Why I'm Walking Away
Aug. 19th, 2020 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevintaylorburgessI’m in the process of doing something very unfashionable these days: I’m deliberately changing my life. I’ve made the conscious decision to shift from an upper middle class lifestyle towards something a little lower on the socioeconomic ladder. I could talk about how few of the comforts of that lifestyle are actually comfortable, or about how few of the privileges are actually anything more than a way for someone else to control us, but at the moment I feel like that would be a lie: at this point I miss quite a few of them.
There have been days where my apartment has felt like an oven, and I’ve wished I had the money for air conditioning; there are times where I’m grocery shopping and really wish I didn’t need to think through the cost of everything and could just buy whatever I happened to want; there are times when I really don’t feel like cooking and wish I could afford to be able to just decide to order something; and so on.
This is not to say that my new life is miserable: quite the opposite in fact. I’ve found certain pleasures to be had in it that my old life lacked: it’s far easier to be outside in hot weather; I’m enjoying trying out plenty of old recipes which I’d never think to use if I could buy whatever I wanted; there’s plenty of peace and quiet to be had without the TVs my family has blaring all the time; and even though I’m giving up a lot, I still have running water, electricity, shelter, and plenty of food. Furthermore, my new way of life has a future, and so I’m free from the psychological burden of justifying why I cling to a life I hate, that I know will be going away anyway.
This last point is worth discussing. It has a simple origin: anything unsustainable will eventually stop. This is a very simple concept, but it’s one which a lot of people are going out of their way to avoid grasping right now. The reason is very, very simple: the kind of lives which most North Americans live, or if they don’t have think they deserve, is utterly unsustainable. The lifestyles depend on the drawing down of massive amounts of fossil fuels, and the systematic impoverishment of the majority of the rest of the world, both of which rely on certain states of affairs which are going away as I write this.
Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource over any timescale relevant to human beings, and so this means that each and every barrel of oil, pound of coal, or cubic foot of natural gas burned today is one less available for tomorrow, and so at a certain point we will start running out; and the current excess available for North America is the result of systematic imbalances funnelling a sizable fraction of the world’s wealth our way, which is under pressure due to the rise of other nations, such as China, Russia, India, and Brazil.
What this means then is that the kind of life I grew up in will be going away in the near future. For many, it’s already started to disappear, and for everyone else, it’s only a matter of time. One thing I think is worth noting as evidence this is already happening is that my siblings and myself, until I decided to give up the lifestyle, lived with our parents, as we don’t have the money to move out and maintain a middle class lifestyle. Twenty years ago, most people in their mid to late 20s in the middle class would have been able to find a job which payed enough to enable them to pursue the life independent of their parents. The fact my siblings couldn’t, I couldn’t, and that very few of my friends have been able to is because it’s a widespread predicament; and this says something about how the way of life is already going away. This leaves people in a nasty predicament: the way of life they have is going away right now, and most of them have no idea what to do if they lose it.
The way out of the predicament is quite straightforward, but it’s not one which a lot of people are willing to take: it is to embrace the sort of life that is possible on the income which you have. This is what I’m doing, and it’s incredible to realize the freedom and power which comes from this decision. Yes, I’m getting power from deliberately being poorer than I need to be. Self imposed limits is the only source of power, and this provides as good an example of why as anything else.
If I were to have continued to pursue the sort of life I was living, my parents would have continued to be able to control my life: if I’m dependent on them for the continuation of the perks and privileges which I need in order to function, then I have no ability to resist whatever they choose to do. Whether it be the TVs blaring all the time, or the way they like to keep the house colder in the summer than the winter, I’m powerless if I depend on their money. My parents are in a worse boat though, being utterly dependent on their employers. I’ve watched the way that they’ve put up with a great deal of injustice from their employers, utterly unwilling to do anything about it, because to do something means risking the paychecks they need in order to keep the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to.
The only way to stop depending on their money, then, is to change my life. This means embracing limits, and this means being poorer than I “need to be”. I have no expectation that they’ll come to the realization that they can stop working jobs they hate if they were willing to reduce expenses: these are people who fail to see the absurd extravagance of a trip to Europe for a long weekend. But the option does exist for them too: if they were willing to embrace limits, they could take control of their lives from their bosses.
The bitter irony is that at some point most of the people living middle class lives today will have to get used to being much poorer, whether they want to or not. Thus, it ought to be common sense for most people that one of the most important things to do is a deliberate downshifting towards a lifestyle with a future. The fact that this is not obvious, even to many people who grasp that the lives they live are miserable and don’t have a future, is fascinating, in much the same way that watching two trains smash into each other is.
The psychology of previous investment provides one piece of the answer: every single injustice someone tolerates; every time they refuse to take the plunge into a more sustainable lifestyle; every single time that they make the decision that it’s more important to pursue the life of absurd extravagance which the middle class has than to put their money, time, or muscles where their mouths are, make parting with that lifestyle that much harder. We’ll start talking about that next week.
