"Our biggest problems seem to be meant to interrupt life and awaken us to our total capacity...You think the body is ill when it becomes troublesome, and you fail to realize that it is trying to dream, to communicate messages and create movements beyond your expectations."
-- Arnold Mindell, The Shaman's Body
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
working class
Ha. This post will begin by illustrating its own point. I want to say something about what gets discarded, lost, disregarded in the working life. And my words are going to be incomplete, insubstantial, hurried, because I have to be at work in 45 minutes. I want to contemplate an idea from a conversation years ago: that the phrase "working class" is really much more descriptive than we mean for it to be. It doesn't just refer to those who work for a living (as compared to what: those who coerce others to work? those who live off the results of others' labor?). It doesn't just identify an income or social-status level. It describes, at risk of cliche yes, an existential state. We are working class because work is, more or less, who we are. Who we become, after a certain progression of time and struggle. Because work becomes our state of being, as human beings. Because work becomes something fundamental about our personalities, and the way we see the world. Not about making money. Not just about holding down a position. Certainly not about offering a gift, an insight, or even a service. Not punching the clock day in and day out, although that comes a little closer to the point. The point, to me, is found in the collection of less-tangible phrases in which English makes use of the verb itself: working on it. working it out. worked up. working my way to something. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as undendingly hopeful, is this: we the workers are forever on our way somewhere. En route. In progress. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as deeply sad, is this: we may very well never get there.
Never get there, unless a number of things happen: unless more states, and this nation's government, sees fit, sees clear, learns somehow to see its human citizens, in order to pass more living-wage laws. Unless we, as communities, learn to share, barter, cooperate more, and so relieve our mutual burden of proof for the precious time we carry and care for in this life. Unless we, as individuals, learn to release, accept, and yes reach for a lighter and more liberated way of walking on the earth. Fewer needs, or - better yet - more clearly focused needs, which can be met within the fragile boundaries of a worker's income.
The bigger picture's been out of reach for me, most of this life. A very practical fact I believe I share with many workers who are too tired/too preoccupied/too unable to get off work to participate more in the democratic process. The personal level's one I've sincerely engaged with for a number of years now. More sincerely at some times than at others: I've always lived below what this country calls 'the poverty level' of income (full disclosure: I think one year of my life, with 2 jobs and no breaks in employment, I reported just over $15,000). Many years I've lived in the 4-digit realm. And many years, though not all, this was with the specific intent of keeping my freedom for things more important. But right now I'm working 6 days a week, simply because the opportunity presents itself. And it's nice to have opportunities after you don't have them for a while. It's nice to imagine, at least, that you're working your way up out of survival mode. But this is going to have to change soon, because winter doesn't support the gypsy circuit that well. And I hope that when it changes, I find it possible to move closer to the second type of progress I mentioned a minute ago: sharing. There are already a few of us sidling toward the barter system. There are many of us, really, cooperating in ways that we could augment with just a little further time and intention. And there are such lovely models already at work out there in the world, with which I would like to connect my energies: local currencies, hour banks, work parties, volunteer trades. All of them very tangible, very possible realities in which we could make work work for us all, not just for a few at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe one of these days real soon I'll work out my part.
Never get there, unless a number of things happen: unless more states, and this nation's government, sees fit, sees clear, learns somehow to see its human citizens, in order to pass more living-wage laws. Unless we, as communities, learn to share, barter, cooperate more, and so relieve our mutual burden of proof for the precious time we carry and care for in this life. Unless we, as individuals, learn to release, accept, and yes reach for a lighter and more liberated way of walking on the earth. Fewer needs, or - better yet - more clearly focused needs, which can be met within the fragile boundaries of a worker's income.
The bigger picture's been out of reach for me, most of this life. A very practical fact I believe I share with many workers who are too tired/too preoccupied/too unable to get off work to participate more in the democratic process. The personal level's one I've sincerely engaged with for a number of years now. More sincerely at some times than at others: I've always lived below what this country calls 'the poverty level' of income (full disclosure: I think one year of my life, with 2 jobs and no breaks in employment, I reported just over $15,000). Many years I've lived in the 4-digit realm. And many years, though not all, this was with the specific intent of keeping my freedom for things more important. But right now I'm working 6 days a week, simply because the opportunity presents itself. And it's nice to have opportunities after you don't have them for a while. It's nice to imagine, at least, that you're working your way up out of survival mode. But this is going to have to change soon, because winter doesn't support the gypsy circuit that well. And I hope that when it changes, I find it possible to move closer to the second type of progress I mentioned a minute ago: sharing. There are already a few of us sidling toward the barter system. There are many of us, really, cooperating in ways that we could augment with just a little further time and intention. And there are such lovely models already at work out there in the world, with which I would like to connect my energies: local currencies, hour banks, work parties, volunteer trades. All of them very tangible, very possible realities in which we could make work work for us all, not just for a few at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe one of these days real soon I'll work out my part.
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