A Few Words of Gratitude

Today I got a sudden spike in traffic via Facebook, and also received some very kind and supportive notes from new readers, so I assume someone out there in Facebook-land decided to publicise my work – thank you very much, anonymous publiciser!  Since I haven’t posted here in awhile, I thought I would take a moment to confirm publicly that yes, I am still kickin’, and yes, I am still working on the book manuscript whenever I can.  I am still struggling and scraping by; I’m doing my best to juggle the demands of freelance gigs, the manuscript, volunteer work, job-hunting (yes, indeed) and various other responsibilities.  But I haven’t lost heart!

I’m still keeping up the Facebook page associated with this site on a fairly regular basis by posting interesting links; updates there are far more frequent for now.  Readers of this blog are invited to comment on anything I post there.

Thank you kindly to those of you who have shared personal stories with me, offered words of encouragement and small donations, and taken the time to let me know that you enjoyed reading the first chapter of On The Leisure Track and are looking forward to reading the rest of the book.  You are helping to keep my spirits up during a difficult time, and I am so grateful for your support.

Quick update about On The Leisure Track

Greetings, friends of Rethinking the Job Culture.   Earlier this year, I announced that I hoped to have my finished book, On the Leisure Track: Radical Alternatives to Conventional Employment, available for you by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, however, the book is still unfinished and its release has been postponed indefinitely.  I am still working on it whenever I can, but it is very slow going.

2011 has been a difficult year of uphill financial struggles for me, as it has for so many of us. Even with all the sacrifices I’ve made, I have neither the funds nor the social structure to support even a very modest life as a writer in the USA, so I’ve been forced to postpone work on some of my projects in order to focus on making money.  (Funny, isn’t it, how my life in microcosm is a perfect example of why this book needs to be written?)  By no means am I giving up on the book, however.  It will be completed whenever I am able to complete it.  News, when I have it, will be posted here first.

In the meantime, I will continue to post on this blog occasionally.  I will also post quotations, links to thought-provoking articles, and other small tidbits on the Facebook page associated with this site.  Please share the link to it if you like my work and want to help me promote it.

Once again, thank you kindly for your support, your patience, and your interest in my work!

Is Nothing Sacred? Thoughts on Leisure and ‘Doing Nothing’

What images and thoughts come to mind when you hear the word leisure?

Many people automatically associate leisure with what people do in their ‘spare’ or ‘free’ time (i.e., time spent away from paid jobs), or with pursuits such as entertainment, vacations, or sports.

I think we need to delve deeper when we think about the meaning of leisure.

What happens to leisure when we live in a culture where nearly everyone is expected to have paid jobs and work long hours just to earn their keep?  How much of our time is truly free in a culture like this?

Leisure gets an unfair bad rap, if you ask me.  Too often it is dismissed as something less worthy of care and consideration than the useful productive work that needs to get done, or as a kind of guilty pleasure that is only available to a privileged, rich elite who can afford it.

One source of the problem is the way we think.  We’ve internalised the Protestant work ethic to such a debilitating degree that leisure has become trivialised and morally suspect.  We worship effort and busy-ness instead.  Workaholism is worn as a badge of pride and moral superiority.  We overvalue activity, exertion, and even drudgery, while simultaneously undervaluing the ability to be receptive and allow things to happen as they will.  This obsession with work crowds out time to reflect and contemplate alternative ways of life.

I reject the idea that my worth as a human being – or anyone’s, for that matter – should be measured by willingness to work hard at a paid job.  I don’t want to live in a world where I’m only allowed to feel like a worthwhile person if I am expending huge effort to accomplish things on an economically approved timetable.  I want to live in a world where I can use my gifts to do high quality work of the heart and spirit, while trusting that my support will come through using those gifts in accordance with divine Will to provide what others want and need.  I want everyone else to have the same option.

While it is no doubt true that some things can’t be accomplished without a considerable expenditure of effort, it has also been my experience that there is a way of working – a beautiful, playful, even awe-inspiring way – that is only available to those who can set aside the cultural brainwashing of the work ethic long enough to allow themselves the pleasure of relaxing deeply into the experience of true leisure.  The kind of work that is done from this place of inner balance cannot be rushed; it takes the time it takes, and that’s that.  Most artists understand this intuitively.

