YESSS.. This exactly. The link between capitalism and depression is real. Great read! Thanks for introducing me to the terms "responsibilization" and "magical voluntarism."
"For some time now, one of the most successful tactics of the ruling class has been responsibilisation. Each individual member of the subordinate class is encouraged into feeling that their poverty, lack of opportunities, or unemployment, is their fault and their fault alone. Individuals will blame themselves rather than social structures, which in any case they have been induced into believing do not really exist (they are just excuses, called upon by the weak). What Smail calls ‘magical voluntarism’ – the belief that it is within every individual’s power to make themselves whatever they want to be – is the dominant ideology and unofficial religion of contemporary capitalist society, pushed by reality TV ‘experts’ and business gurus as much as by politicians."
Yeah. I mean, the fact that I'm only figuring it out in my mid-forties is evidence of that. Here's hoping the "quiet quitters" of Gen Z can eventually turn the tide.
Yes! Turning 45 this week and feeling all this shit. Do I want to yell at my 17 year old about the dishwasher or just enjoy my last year with him at home? All we have is now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Monica. It feels like you are literally inside my head. It is so nice to have someone who is in my same cohort (I was born in 1978) and same situation (work, kids, divorced, exhausted) put it all into words and express it so right on the money. I'm grateful that you are out there. Keep doing what you are doing. ❤❤❤
Several years ago I read Lee Lipsenthal's book "Enjoy Every Sandwich" (which is a nod to Zevon's quote on Letterman) and it profoundly changed me. I was just tiptoeing into meditation then, and the idea of flipping life and death around to acutely consider both at the end of every day shifted so much. Of course, it's easy to slip back into old habits. My therapist recently gave me an assignment to STOP working on a personal project I love for at least two months ("How about two weeks?!" I begged. We settled on one month firm, to start), just to see how the absence feels. At first I was panicked, like I was getting "behind" (on something that has absolutely no deadline, to be clear). But then ... I felt the space. The ease. I felt the moments return to me, and with them came more intentional choices. It has now been .... six weeks, I think? Maybe more, I don't even know. I haven't picked the project back up yet, but when I do it will feel different.
Your summer pics are lovely. And I rarely ever dust.
I love that your therapist told you that. I haven't written much here lately and, like you, I felt like I was getting behind on something with no deadline. But I am learning to appreciate the quiet pauses between creative bursts. I was reading about the ebb and flow of creativity the other day and found this that I liked. "Creativity and silence are not antagonistic; real creativity comes only out of silence. The creativity that is against silence is nothing but a feverish activity of the mind. When something is born out of your silence, then it has significance."
Your project, when you choose to get back at it, will feel different. It's exciting, isn't it? To see the paths things take when we play with timing and our perceptions.
I do believe that silence is essential to creativity. I run up against the problem of wanting, as a writer, to translate the creative ideas I get while relishing the silence ... but my fingers don't type words nearly as poetically as my brain thinks them, if that makes any sense. There is something lost in the translation—or maybe it's just an inability to translate one form of creativity into another. I feel like I SEE the world's teeniest details in such wondrous ways, and those bursts make me want to share what I see, for the pure joy of it. But (in)sight isn't words, exactly. Gah it's frustrating.
I know exactly what you mean. You and I could probably talk writing process for hours. I'm fascinated by how creative people do what they do. I often try to translate an experience or feeling into words and it just doesn't turn out how I want but there are always different, interesting surprises on the writing journey, even when it isn't working as I'm sure you well know. Question. When you write, who do you have in mind? Do you write with a specific person in mind? An anonymous audience? Women? Yourself? Is it always the same?
Good question! A journalism professor once told me to write with five people in mind. These could be real people (five moms I know who are all in different stages of parenting, for example), but they don’t have to be. For the most recent thing I wrote, I had real people in mind who fit my target descriptors: an atheist, a Christian mom, a 19-year-old agnostic, someone who’s grieving, someone who’s afraid of dying. He said if you’re writing with an audience of more than five people in mind, then you’re writing for no one, and if you’re writing with just one or two people in mind, then what you’re writing is a letter. (21st century translation: an email) I don’t always do this, but I try. When I don’t keep this audience rule in mind, I find my writing rambles and meanders in sort of a self-indulgent, too-earnest way. I write clearer when I have that five-people focus. What about you?
