I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, but am I proud to continue to align myself with the work turmoil?
I basically realized that my success in the script is not indicative of actual life success, and I’m not rushing to prove anything to anyone. I can take a pause on the grinding for a promotion and saving and do something else for a bit. But what to do instead?
The Cringe Apocalypse
Let me put my tinfoil hat on for a second. I believe that “cringe culture” is a propaganda initiative from the elites aimed to actively discourage people from getting a life and socially engineer a cultural double down on work as identity.
I still shudder at the memory of myself in my first full-time office position at 24 with no schoolwork or social scene to keep me busy in the evenings. I had no hobbies. For the longest time my “hobbies” were just forms of consumption - streaming shows and pop music, using social media apps, or going to the gym to work on whatever the trendy physique was.
But consuming is not a hobby. We have all been duped by the billionaires profiting off these services. I am enraged that every second of every day, whether I’m working or relaxing, someone is always profiting off of me.
I have to resist them and their messaging. I have to be someone that cuts off profit streams to billionaires for real.
How I’m Decentering Capitalism
So now I want to pause the life script to find a strong identity that excludes my job, and I have to quell my rage for the 1% that exploits every single person in this world. Here’s how I am tackling it:
Pulling Back and Playing
Mid-level managers who make less than $100k absolutely hate to see a silly goose walk around the office with a smile on their face and an interesting story to tell. Sorry boss, not going to take on that new project, I have to train for my adult competitive volleyball league. No overtime for me this month, I’m hunting for ghosts in a haunted house. Not going to exceed expectations this quarter, I’ve been having a life worth living starting at 5:01pm each day.
Despite what boomers and gen x want us to believe, working hard and being an achiever isn’t going to give you any advantage at work. Your colleagues will still take credit for what you’ve done, your raise and cost of living adjustment at the end of the year will be less than the inflation rate, and they probably won’t promote you no matter what you do.
Since I’ve lightened my time and stress loads after taking on this perspective, I’ve spent my time investing in experiences. Travel, sports leagues, community arts centers and dance studios, and social engagements with my friends and family. I’ve found a real love for hosting parties, singing and dancing, and I’m playing better ball than I did in high school.
My goal is to be like Troy Bolton, a musician and athlete extraordinaire. Sure, he was also doing well enough in school to get into a good set of colleges, but that was secondary to the plot. That is what I think work should be to me while I focus on my art and my sports.
Touching Grass / Disconnecting
Where were you when the news broke about Taylor Swift’s engagement? Did you get a bunch of push notifications about it? I didn’t. I was without any service in a gulch, hiking, bouldering, and sliding down rocks with my boyfriend. When we got picked up by my family that afternoon, my parents knew we didn’t know and told us the world was standing still after some breaking news. Given everything going on, that built up some high expectations. The engagement did not meet them. Wasn’t there, didn’t care.
Abstaining from Pop Culture Engagement
This goes hand in hand with touching grass, but even on days where you can’t go outside or you don’t have some event scheduled, you can still do your best to abstain from engaging in certain forms of consumption.
Bringing Taylor back into this (sorry Swifites, she’s about to catch some strays) will help me explain. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard her new album, Life of a Showgirl, by now. Well, hello from my rock.
Let me air out why I’m backing away from Taylor and honestly most pop acts in general. Love or hate the album, a stream is a stream, and any review will make someone curious to listen in. Why pay a billionaire to listen to their stupid billionaire music? The plight of the working class is unknowable to them; they cannot authentically create something relatable.
I love music and art, I always have. It doesn’t take an enthusiast to notice that these performers and their work are becoming just products themselves, mass producing content to be consumed by worldwide audiences. The giant artistic directive teams behind performers and the TikTok algorithm’s role in determining who is worthy of success is sucking the art out of it and just turning it all into marketing. I am not engaging with capitalism that usurps art.
I do still have my consumer vices like reality tv and big box franchises like Star Wars, but finding and engaging with art that isn’t backed by billion-dollar companies is a much more satisfying way to discover new ideas.
These are just a few examples of steps I'm taking to decenter capitalism in my life. None of these things are cringe, they are the building blocks for the version of me that doesn’t depend on my job title or income or class to make me feel important.
Cons of Decentering Capitalism
Decentering capitalism is not for everyone. I want to acknowledge some of the downsides of attempting to decenter capitalism.
It is for the privileged
I have to recognize the great privilege I have to do all of this. Investing in hobbies and experiences has a high-cost barrier to entry. Someone living paycheck to paycheck does not have the same luxury of taking trips, enrolling in courses, or accumulating the necessary supplies. Some people may not even be able to enjoy certain creative hobbies without external pressure to monetize it. There are also several marginalized groups that can’t afford the social implications of “meeting expectations” in the workplace and would face higher levels of scrutiny in their work product or fluctuation in productive output.
Some People Don’t Get It
Explaining to my friends and family that I don’t really want to talk about work anymore is tough. It seems to me that people who are so deep into that capitalist machine have a narrow view of what is interesting or pride-worthy. My parents don’t come to my volleyball games, they always laugh about how my accessible guitar is just a toy, but they’ll always be proud of my education and job. And that is okay because I’ve made the type of friends that will sub on the team with me and listen to me play a show in my living room to an audience of three.
You drift away from a lot of people, but you find the right ones on the way.
You Will Never Succeed
Unless you plan on going off grid and living off the land, it is impossible to have a life that isn’t centered around capitalism in a world that is centered around capitalism. Every good and service requires money, you have to work to afford anything, and you are just constantly creating data to be sold and algorithmically weaponized back against you to make you consume more and more until the end of time. Yay!
I’m still working to discern what the most important aspects of this are to me. I’ve worked on my non-work Troy Boltonesque identity, and I’ve directed my rage to the billionaires, but I am now wading into more organized anti-capitalist action. I want to start checking out mutual aid organizations or groups dedicated to resisting capitalism when I feel ready for it.
Keeping On
There isn’t really a conclusion to draw here. I’m navigating unexplored open waters, and I want to continue to find the people who share the same values as me, and who are willing to see me for the things that I love instead of my credentials.
How does this all make you feel? Do you have any recommendations for me? Do you think you can convince me to listen to the new album? Let me know in the comments!
Something New…
I will never ask for a paid subscription on Substack, but in an attempt to pursue my passion for writing so I could potentially one day leave the job that makes me want to enlist, I’m introducing my Buy Me A Coffee page!
From this page, you can securely hand over one-time support if you enjoy my content and/or want to engage with me as a writer! I’ll be uploading all of my posts to that page as well. There is no obligation at all to participate in this, I just want to be very vocal and intentional about the seriousness of my creative pursuits at this juncture.
About Quintessential
Thank you so much for reading! Quintessential is a collection of personal writings about how I am managing to live my life authentically as myself. You may be interested in this publication if you:
Are a young woman trying to make it in this world;
Enjoy niche topics;
Care about your communities around you;
Don’t take life too seriously; and
Want to know what makes me, me!
lot to think about, but found especially praiseworthy the section on stepping back from pop culture. stupid billionaire music indeed!