Paradoxcially, artists in particular are sometimes perceived by onlookers as ‘doing nothing’ at precisely the times when their creative selves are in fact most deeply engaged and they are in a state of flow.  As a writer, I have spent years passively writing an essay or book chapter – doing the invisible labour of pondering, digesting, and researching the ideas I want to present – before I get to the visible labour of actively writing it.  As the process unfolds, there are often times where I’m enjoying a leisure activity such as lounging around or reading a book, and it may appear that I’m just goofing off at those times.  All stages of the process are essential in producing a finished piece of good quality writing, yet only the final stage is likely to be perceived by an outsider as real work.

Yet leisure is the ground from which the best work so often emerges, and the soil through which creativity bears some of its most delicious, ripe fruit.  In this sense, to be at leisure is to be very actively engaged indeed.  Lounging around can be a purposeless way of being purposeful – a way of allowing my unconscious mind freedom to roam and generate creative insights.  When I allow myself to be fully at leisure in this way – something that is actually quite a bit more difficult than it sounds – I notice that my writing flows from a deeper place.  It is a place that affirms joy, pleasure, mystery, and wonder.

Flashes of creative insight are gifts.  If I refuse to open myself to these gifts – if I neglect to make room for them because I am mired in emotional conflicts or unexamined work ethic beliefs that prevent me from doing nothing and being fully at leisure – I am being cut off from a deep source of wisdom.

I speak out in praise of leisure because I believe we need a lot more of it – and we need it for its own sake, not just because it can be a path toward better quality work.  I contend that there is an oft-overlooked connection between leisure and right relationship to the divine.

Genuine leisure, in the deepest sense, is a condition of meditative attunement and openness of the soul.

It is a way of being silent – and a way of comporting oneself in the world – that facilitates and strengthens connections with divine forces.  It is an attitude of active receptivity, a presence of mind, and an affirmation of mystery.  It contains a dimension that Charles Eisenstein, in his brilliant book Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, aptly calls “the experience of the abundance of time.”

Taking a break from work, in and of itself, would not necessarily qualify as leisure, since a break is something that is usually justified only by virtue of the fact that it readies a worker to take up effortful work again.

Being “off the clock” of a paid job, in and of itself, is not necessarily leisure either.  Much of an employee’s time away from the job is spent in commuting, de-stressing and recuperating from work, preparing for the next day of work, and so on.

Laziness, idleness, sloth, boredom, and distraction: none of these are what I mean when I speak of the value of true leisure.  In fact, I would argue that boredom and the constant need for distracting activity or entertainment are both conditions that are born of a chronic lack of leisure: an inability to be still inside.  They are one manifestation of an inability to truly do nothing.

To see this, ask yourself: have you ever allowed yourself to do absolutely nothing?

I’m not asking if you’ve just shirked your responsibilities or called in sick to work so you could play computer games or watch TV.  Just about everyone has done things like that.  I’m asking if you’ve ever genuinely done nothing.  Nothing at all, except fully allowing yourself to sink into languid silence, or perhaps enter a deep state of relaxation and repose.  If you’ve done this in a spirit of inquiry, what happened when you did?

Did you notice that your mind raced?  I sure did.  Every critical, guilt-tripping and worrisome internalised voice I’ve ever absorbed through living in a work-obsessed culture started admonishing me even more stridently than usual: How can you justify frittering away time like this?  You have an endless To-Do list.  Time’s-a-wastin’.  Time is money!  You can’t afford to be unproductive.  You need to be Getting Things Done!

It’s one thing when the opposition to leisure comes from an outside source, such as the media or our social circles.  It’s quite another when we realise that we’ll have to face the conflict we are carrying around within ourselves if we want to learn to be at leisure in a deeper way.  We will have to take on the inner Puritan that admonishes us to be productive and useful.  We will have to unlearn our internalised work ethic bit by bit, the same way we unlearn internalised homophobia, racism, or sexism.  We will have to learn how to get out of our own way.  We will have to learn to do nothing.

We sometimes ask “is nothing sacred?”  My answer to that potentially subversive question is YES!  It is.  ‘Nothing’ is sacred indeed!  To do nothing – to truly do nothing, in the sense I describe – is, in fact, a deeply sacred way of being.  It is when we are doing nothing that our deeper selves have room to emerge freely, and we can give ourselves over to spontaneity, play, discovery, and exploration.

In a culture that worships hard work as a measure of human worth, to advocate a deeper, more respectful approach to leisure is a form of counter-cultural resistance.

Our culture is desperately hungry for this kind of leisure.  Even if we cannot articulate it, so many of us sense that something important is missing, and that we need opportunities to experience leisure as a connection to the divine – as a celebration of life.  We are starving for it.

So let us renew our appreciation for true leisure.  Let us learn how to do nothing, in the deepest sense.

Because ‘nothing’ is sacred.