You know, it's changed over the years. I think when I was younger I wrote to impress people. Strangers or friends. I wrote to create an image of me or my life that wasn't always true but what I wanted to be true. Now I think I'm desperate to just tell the truth of things as I know them so does that mean I'm writing for myself? I feel like I write for women in general. Which is more than five people... I do think I have a few women that I love in mind that I think about when I write. There's this woman who I used to write with at ABC News in NYC who I keep in touch with who I really admire and when she emails to tell me she likes something I feel more pleased than if a thousand people liked it. If Rebecca Woolf texts about something I've written I feel the same way. What I have to really work at not doing is passive aggressively writing... Like, writing things about my life that I want specific people to read, do you know what I mean? When I find myself doing that I just have to step back and stop writing.
It sounds like you were writing for yourself before too, just in a different way. We all are. I bet you're subconsciously doing the five-person thing, particularly since you mention specific women who come to mind when you're writing/posting. I don't (think...) I have a penchant for passive-aggressive writing. What I struggle with is wanting to be read/understood/appreciated, which I think is tangentially related to that hustle culture so deeply ingrained in us. Because we're not doing it for nothing, right? Since leaving FB in 2017 I haven't had an easy way to share writing with lots of people. People used to give me lots of feedback on the FB link posts to my writing, but they rarely ever comment on my actual website, so now it often feels like I'm writing into the void. I post fewer things nowadays ... but, embarrassingly, when I do, the OCD-ego-insecure part of my brain fires back up as rapidly as it ever did back in the day, and I find myself obsessively checking site stats and page views, rereading for typos, and on and on. It really wrecks my focus and spikes my anxiety for a day or two. I tell myself that I write mostly for me, but it's just not true, I guess. I suppose some piece of us always wants validation, no matter the tempo or output of our particular hustle. But I'd like to get a handle on it, because it doesn't feel good.
Thank you so much for putting my thoughts into words! I also just gave way to being me. And yes: nobody tells you that you experience more of life by living slower.
Another thing was menopause - framed as the time when a woman is losing all her status unless she is really rich - let me tell you it was a big liberation for me, glorious even! Believe it or not; being labeled as lonely and a loser without a partner in my fifties I enjoy being off the radar of expectations and I am having the time of my life! Your piece is wonderful, thank you!
I hear you. In my mid-forties and finally starting to shed all the expectations of other people and most especially myself. I don't see fifties and alone as lonely or loser-ish at all. Seems to me that's a perfect recipe for freedom and daily adventure. Thanks for reading and sharing!
Sep 9, 2022·edited Sep 10, 2022Liked by Monica Danielle
This is so, so relatable, not just to me but any working woman with kids I am sure. I have leaned out of late a lot. I switch off Slack notifications at 5pm sharp and don’t look at work til the next morning. This week my kids were sick and I forged through for three days then called in sick for the last two. Still to relent on housework because a clean house makes me happy but considering outsourcing some of it. All of these steps free our minds and souls to do all the nourishing stuff we so badly need, that our souls are crying out for; reading, napping, cuddling kids/pets, going for walks or just zoning out. Excellent piece please get it published somewhere so more people can see it.
Clean makes me happy too... The trick is finding the balance of what you can live with that doesn't affect your happiness level. Dirty dishes makes me unhappy so I do them even if I feel frazzled because a clean kitchen really affects my mood. But the effort of mopping makes me angrier than the clean floor makes me happy, so I stopped mopping, if that makes sense? Thanks for reading and sharing!
You and I have talked about this before when I was out of a job and felt like such a loser and you and your words helped me so much. This was so good. Love you ❤️
Oh man... My life has changed so much in the last ten years... left the corporate world, started businesses, real estate, kids grew up, left home... I had been fired more than I cared to admit because nothing I was doing meant anything to me and at my core, I just couldn't do it. I was forced to stop and I felt like such a loser.... then I started working for myself and helping others. At 46 I'm happier than I have ever been, as well as making more money than I ever have.
