#I don't regret dropping out of PhD because I am alive to look back at it and therefore I made the right decisions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mctreeleth · 2 years

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Something something commodification of hobbies resulting in alienated leisure as parallel to alienated labour... disconnect from “product” in both instances... alienated from leisure activities through need to commodify under rules of post-Fordist neoliberal capitalist hustle culture... if the goal is to enjoy the effort, putting a price on that effort transforms said effort into labour/done for profit rather than enjoyment, and so the individual is alienated from their goal of enjoyment in service of the new capitalism, in much the same way that a worker is alienated from their labour under Fordist capitalism... something something “the market” as boss to self-employed individuals... something something the algorithm is more fickle than the man in head office and you don’t even have a union....

#I don't regret dropping out of PhD because I am alive to look back at it and therefore I made the right decisions #because the wrong decision would have been pushing on even though it was so so so bad for my mental health that I wouldn't be here #but I spent a good few years railing against post-Fordist capitalism and then went and got myself a very Fordist factory job #and I am much happier doing that than I think I would be trying to commodify the activities that I do for leisure #I put in my 38 hours of time and yes someone else is making money off of it #however #every time I see a reel on instagram that is a small business literally dancing so that the algorithm will favour it #I see the parallels between all these people who ''are their own bosses'' and me who has an actual boss #both of us subject to the whims of *some other thing*#but my creative output is not mired in capitalism's tendrils #I am connected wholly to the things I create #it is for me it is not for ''the market''#I don't need to care that what I do at work is an atomised part of some larger thing when I can make a coat start to finish after work #but somethings you have a thought and realise you gave up the chance to just write this sort of stuff properly for the rest of your life #like okay yes that would have also made me utterly utterly miserable #and maybe I would not have had this particular realisation were I not literally at a factory job right now #but it was nice to have my thoughts validated by people who knew their shit

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