On the Leisure Track: Creating Radical Alternatives to Conventional Employment

At long last, I have posted Chapter One of my in-progress book manuscript.  I will refrain from commenting at length – for now, at least – about the inherent irony in the fact that it takes an astonishing amount of work to write a book about leisure and rethinking the job culture!

Thank you to everyone whose support, forbearance, friendship, and encouragement has sustained me over the years I have struggled while working on this manuscript and recovering from my divorce.  Without a doubt writing it has been a labour of love, even when it has been most difficult.  I am grateful for the opportunity to do work I love.

When the manuscript is finished and professionally edited, I will be self-publishing it, and will post an announcement.  I’m aiming for an end-of-2011 release, though I cannot guarantee it.

If you like my work, please pass it on, and thank you for reading!

On hypocrisy and being a ‘faker’

Over the years, many criticisms and insults have been directed at me as someone who writes openly about her principled opposition to the work ethic and the job culture.

Among these is the puerile accusation that I’m a “faker” because I am looking for a job, and have been actively doing so for the past year and a half.

Apparently, according to this critic’s worldview, no one who objects to the job culture for principled reasons should ever take a job, regardless of the particulars of their life or the context of their specific situation.  So if I am actually job-hunting now (horror of horrors!), then I must not have meant what I said about any of those radical ideas I espoused on the whywork.org site since 1998.  I must not be serious about anything I write about on this blog.  Never mind that I have devoted huge amounts of time, research, and effort to this project, at great personal cost.  Never mind that I started and moderated a well-respected e-mail list on these topics for years.  Never mind that I have repeatedly stated the paradoxical truth that it’s possible  – and sometimes even preferable – to be engaged in radical unjobbing while still holding a conventional job.  I must have just been leading everyone on.  Because I’m looking for a job now, I must necessarily be a “faker” – in other words, a hypocrite.

Just for the record, I will state once again that I would, indeed, prefer not to have a job ever again.  What I want is to work in a self-directed manner (although not as an “entrepreneur”).  I would prefer to continue working for myself, for my loved ones, for the land, and for the good of my local community.  There are countless projects I’d love to do.  I would prefer to spend my time focusing on writing, learning, research, dancing, spiritual pursuits, organising gift circles, and learning the skills necessary to building a more sustainable life (healthy cooking, nutrition, fermentation, foraging, gardening, rainwater catchment, composting, building tiny houses, etc.).  I already have three baccalaureate-level academic credentials; clearly I love reading and learning, but I am an autodidact at heart and prefer to direct my own education.

Unfortunately, however, my life situation at the moment is such that I simply cannot live like this and still meet my financial needs, meager though they are.

I live simply, in a tiny urban apartment, by choice.  I don’t drive (also by choice).  I don’t drink or smoke.  I have no kids or pets.  I take care of my health and am relatively healthy for a middle-aged American woman of middle-class background.  Money is simply a means to a more important end for me: a life worth living.  I have done everything I can to simplify my life greatly and reduce the amount of income I need, in order that I might avoid jobs as much as possible and focus all my attention on writing and other underappreciated work that doesn’t pay much but is essential to a fulfilling and meaningful life for me.

However, I am also single, I lack health insurance, and I live in the USA.  In this country, people who do not have health care coverage through a spouse or employer are pretty much left to fend for themselves.  I’m eligible for my state’s low-income plan, but I’ve been on the waiting list a long time, and there isn’t enough funding for everyone who needs it, so I’m out of luck for the time being.  Fortunately, I haven’t had any urgent, severe health crises ever since I lost access to health insurance through a divorce.

Even if I continue to go without health insurance – which I have done for two years now; I go to community clinics for the low-income and homeless whenever I have medical needs – I can’t stay free of jobs and the need for money all by myself.  None of us really can, no matter how simply we live.  Even monks and nuns who live in monasteries and take vows of poverty accept alms, donations and patronage from the lay community.

Finding a way to live indefinitely without a job if you are single – especially in a country with an ailing economy, and in which you have a high chance of facing bankruptcy if you ever contract a serious illness –  is not at all an easy task.  At the moment, my circumstances are such that I do not have the wherewithal to pull it off.  Divorce and economic recession have wreaked havoc in my life.  I have no financial assets left; my assets are my education, skills, relationships, and the belongings in my home.  Under these circumstances, it doesn’t matter whether or not I want a job; I must continue to look for one.  And I am hardly the only highly educated person my age from a culturally middle-class background who is dealing with a situation like this.  In fact, my situation is still quite fortunate compared to that of some of my friends.  The middle class is collapsing.