Rachel Hollis is a snake oil salesman. She's crafted a completely false persona and narrative to make money off the backs of women by selling them her bullshit. She's a fraud. She's an oppressor.... watching her fall from grace has been a bit satisfying for me.
In the end: We have to make ourselves happy. To embrace what that means to us individually because it's not a one size fits all situation. I'm not waking up at 5am and writing about my feelings.. I'm going to sleep until 8am, because those extra three hours of rest will help me to better manage my feelings. I live by keeping my eyes on my own paper. My life is mine and I don't need to compare it and shape it to other lives to be successful... it's taken so long to learn this and to stop being so fucking tired and unhappy all of the time.
Have fun. Travel. Spend time with the people you love the most. The vacuum isn't going anywhere <3
Yes yes yes! If getting up at 5am and working out is your jam, if it really helps you feel ready for the day then go on with your bad self! But don't feel lazy if you like sleeping in! And I must admit, I also enjoyed Rachel getting called out on all her shit but also felt guilty for feeling that way. I just saw she's back to tryna tour with her message, whatever that is.
Her message is: please buy my books and pay $$$$$ to hear me talk so I don't have to get a desk job.
I've never been a religious person, and I wasn't brought up in a religious house. I really, really, really *HATE* when women put unrealistic expectations on other women while slapping a Jesus sticker on it next to the price tag.
Yeah. As much as I don't wanna to critique somebody's - ahem - hustle... Hers is damaging and problematic in so many ways. It's such a sad trip to watch from the sidelines as thousands of women buy into it.
It is a sign of my times that I have been meaning to comment on this blog post since you first posted - and I'm alarmingly late. Firstly, I love your writing so much. I felt like I was in that river with you at the beginning - it was so descriptive and beautiful. Being in nature is the greatest gift of all. Which is why I go cold water swimming every single week, come rain, come shine - it is like a drug. It is fucking cold yes, but also it makes me feel intensely alive. So many things I want to say 'amen' to in this blog. I listened to a podcast this week with Gabor Mate talking (I worship at his altar) and he told the interviewer that at a talk he gave to hundreds of women - one asked what is the best thing a Mom can do to be a good parent and he replied 'to look after herself.' Ironically that is the last thing any Mum I know does... We are all so busy working, managing households, often without a tribe (what tribe? My husband's family are in Oz and mine Ireland and we are in England) and then we are sold some Gwyneth perfection (painted in gold at 50 - you too can look this ace if you drop $$$$$$ on a sauna, spa, and all my products.... oh and a housekeeper/nanny/trainer/dietician/trainer and home gym.... - though I find myself admiring her work ethic which is also ironic) to make us all feel less than. I CANNOT be an amazing friend/mother/daughter/cousin/colleague/writer/counsellor/keeping a perfect home/plushly decorated/my animal walked twice a day and fed/look like GP and have sex swinging from the chandeliers...and still remember to floss. Oh and deal with the menopause. Another gift women get given. Something has got to give. So I gave my fucks. I only have so many fucks to give as the book says. I have struggled all my life to do nothing and feel raging guilt when I am not unloading a washing machine or working out something that needs done in the house when I get 5 mins to sit on my ass. I reject perfection. I reject competing against other women. I reject feeling that I need to do X to be Y. I am enough. *Lies down in a darkened room.*
YESSS.. This exactly. The link between capitalism and depression is real. Great read! Thanks for introducing me to the terms "responsibilization" and "magical voluntarism."
"For some time now, one of the most successful tactics of the ruling class has been responsibilisation. Each individual member of the subordinate class is encouraged into feeling that their poverty, lack of opportunities, or unemployment, is their fault and their fault alone. Individuals will blame themselves rather than social structures, which in any case they have been induced into believing do not really exist (they are just excuses, called upon by the weak). What Smail calls ‘magical voluntarism’ – the belief that it is within every individual’s power to make themselves whatever they want to be – is the dominant ideology and unofficial religion of contemporary capitalist society, pushed by reality TV ‘experts’ and business gurus as much as by politicians."
