i do not want to work pt2 (or an essay on happiness )
I am so sick of the toxic labor culture that forces me to work in every country that I go to. And the problem itself is not in the work but in the scarcity of resources that I am allowed to have access to. I want to feel secure around my basic needs of shelter and food. That need entails not just renting a place and being able to afford food, but owning a place knowing nobody can take it away from me, and having a source of food that I know will not go extinct in the following years to come. And I sincerely believe that is just the bare minimum, the basis.
But I also want to exceed that threshhold cuz I want to create and experience joy in my life without fear that it happens at expense of others or my own safety. But I cannot experience joy, the real and content joy, cause I do not even have the basics. I can only experience the fasad, the pretended happy state, I can only LARP (role play) my happines.
At first after realising what kind of world we all live in I was thinking how do I transform my mentality from being a good slave to being great at using the exploaitor. Cause I thought that's where the answer is. But now I realised that the problem is not gonna be solved this way. In the existing system you can never overplay the masters.
That attempt at overplaying them very often ends up with big painful failures.
Due to many structural ways in which we experience oppression I often met with people who are not able to have any personal life. But another problem with them was that due to their lack of resources and time they were not able to commit to anyone in relationships. And sometimes I even felt it myself. It is simply the moment when you realise that you cannot bring anything to the table. Having those people around at first made me very judgemental but then I changed my perspective on it cause started to notice the same traits in myself. These traits simply prevented me and them from building or becoming a part of community that could deliver a safer and more contentfull version of life.
Now, as I endure my lowest lows during this very difficult period of my life, instead of just trying to hack the system and going with it, I realised I can come to some useful conclusions and switch my approach.
The current way of life on earth worships and craves happiness as the ultimate state of being.
Everything we do or experience in life economically or spiritually is devoted to achieving this one way of being which we call happiness. This one feeling is what occupies us everyday when we create or consume anything. We are kinda taught to seek this since we are kids.
The actual state of Happiness is always associated with material resources (for the rich) and immaterial (for the poor), of course if we ask what happiness means for those people we might find different answers.
Really often I heard from my friends that happiness is not the main goal of their live, but I was always puzzled by that and couldn't completely agree. But I think here I finally stumbled upon the understanding of it.
Just recently scientists came pretty firm when labelling state of happiness as an actual mental disorder. I can be wrong and they too. But I very much wanted to take a deeper philosophical or thought provoking look at that statement.
Our brains were developed when the crazy shit has been happening on the planet, we are wired to deal with catastrophes and survive them. We are much more resilient than we can imagine.
but still are we ready for this new challenge of structural societal oppression that is something new and doesn't really act like some volcano explosion?
And from that I derive a couple of very deep and personally important things. First of all it’s not normal or natural to feel happy all the time and in general about your life, that’s not what was coded into our organisms by nature in any way. But also that flips the coin making the unhappy as the actual normal. We are wired to chase our needs being met, but enduring the feeling of happiness in a long run either means we are dellusional or earth was turned into the paradise. I think it's pretty clear that the second statement is false.
And omg how much sense that makes in the current world, not just in the current but in the world in general since the beginning of times. First it was insane nature disasters, now we tried to conquer nature, but it made it even worse.
This statement though is not here to say that it is not right to have feelings of joy and excitement and etc. What I mean by happy here is a continous state of being happy with how things are without any critical perspective.
That seems like an actual madness on this planet.
The happy are the problem.
Of course I mean the 'ignorant-blind-naive' happy and the 'evil' happy. The change and the actuall better times for everyone come from the bottom, from the unhappy, from the sick.
From those who regret and critically think.
From those who fight their way through survival.
The refusal to seek happiness in the advertised form, and instead to look for a deepeer feeling of content and actual accomplishment, is the answer.
Not settling for what is offered currently but rather being in a struggle knowing that the struggle is real and goes a long way to actually achieve something. That's the way to live a much more meaningful existence.
Refusing the chemical capitalistic constructed happines, which just means consuming and having personal situation feel good. Refusing to engage into the flat and empty concept of that.
And another big mismatch that happens when we talk or discuss the changes and the happiness happens when we confuse the happiness that we are all advertised and offered with just the basic human needs being met.
I will not let state of happy distract me from the real actual changes that need to happen in my life and in the world. For quite a while I believed that distraction and disengagement are the answers to my struggles. I was trying to trick the system and amass resources so that I can exist unbothered by it and help other people also. It was very individualistic approach to just achieving my personal fake happiness first, it skiped over the need of making actual structural change in the society on this planet.
But getting rid of that whole happiness idea helps to experience life how it is. Stoping avoidance of struggles might actually be the answer to not only making the real change but also to establishing the path to a joy and content. Cause only when you personally feel and experience the struggle only then you realise how much the change is needed and how deeply structural that change should be. That it is not just some leftist vibe, these are real lives of people.
When writing this I started feeling really lost in all those words and concepts. I wanted to say few very interesting and important to me personally things, but felt like I ended up explaining a lot of stuff. I also felt very overwhelmed. the thoughts of not wanting to engage with any of these fights made me comeback to the relevance of complit exit from this offered reality.
When I stopped lying to myself that life is great and happiness is there waiting for me, I realised that idea of willingfull death always labelled as the sickest might also be the most logical and reasonable thing to do for some people.
