Obviously, these things require effort. These things frequently require financial outlay. God knows, I have spent kind of a lot of money, proportionately, at the delightful yarn store that opened up dangerously close to my house. Obviously, getting supplies to make stuff typically requires money, and the physical ability to do so; finding the time to write stuff requires time and writing materials; consuming media critically and thoughtfully requires the emotional energy to engage meaningfully with that media. I am very aware that there are barriers to entry, both quantitative ones like money and time, and qualitative ones, like having the emotional and mental energy, and the absence of physical or emotional pain, to consume media thoughtfully.

I’m not making a moral judgement here. I have spent a lot of time without one of the several resources mentioned above for various things; I read maybe three or four books per year for pleasure for several years after finishing college and entering the workforce (at Gap, Incorporated as a sales associate, for $10/hour, and an OSHA-violating car wash, for minimum wage and tips) because I simply lacked the emotional energy to do so. And really, I only started prioritizing it as I now do because I noticed that reading books made me feel better: they provided some relief from the mental health issues with which I continue to struggle, and, as someone who is extremely prone to defining my self by the stuff I do, they reinforced a key aspect of my identity that was forged in childhood.

Basically, I started reading for pleasure again for medicinal purposes, is what I’m saying, which I feel does something to the barrier to entry for me personally: because I had long identified myself as “a reader,” it was easier for me to want to return to that particular hobby. I don’t think my experiences there are universal, but maybe they rhyme.

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In the chapter of Capitalist Realism I’m discussing here (and really it’s just the first couple of pages of that chapter), Fisher quotes Deleuze’s famed “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” He cites Deleuze’s delineation of the difference between societies of discipline and societies of control, with the intention, of course, of demonstrating that we currently live in a society of control, in which we police ourselves with never-ending “training” or “education” that really only serves to move the bar ever-farther along. I’m reminded of Hugo William’s delightful description of deadlines: “the light under the door that isn’t there when you open it, only another door, another deadline.” Such is life in the society of control.

But in that same essay, Deleuze suggests that elements of liberation and oppression vie with one another in any kind of system, and that’s the part that I want to talk about.

I’m going to go out on a limb here: in spite of all my involvement with a variety of crafts over the years, to say nothing of my semi-mystical relationship with words, these things alone cannot cause the kind of change that, at this point, is not only desirable but absolutely necessary. We’ve got ten years on a good day, and no amount of craftivism or emphasis on the value of the humanities is going to turn that around on its own. I wish they could.

But if these things in and of themselves will not save us, what will? Despite the social emphasis — discussed by Fisher, by Deleuze, by a bunch of conservative dickbags as well — on kicking responsibility down the road, it’s ultimately going to be us who save us. We have to do it ourselves, however that can be made to happen.

The various forces — so nebulous that they seem to exist purely in the realm of the spirit, manifesting on the physical plane through bad bosses and rising costs of living — that control and contort our lives in myriad ways are invested in us not doing our best unless it is to their benefit. It’s an old saw, but they want us sick, sad and tired. They are invested in throttling the sources of fulfillment in our lives, and roping us into Fisher’s matrix so thoroughly we cannot see outside of it.

So I’m saying it again: if it is within your power, do something. Do something without an eye to profit, because it makes you happy, and do it on purpose. I’m not talking about political activity, though that is of course necessary. I’m talking about doing things that are for personal fulfillment alone. I’m talking about doing this because political burnout, activism burnout, and just regular old burnout like mom and dad used to get, mean that we cannot be as sharp or as resilient as we need to be. And as much as we are told to, my sense is that many of us do not have the means to reduce stress in our lives. Further, “self-care” as commonly constructed has some real issues (and many of the same barriers to entry I mention here, if not more), to say nothing of the way the entire movement, such as it is, offloads responsibility from a society that is crushing us to the limited means of individuals.