Yeah. I mean, the fact that I'm only figuring it out in my mid-forties is evidence of that. Here's hoping the "quiet quitters" of Gen Z can eventually turn the tide.
Yes! Turning 45 this week and feeling all this shit. Do I want to yell at my 17 year old about the dishwasher or just enjoy my last year with him at home? All we have is now.
Exactly. Now is good. When they're gone we can have a clean house but it won't feel as nice as their loud, messy bullshit, will it?
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Monica. It feels like you are literally inside my head. It is so nice to have someone who is in my same cohort (I was born in 1978) and same situation (work, kids, divorced, exhausted) put it all into words and express it so right on the money. I'm grateful that you are out there. Keep doing what you are doing. ❤❤❤
A fellow "Xennial!" Thank you so much. The comments from you all are my favorite part of this whole endeavor.
Several years ago I read Lee Lipsenthal's book "Enjoy Every Sandwich" (which is a nod to Zevon's quote on Letterman) and it profoundly changed me. I was just tiptoeing into meditation then, and the idea of flipping life and death around to acutely consider both at the end of every day shifted so much. Of course, it's easy to slip back into old habits. My therapist recently gave me an assignment to STOP working on a personal project I love for at least two months ("How about two weeks?!" I begged. We settled on one month firm, to start), just to see how the absence feels. At first I was panicked, like I was getting "behind" (on something that has absolutely no deadline, to be clear). But then ... I felt the space. The ease. I felt the moments return to me, and with them came more intentional choices. It has now been .... six weeks, I think? Maybe more, I don't even know. I haven't picked the project back up yet, but when I do it will feel different.
Your summer pics are lovely. And I rarely ever dust.
Dusting is for suckers!
I love that your therapist told you that. I haven't written much here lately and, like you, I felt like I was getting behind on something with no deadline. But I am learning to appreciate the quiet pauses between creative bursts. I was reading about the ebb and flow of creativity the other day and found this that I liked. "Creativity and silence are not antagonistic; real creativity comes only out of silence. The creativity that is against silence is nothing but a feverish activity of the mind. When something is born out of your silence, then it has significance."
Your project, when you choose to get back at it, will feel different. It's exciting, isn't it? To see the paths things take when we play with timing and our perceptions.
I do believe that silence is essential to creativity. I run up against the problem of wanting, as a writer, to translate the creative ideas I get while relishing the silence ... but my fingers don't type words nearly as poetically as my brain thinks them, if that makes any sense. There is something lost in the translation—or maybe it's just an inability to translate one form of creativity into another. I feel like I SEE the world's teeniest details in such wondrous ways, and those bursts make me want to share what I see, for the pure joy of it. But (in)sight isn't words, exactly. Gah it's frustrating.
I know exactly what you mean. You and I could probably talk writing process for hours. I'm fascinated by how creative people do what they do. I often try to translate an experience or feeling into words and it just doesn't turn out how I want but there are always different, interesting surprises on the writing journey, even when it isn't working as I'm sure you well know. Question. When you write, who do you have in mind? Do you write with a specific person in mind? An anonymous audience? Women? Yourself? Is it always the same?
Good question! A journalism professor once told me to write with five people in mind. These could be real people (five moms I know who are all in different stages of parenting, for example), but they don’t have to be. For the most recent thing I wrote, I had real people in mind who fit my target descriptors: an atheist, a Christian mom, a 19-year-old agnostic, someone who’s grieving, someone who’s afraid of dying. He said if you’re writing with an audience of more than five people in mind, then you’re writing for no one, and if you’re writing with just one or two people in mind, then what you’re writing is a letter. (21st century translation: an email) I don’t always do this, but I try. When I don’t keep this audience rule in mind, I find my writing rambles and meanders in sort of a self-indulgent, too-earnest way. I write clearer when I have that five-people focus. What about you?