Does this make me a hypocrite?  Perhaps, if your worldview doesn’t allow room for the various complexities and nuances of individual lives that resist easy categorisation, or if you are blind to the way social and economic systems shape individuals’ behaviour in ways they cannot control.

But so what?  So what if I’m a hypocrite, and can’t maintain pristine ideological purity?  Does that mean what I write about has no value, and can therefore be easily dismissed?

A reminder: This isn’t about me.  My critiques are not meant to call attention to me, except to the extent that I can use my own life experiences as a window onto larger and more important issues.  My critiques are intended to call attention to the toxic job culture and work ethic, as well as the money system.  These are interdependent complex systems.  I criticise these systems even as I am forced to work within them to provide for my basic necessities in life.  And I am not perfect.  Maintaining a critical awareness in the face of ongoing resistance and lack of support is a far bigger challenge than it may seem to onlookers.  Sometimes I, too, fall into traps such as rationalising.  After all, it’s far easier to rationalise than it is to fully accept the reality that I am not truly free to work in the way I wish to (free of jobs, and within a gift culture as much as possible).  This is painful, but nonetheless, my task of the moment appears to be: learn to live with the contradictions inherent in this way of life.  I live in two worlds at once: I rely on the “old” systems even as I faithfully envision and promote “new” ones.

How do we uncouple ourselves from these toxic systems?  How do we free ourselves from wage slavery?  The answer: Partially.  One step at a time.  Cooperatively.  With the help of one another, the land, and our communities.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We cannot do this in isolation.  We do not make our task any easier when we spend our energy criticising others’ hypocrisy instead of strengthening our alliances and helping one another.

Rethinking the Job Culture on Facebook

In addition to this blog, I also maintain a Facebook page for Rethinking the Job Culture.  The Facebook page is updated more frequently, and I sometimes post things there that I won’t be posting here.  If you’re on Facebook, please “like” it.  Thanks for your support!

New blog title: Rethinking the Job Culture

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll note that it is no longer called Radical Unjobbing.  The URL will remain the same, as will the What is Radical Unjobbing? page.  But hereafter, I will refer to this blog by its new name:

Rethinking the Job Culture.**

The change came about after I spent some time pondering the range of responses I have received whenever new acquaintances find out that I’m a writer, and ask what I write about.

I noticed something interesting about these conversations: most often, I would feel very hesitant to tell my querents right off the bat that one of my main projects is a blog entitled “Radical Unjobbing” and a book manuscript with a similar theme (working title: On the Leisure Track: Creating Radical Alternatives to Conventional Employment.)  Usually, I would just respond that I am working on a long-term book project about “philosophy of work and leisure.”  That description provided enough information about the subject matter to answer the question, and did so in a way that rarely resulted in further questioning, except perhaps by other hardcore philosophy nerds whose interest had been piqued.

But why, I asked myself, did I always hesitate to mention that my blog was called Radical Unjobbing, and why did I so often describe my work in a way that discouraged further questions?  After all, this is a project that is very close to my heart; it’s a labour of love in every conceivable sense.  I believe in it.  Why shouldn’t I be singing its praises, so to speak, whenever I have a chance?

That line of questioning helped me realize that it was time for Radical Unjobbing to adopt a new name.

Why?  Because inviting further questioning is exactly what I want to do.  Yet the old name was somehow working at cross-purposes.

I want to create a space for deeper questions and ongoing respectful dialogue.  I want to encourage critical thinking of the sort that is rigorous, heart-centered, and spiritually motivated.  I want to do my part to encourage our culture to get past our initial resistance to the notion of a way of life that isn’t centered around jobs and earning money.  I want to explore as fully as possible the terrain that lies beyond our job-centered ways of thinking and living.

But I don’t want to preach only to the choir.  I don’t want to shout into an echo chamber.  And I really don’t want to get sidetracked into fractious political arguments about anarchism and libertarianism and capitalism and socialism and objectivism and The System and The Man and left vs. right and corporate greed and who’s greener than whom.  After many years on the Internet, I have concluded that a good number of these “discussions” are mostly a waste of valuable time, especially as they tend to degenerate into name-calling with astonishing rapidity.

There are all sorts of erroneous and half-baked ideas floating around out there about what a “radical” is, and these ideas bear little resemblance to the heart of what I am writing about.  Too often, I noticed that people’s knee-jerk responses to the idea of a blog called Radical Unjobbing would simply reinforce their existing biases – whether for or against – about the word “radical.”  The name came across to most people as challenging and confrontational in tone.  This worked against my larger purpose of creating more opportunities for productive, respectful dialogue in which no one is trying to change anyone’s mind or convince them of anything – rather, we are simply telling each other our stories, and using these stories to critically examine the job culture in all its manifestations.