Please note: all comments are moderated. Courteous comments related to the post are always welcome, especially if they challenge something in the post. Anything with profanity, rudeness, or which hammers on a point already addressed repeatedly will be deleted. Off topic comments may or may not be posted: it will depend on what kind of mood I’m in.
There have been days where my apartment has felt like an oven, and I’ve wished I had the money for air conditioning; there are times where I’m grocery shopping and really wish I didn’t need to think through the cost of everything and could just buy whatever I happened to want; there are times when I really don’t feel like cooking and wish I could afford to be able to just decide to order something; and so on.
This is not to say that my new life is miserable: quite the opposite in fact. I’ve found certain pleasures to be had in it that my old life lacked: it’s far easier to be outside in hot weather; I’m enjoying trying out plenty of old recipes which I’d never think to use if I could buy whatever I wanted; there’s plenty of peace and quiet to be had without the TVs my family has blaring all the time; and even though I’m giving up a lot, I still have running water, electricity, shelter, and plenty of food. Furthermore, my new way of life has a future, and so I’m free from the psychological burden of justifying why I cling to a life I hate, that I know will be going away anyway.
This last point is worth discussing. It has a simple origin: anything unsustainable will eventually stop. This is a very simple concept, but it’s one which a lot of people are going out of their way to avoid grasping right now. The reason is very, very simple: the kind of lives which most North Americans live, or if they don’t have think they deserve, is utterly unsustainable. The lifestyles depend on the drawing down of massive amounts of fossil fuels, and the systematic impoverishment of the majority of the rest of the world, both of which rely on certain states of affairs which are going away as I write this.
Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource over any timescale relevant to human beings, and so this means that each and every barrel of oil, pound of coal, or cubic foot of natural gas burned today is one less available for tomorrow, and so at a certain point we will start running out; and the current excess available for North America is the result of systematic imbalances funnelling a sizable fraction of the world’s wealth our way, which is under pressure due to the rise of other nations, such as China, Russia, India, and Brazil.
What this means then is that the kind of life I grew up in will be going away in the near future. For many, it’s already started to disappear, and for everyone else, it’s only a matter of time. One thing I think is worth noting as evidence this is already happening is that my siblings and myself, until I decided to give up the lifestyle, lived with our parents, as we don’t have the money to move out and maintain a middle class lifestyle. Twenty years ago, most people in their mid to late 20s in the middle class would have been able to find a job which payed enough to enable them to pursue the life independent of their parents. The fact my siblings couldn’t, I couldn’t, and that very few of my friends have been able to is because it’s a widespread predicament; and this says something about how the way of life is already going away. This leaves people in a nasty predicament: the way of life they have is going away right now, and most of them have no idea what to do if they lose it.
The way out of the predicament is quite straightforward, but it’s not one which a lot of people are willing to take: it is to embrace the sort of life that is possible on the income which you have. This is what I’m doing, and it’s incredible to realize the freedom and power which comes from this decision. Yes, I’m getting power from deliberately being poorer than I need to be. Self imposed limits is the only source of power, and this provides as good an example of why as anything else.
If I were to have continued to pursue the sort of life I was living, my parents would have continued to be able to control my life: if I’m dependent on them for the continuation of the perks and privileges which I need in order to function, then I have no ability to resist whatever they choose to do. Whether it be the TVs blaring all the time, or the way they like to keep the house colder in the summer than the winter, I’m powerless if I depend on their money. My parents are in a worse boat though, being utterly dependent on their employers. I’ve watched the way that they’ve put up with a great deal of injustice from their employers, utterly unwilling to do anything about it, because to do something means risking the paychecks they need in order to keep the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to.
The only way to stop depending on their money, then, is to change my life. This means embracing limits, and this means being poorer than I “need to be”. I have no expectation that they’ll come to the realization that they can stop working jobs they hate if they were willing to reduce expenses: these are people who fail to see the absurd extravagance of a trip to Europe for a long weekend. But the option does exist for them too: if they were willing to embrace limits, they could take control of their lives from their bosses.
The bitter irony is that at some point most of the people living middle class lives today will have to get used to being much poorer, whether they want to or not. Thus, it ought to be common sense for most people that one of the most important things to do is a deliberate downshifting towards a lifestyle with a future. The fact that this is not obvious, even to many people who grasp that the lives they live are miserable and don’t have a future, is fascinating, in much the same way that watching two trains smash into each other is.
The psychology of previous investment provides one piece of the answer: every single injustice someone tolerates; every time they refuse to take the plunge into a more sustainable lifestyle; every single time that they make the decision that it’s more important to pursue the life of absurd extravagance which the middle class has than to put their money, time, or muscles where their mouths are, make parting with that lifestyle that much harder. We’ll start talking about that next week.
Please note: all comments are moderated. Courteous comments related to the post are always welcome, especially if they challenge something in the post. Anything with profanity, rudeness, or which hammers on a point already addressed repeatedly will be deleted. Off topic comments may or may not be posted: it will depend on what kind of mood I’m in.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-26 04:35 am (UTC)