My experience with suicidal ideation and also what I know from other people tells me that it is in fact overwhelming and hard for such people. and therefore lawfull eutanasia is the answer.
But on the other hand this text and the ideas here wouldn't have appeared if I didn't try to answer the ultimate question of 'what is all this struggle for' and the answer for the first time being: no I am not doing it to achieve the same state of happines that the people with resources have right now. I am not chasing happines. happines is not the motivation that fuels me. And offerring this idea of constriucted happines as a motivation to some other people with suicidal thinking is also wrong. saying: "oh please bare with us cuz it will pass and you will feel distracted again". for the first time it felt like a wrong answer and so I went to seek a different idea, a different response.
And here it is for myself and those people: bare with us cause it will get worse and we will go through hell!
But because we are actually the ones who feel it for real, who are more in tact with the reality, therefore we have more chances of actually changing it and bringing the world and ourselves closer to the real, honest joy. not the distracted blinded version of it, but to the actuall feeling of content with how we exist with each oter and with the planet. but before that we bleed and we struggle and we cry and scream, we are psychotic, we are ugly, we are what pushed aside and thrown away, simply cause neurotipical people want to preserve the status quo, they want things not to change, when in fact it is impossible. they are being dellusional and us screaming from pain of displacemnt and war and loss and many other things that are constantly brought upon us without any consent, is the actual true reality of things.
We will do it together sticking up through the war of this.
In a way I offer you to accept the bdsm reality that we live in and change the focus from 'this is happening to me' to I choose it to be happening to me because I want to endulge into the struggle and fight that struggle off, put the boundaries back in place where they supposed to be. cause that will give birth to a new more content reality that is bigger than just my life's pain and feelings.
But if you know that you are not capable and that you do not want any of it, I want to reserve the right for you to completely disengage from it. And that makes me wanna defend yours and mine right to die.
The only reason why being suicidal is labelled as a disease is because it is not beneficial to the current system. In fact even when the euthanasia is legalised in some countries it only exists as a luxurios procedure for those who are able to pay for it. That is basically a privilige for those who need it much less than 90% of people on this planet that constantly endure pain and struggle.
By saying the above I am not taking away or trying to disctract you from your choices.
I am just trying to bring more clearense into this. I want to reserve and actually say that it is an actual way you can go. The choice and control is yours here. And it is completely justified. In the current global context what you body experinces and gives you is most likely the reality of things.
New info that also just came in is that depression is not a simple chemical thing. But I think we always knew it, otherwise why would the therapy which doesn't alter your brain with chemicals but rather works on a psyche level of it, actully helps to treat the depression. Because the sum of the collective actions of the network of neurons is much more powerfull than the chemical disfynction of them separately (not in all cases, I am not an expert on depression, I just wanted to add an example). The consience is above the material and chemical reality of our brains in many instances.
I know there might be some really rich priviliged person that has suicidal thoughts without having to actually endure the struggles of this world. So I feel it is important to note the following.
All these thoughts here are directed at the people who are very much consious about the current world and about their own psyche, for those who already are very deep into therapy and tried many different things but it didn't erase their suicidality completely because their life circumstances continue to push it in their brains. Maybe it will also be helpful to some other folks, but I feel like you shouldn't come to what I wrote here if you don't really understand what's wrong with this world.
I do not think my suicidal ideation will go away while we have the world the way it is now. And I don't think your frustration should either.
Yes I do not want to work for the happiness that is offered to me by colonising patriarchy. I want to create and produce things that benefit community of people that are close to me and sustaining me.
I want to create and produce and endure struggles for the promise of real honest joy and content with how I and humanity on this planet are living.
I refuse to be the source of cappitalistic happiness, I refuse to benefit corporations and their masters.
I want to benefit my chosen family, my friends, the groups that are in need, the community that provides for me.
Once upon a time in the past I refused to pretend that I believe in God and that I like and sexually desire people in the way I don't, I refused to do it just in exchange of my basic needs being met. And now I do not have them met. Neither did I achieve the joy and content. But what has changed is I am on my way to it.
In that past moment where I was pretending and trying to trick the system so it provides me with the resources, I was more distracted than right now. I knew less about the realities of the world. Therefore I was much more in danger than right now. My decision to break up with my bloodline and my heritage was pivotal.
My siblings didn't make that choice and yet they definetly have their basic needs in a more secure situation, but I am sure they are not even close to feeling content or undersatnding the realities around them. They are in the fake (even though it feels very real for them) version of happiness, the constructed colonised capitalistic patriarchal... you name the words. even when it proides you with those basics, the are still incomplete and the happiness you feel is totally a mental disorder.
Do not get fooled by your current state of affairs, most likely if you feel happy right now it is because you are disctracted from the real circumstances of your life, how you are just one incident away from losing it all and struggling for food and shelter. And even if you are not then you probably totally distracted from how your community and the world around you is in ruins. And I am not offering you the appocalitic thinking, what I am asking for is to be honest and act according to what is really happening. Instead of that fake happines try to look for more content and joyfull version of being.
Don't become a victim of system believing that your current momentary feeling is the goal. Look for struggle to overcome it and make the world an actual liveable and meaningful place to be. I am asking this from myself in the first place of course.