Biases are a simple fact of life; we all have them.  However, I wanted to minimise the chances of having those pre-existing biases dissuade anyone from reading my blog – or from at least giving it a chance.  So the blog now has a new title.  It’s a title that better reflects my deeper intentions, and it’s one that I will not hesitate to discuss openly, even in casual conversations.  Yay!

Thanks, readers, for your support!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Bibliophile corner:

Readers who are familiar with Claire Wolfe’s work will note that the phrase “job culture” is also used with similar intent in her fascinating 2005 book How to Kill the Job Culture Before it Kills You: Living a Life of Autonomy in a Wage-Slave Society.  While I don’t agree with everything she writes, this is a courageous and thought-provoking book, and I am very grateful to her for writing it.  (I also loved the way she autographed my copy with “To D.J. – May your life always belong to you.  Claire Wolfe.”)

I am also grateful to Michael Fogler for writing another book I love, and one that happened to come into my life just when I needed it most – Un-Jobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook.  I bought the first edition of this book in 1996 just after its release, and I vividly recall how it affected me at the time.  In 1994, I had read Your Money or Your Life – a personal finance book that would later become very influential – and while I found it impressive and inspiring in many ways, I also felt some nebulous misgivings about many aspects of the investment-oriented approach, as well as the entire concept of “financial independence”.  (I would argue that there is no such thing as “financial independence” or “self-sufficiency.”  Those are simply concepts, with no real substance. We are all interdependent. I will have more to say on this topic in later entries.)

After devouring Fogler’s visionary book voraciously, however, I shouted enthusiastically to no one in particular: “YES!  Sane people live!”  I don’t agree with everything Fogler writes, either, but I found his book very cogent, and it put into words something deeply radical – something I myself had been struggling to articulate for a long time.  A couple of years later, in 1998, I founded Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery (a/k/a whywork dot org).  Then, in 2010, I named this blog Radical Unjobbing, partly in honour of Fogler’s work.

These authors’ influence on my own work is most gratefully acknowledged.

Your attention is a gift

I appreciate you, my dear readers.

I mean that sincerely.

There are countless other blogs out there that you could be reading right now, and a vast number of other things you could be doing with your time.  But you are reading this one.

And for that, I want to thank you.

I have high standards for my work.  (That’s one of the reasons I don’t post here as often as I’d like.)  I try to stay free of conventional jobs whenever possible, so that I will be able to devote more time and attention to offering you my best work.  Whenever I sit down to write, I keep in mind that if I want my work to serve the greatest good possible, it must honour the gift of attention that my readers are giving me.

Accordingly, here is the prayer I say when I sit down to write:

May the words I write serve the greatest good of all who read them, and may they help us build a beautiful and thriving culture of joyful leisure, work, and sustenance within a context of community interdependence and deep ecological wisdom.

It must, therefore, be the best quality work I am capable of offering to the world at that moment.  It must be honest and genuine; the world is overrun with snark and sarcasm, but sincerity is all too rare.  It must be clear, thought-provoking, emotionally appropriate, uplifting and joyful without being fluffy or saccharine, and informed by (but not limited to) scholarly research.  It must be the product of rigorous critical thinking as well as personal experience and spiritual insight.  It must somehow manage to convey the seriousness and magnitude of the multiple social, economic and environmental crises we face, yet without falling into the trap of draining much-needed energy and straining relationships by dwelling too heavily in dark and horrible places without offering respite.

I want to earn the gift your attention by making the best possible use of my own gifts, and delivering the results to you by way of my writing.  It’s a tall order, but for me it’s the only way to go.

You do know that giving someone your full, undivided, uninterrupted attention is a gift, right?  One of the beauties of this is that it’s a gift anyone can give, regardless of financial means.  It’s the kind of gift that makes the world a better place to live.  What we pay attention to matters, as our attention is limited.  It should be treated like the precious resource that it is, and it should be allocated mindfully rather than squandered unconsciously or allowed to atrophy.

Attention is not something that you owe me.  If I try to hijack your attention and use it for the wrong purposes, I will lose your trust, and rightfully so.  These days the web is clogged with dummy blog posts and “articles” loaded with keywords and search-engine-friendly catch-phrases, but with no real meat.  I’ve been online since 1993, and sometimes I miss the early days of the web because it seemed easier to find words that were obviously written by real people from the heart, instead of having my attention hijacked by commercial interests, useless arguing, and content-free “content” at every turn.

I want radical unjobbing to be real, I want it to be honest, and I want it to facilitate connection.  Most of all, I want it to be worthy of your attention.

I may be the one “assigned” to bring radical unjobbing to you and tell you some of my stories, and it’s true that writing for this blog is a labour of love…but ultimately I’m not doing this for me.  I’m doing it because I believe wholeheartedly that other, better ways of life are possible, outside of the job culture.  I’m doing it because I want you to identify and use your own gifts in service of the kind of world you’d like to live in.  Gifts are sacred.  I want you to think about what you have to give, and in what ways you can offer your gifts.  And I want you to learn how to receive and accept nourishment in the form of gifts, too.

That’s what radical unjobbing is about: learning to live in the culture of the gift, where giving and receiving are one, and freeing ourselves from the scarcity-driven job culture.  You can do this whether or not you have a conventional job.  You can always start with your attention.  Where will you place it?  What will you do with this gift?

I appreciate the gift of attention that you have given by reading my work.

My prayer today is that I may continue to produce work that is worthy of this gift.

Unjobbing is a Process

I often remind myself that unjobbing is a process, and not a destination.

It’s not somewhere I end up.  It’s more like a meandering trail through a dense forest, with switchbacks, elevation changes, and occasional backtracking when I get lost.  Sometimes it leads into uncharted territory, and I find myself wondering what to do next.  If I can muster the courage to brave the hazards of blazing my own trail, I forge ahead.

Unjobbing can be approached as a conscious choice – a commitment to be made after realizing that life is too short to spend so much of it in a job I hate, just for the sake of earning money.  It can be a decision to unlearn conventional notions about jobs, work, and leisure, in order to make room for a new way of life.

Unjobbing can also be something done out of necessity, or a need for survival, when it becomes clear that the old approaches won’t work any longer.  Given the current state of our economy, many highly educated and qualified people who nonetheless can’t find conventional jobs are now finding themselves in this place, and they (we) are letting go of illusions that finding a good job will provide them with security or “financial independence.”

Or perhaps you can walk the unjobbing path like I do: through a mix of necessity and conscious choice.  You can just muddle through one step at a time, pick yourself up when you stumble and fall (and you will, many times), and see where it leads.

Right now, I’m staring out into uncharted territory.  Instead of feeling trepidation, however, I feel strangely and deeply at peace.  Somehow I have the sense that I’ll be able to navigate the terrain ahead without a map.

Culturally speaking, I’m privileged: white, middle-class, and highly educated.  Though I’ve faced some difficult and demoralizing financial struggles and endured years of minimum-wage drudgery, I’ve never known true poverty.  Yet for the past few years – especially since an unwanted divorce in 2007 left me financially devastated and buried under an avalanche of grief, brokenness, rage, and despair – I have been driven by a primal kind of fear: the fear of scarcity.

For years, I have made too many of my decisions from this place of primal fear.

There are many things I’ve learned while walking this path.  I’ve learned in countless ways that the greater my ability to live simply, the lower my debt, and the greater my ability to refuse consumer goods, the less need I have for conventional jobs…and the less I am forced to participate in the ecological destruction that is driven by the extractive money economy.  I’ve learned that the less need I have for earning money, the less time I need to spend in “full time” paid employment, and the more freedom I have to shape my life according to my ecological values and the guidance of deeper forces.  These lessons have served me well.

I’ve also learned that every single moment of my life, consciously or not, I am making decisions about how to spend my time and energy, and where and how to direct my attention.  Even in the most constrained circumstances I’ve faced in life, it has become clear to me that I still have a certain element of choice, and I can exercise it to the best of my ability.  In this truth lies a great source of power.

I may be broke in monetary terms, but I am not broken in spirit.

I may not have a job, but I am not “unemployed.”

In fact, I am wealthy.  While I don’t have a job or much money, I do have immense wealth, for which I feel great appreciation and gratitude.  I live and move about in a world of fundamental abundance, and I don’t mean this in some flighty New Age way.  I mean it very straightforwardly.  I have a roof over my head, food in my cupboards, and no immediate threat of homelessness.  I live in a beautiful city that I adore.

But there’s much, much more.

I am wealthy in time. Ah, what a great luxury time is!  I can go about my daily tasks in an unhurried, mindful manner.  I can wake up without an alarm clock.  I can enjoy my tea rituals at leisure.  I can work when my body is most inclined to do so, rather than at the behest of my employer.

I am wealthy in leisure. I firmly believe that true leisure is much more than an absence of job-related constraints on my time, and much more than “vegging out” with the aid of passive sources of entertainment.  Real leisure – the kind that restores me at a bone-deep level – contains a significant active and creative dimension as well.  Gradually, I am learning something difficult: how to allow myself to do nothing at all without shame or guilt.

Sometimes, a funny thing happens when I do this: words come to me.  Writing gushes out of me in torrents.  (It isn’t always good writing, mind you; that part comes later, after the editing and proofreading stage.)

I am wealthy in relationships. I have a wonderful and nourishing web of relationships: blood relatives with whom I am very close, friendships I cherish, acquaintances I like and with whom I share common interests, and correspondents with whom I enjoy exchanging ideas.

I am wealthy in education and skills. Advanced reading comprehension and writing skills, three baccalaureate-level university degrees, research skills, critical thinking, autodidactic abilities, a lifelong bookworm’s passion for reading and learning – all of these are gifts, and I do not take any of them for granted.

I am wealthy in time alone and ability to enjoy solitude. As an introvert and loner, regular and copious time alone is essential for me; I would be but a shadow of my real self without it.  Divorce-related grief robbed me of the ability to enjoy my time alone for quite some time.  Being abandoned by a loved one taught me a lot about the difference between loneliness and solitude, as well as the complex (and paradoxical!) relationship between intimacy and solitude.  Once again, at long last, I have been gifted with the capacity to take deep nourishment from solitude.

And that’s just a start.  I could go on and on!

With this kind of abundance and freedom in my life, I needn’t be driven by the kind of artificial scarcity perpetuated by the money system.

While it’s true that I will continue to need to use money as a means to an end – my utility bills can’t currently be paid with barter arrangements or work-trades, after all – I know in my bones that I don’t need to believe the stories that say I must live in fear of scarcity any longer.

So here is my vow.

I hereby commit myself to walk the sacred path of radical unjobbing.  I will continue to deeply question and unlearn the fundamental assumptions of the job culture, and use my gifts in the service of helping others to do the same.  I will continue to critically examine any beliefs, attitudes, stories, habits, and systemic factors that keep me mired in the muck of artificial scarcity.

Henceforth, I shall live as much of my life as possible within the abundance of the gift culture.

Thank you, and Hail to the Powers That Be.

I am a radical unjobber because…

I am a radical unjobber because I believe people should have lives based on living, not on making a living.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that leisure is more than “free time”.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in an ecological ethic of service, interdependence, and care…not a “work ethic.”

I am a radical unjobber because I don’t believe people’s value in a relationship, family, or community should be diminished because they do not have jobs or earn wages.  Having a job and making a “contribution to society” is not a measure of worth, and people should not be expected to work to justify their existence any more than a tree or a river should.  (I do believe that most people have a desire to be useful and creative, rather than just being consumers; we need to find ways for people to fulfill this desire outside the wage economy, as there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around, even for those who want jobs.)

I am a radical unjobber because, although I’m not “anti-work,” I am critical of jobs and the entire job culture.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe there is an important and oft-overlooked difference between work and jobs.  Work is intrinsically worth doing, and may or may not involve earning money.  A job is a set of tasks performed for wages or other compensation, and controlled by an employer.  (The two are not mutually exclusive; I’ll have plenty more to say about this in future writings.)

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in the importance of rethinking our cultural and societal assumptions about the proper relationship between work and leisure.

I am a radical unjobber because I have spent my entire adult life trying to figure out ways to live a life that is not based around earning income, and encouraging people to find ways to live a less job-centered life in general.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that freedom from the job culture is an inside job that starts (but doesn’t end) within the minds and hearts of human beings – which means, among other things, that it is possible to be free of wage slavery even if you hold a conventional job.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in not letting whatever you do for income interfere with your life’s work.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe lowering expenses is preferable to increasing income through having a job.  Like Amy Dacyczyn (author of “The Tightwad Gazette”), I prefer the luxury of freedom from a job to the luxury of material goods.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe “do what you love, the money will follow” is essentially a lie. Though there is a kernel of wisdom in that saying, it’s often misinterpreted as “if you can find a job you love, eventually you’ll earn money.”  Not everyone can do what they love through finding a job, and it isn’t their own fault; that’s simply not the way the economy functions.  Conventional jobs in the wage economy have an underlying purpose, and it is not to allow people do what they love.  It is to facilitate the movement of money, and concentrate wealth in the hands of the elite.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe the job culture impoverishes us by creating conditions where so many of us are forced to abandon our Work to take jobs, and then impoverishes us even more by diminishing our opportunities for true restorative leisure.

I am a radical unjobber because I don’t believe that paid work is inherently more valuable than unpaid work.

I am a radical unjobber because I resist the brainwashing that paints people who don’t have a job in the wage economy as idle, lazy, parasitic, undeserving, good-for-nothing, worthless, or not trying hard enough.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe money (and the need to earn it through wage jobs) is the ultimate root cause of the ecological destruction we face.  However, I am not inherently “anti-money” and I accept money without guilt or shame, since I live in a world that has made it near-impossible to function without it.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in the value of working toward urban and rural interdependent self-sufficiency and homesteading skills (growing and preserving food, fiber arts, home brewing, cooking, baking, home building, passive solar design, etc.) as paths to freedom from the job culture.

I am a radical unjobber because I encourage people to dig deep and think critically about the toxic cultural messages we’ve absorbed about jobs, work, and money, and to do the hard work of uprooting them so that healthy attitudes can be consciously cultivated in their place.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in the value of barter, gift economies, alternative currencies, community currencies, basic income schemes, and other alternatives to the use of money earned through conventional jobs.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in small-scale farming, cottage industries, local production of goods, and in the value of handcrafted items made with love and care.

I am a radical unjobber because I want to live simply, mindfully, consciously, and deliberately…and I encourage others to do the same.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that energy descent, climate change and resource depletion will require radical changes to our current way of life, and because I want to free myself and others from the demands of conventional jobs so that we can collectively devote as much time as possible to the necessary and urgent work of preparing for a different way of life.

I am a radical unjobber because I have made a conscious choice to live a car-free or low-car life as much as possible, in order to minimize expenses and dependence on earned income from jobs, as well as for health and ecological reasons.  (I am fortunate to live in a pedestrian-friendly city with great public transit, which makes this much easier to do.)

I am a radical unjobber because I have chosen not to have children, partly in order to maximize my leisure, reduce my ecological footprint, and lessen the income I need to earn.  (There are other reasons too, of course, such as the fact that I have never had a desire to be a parent.)

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that the best work is the kind that is done with joy, and if we are unable to take any joy in our work, it is a sign that something, somewhere, is fundamentally wrong.

I am a radical unjobber because I don’t believe success in a conventional job is necessarily proof of value, skill, or intelligence.  Often, it’s simply an indication that someone is well-connected, wealthy, status-driven, and/or willing to play the game.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in the value of thrift and frugality (as distinguished from cheapness) as a way of life that brings joy and increased freedom from the need to earn job income.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe it’s possible (even preferable!) to live very well far below the official “poverty line,” and in fact I am doing it right now, as I write this.  What matters is access to resources – food, shelter, clean water, health care, etc.  Money can facilitate this access, but it is ultimately nothing more than a means to an end; it should never be mistaken for real wealth.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe in asking radical questions: the kind that get to the roots of the problems, rather than “hacking away at the branches” (thanks to H.D. Thoreau for that phrase.)

I am a radical unjobber because I believe philosophies and practices such as deep ecology/ecophilosophy, ecopsychology, systems thinking, permaculture, Earth-centered ritual, herbalism, sacred plant medicine, folk magic, religious mysticism, polytheism, animism, feminism, LGBTQ rights, arts & crafts, music & dance, neo-tribal and village living, hunting and gathering, wildcrafting, home-based organic gardens, natural building, the tiny house movement, gift giving, barter, community currencies, and simple living all have an important role to play in building a world outside the job culture.

I am a radical unjobber because I consider indigenous peoples’ sovereignty and land-based ways of life/work to be essential.  In particular, I take inspiration from the Himalayan Ladakhi peoples and the peoples of the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan in thinking about how to repair our ecosystems and build a happier, less job-centered, less money-centered culture.

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that if enough of us can learn skills to support our basic needs, and can learn to do this work in an interdependent way…then together we can figure out ways to support each other using as little money as possible, and outside the bounds of conventional employment.  I believe extended families, villages and tribes should support each other in times of need, instead of clinging to an ideal of “independence” that does not serve our needs.  (The falseood that there is such a thing as a “self-made man” is so widely promoted in the media because it serves the needs of the elite.)

I am a radical unjobber because I believe that if we want to get out of the job culture, we will need to get the job culture out of us.

I am a radical unjobber because when I am asked what I do for a living, I respond with “I work for the land.”  The natural world is my teacher.

A question for you to ponder, dear readers: Are you a radical unjobber?  Why or why not?