You know, it's changed over the years. I think when I was younger I wrote to impress people. Strangers or friends. I wrote to create an image of me or my life that wasn't always true but what I wanted to be true. Now I think I'm desperate to just tell the truth of things as I know them so does that mean I'm writing for myself? I feel like I write for women in general. Which is more than five people... I do think I have a few women that I love in mind that I think about when I write. There's this woman who I used to write with at ABC News in NYC who I keep in touch with who I really admire and when she emails to tell me she likes something I feel more pleased than if a thousand people liked it. If Rebecca Woolf texts about something I've written I feel the same way. What I have to really work at not doing is passive aggressively writing... Like, writing things about my life that I want specific people to read, do you know what I mean? When I find myself doing that I just have to step back and stop writing.
It sounds like you were writing for yourself before too, just in a different way. We all are. I bet you're subconsciously doing the five-person thing, particularly since you mention specific women who come to mind when you're writing/posting. I don't (think...) I have a penchant for passive-aggressive writing. What I struggle with is wanting to be read/understood/appreciated, which I think is tangentially related to that hustle culture so deeply ingrained in us. Because we're not doing it for nothing, right? Since leaving FB in 2017 I haven't had an easy way to share writing with lots of people. People used to give me lots of feedback on the FB link posts to my writing, but they rarely ever comment on my actual website, so now it often feels like I'm writing into the void. I post fewer things nowadays ... but, embarrassingly, when I do, the OCD-ego-insecure part of my brain fires back up as rapidly as it ever did back in the day, and I find myself obsessively checking site stats and page views, rereading for typos, and on and on. It really wrecks my focus and spikes my anxiety for a day or two. I tell myself that I write mostly for me, but it's just not true, I guess. I suppose some piece of us always wants validation, no matter the tempo or output of our particular hustle. But I'd like to get a handle on it, because it doesn't feel good.
Gah. So much yes. This was a fun float down the river.
Thanks for floating with me!
Thank you so much for putting my thoughts into words! I also just gave way to being me. And yes: nobody tells you that you experience more of life by living slower.
Another thing was menopause - framed as the time when a woman is losing all her status unless she is really rich - let me tell you it was a big liberation for me, glorious even! Believe it or not; being labeled as lonely and a loser without a partner in my fifties I enjoy being off the radar of expectations and I am having the time of my life! Your piece is wonderful, thank you!
I hear you. In my mid-forties and finally starting to shed all the expectations of other people and most especially myself. I don't see fifties and alone as lonely or loser-ish at all. Seems to me that's a perfect recipe for freedom and daily adventure. Thanks for reading and sharing!
This is so, so relatable, not just to me but any working woman with kids I am sure. I have leaned out of late a lot. I switch off Slack notifications at 5pm sharp and don’t look at work til the next morning. This week my kids were sick and I forged through for three days then called in sick for the last two. Still to relent on housework because a clean house makes me happy but considering outsourcing some of it. All of these steps free our minds and souls to do all the nourishing stuff we so badly need, that our souls are crying out for; reading, napping, cuddling kids/pets, going for walks or just zoning out. Excellent piece please get it published somewhere so more people can see it.
Clean makes me happy too... The trick is finding the balance of what you can live with that doesn't affect your happiness level. Dirty dishes makes me unhappy so I do them even if I feel frazzled because a clean kitchen really affects my mood. But the effort of mopping makes me angrier than the clean floor makes me happy, so I stopped mopping, if that makes sense? Thanks for reading and sharing!
You and I have talked about this before when I was out of a job and felt like such a loser and you and your words helped me so much. This was so good. Love you ❤️
Hi friend! I love you!
Oh man... My life has changed so much in the last ten years... left the corporate world, started businesses, real estate, kids grew up, left home... I had been fired more than I cared to admit because nothing I was doing meant anything to me and at my core, I just couldn't do it. I was forced to stop and I felt like such a loser.... then I started working for myself and helping others. At 46 I'm happier than I have ever been, as well as making more money than I ever have.
Rachel Hollis is a snake oil salesman. She's crafted a completely false persona and narrative to make money off the backs of women by selling them her bullshit. She's a fraud. She's an oppressor.... watching her fall from grace has been a bit satisfying for me.
In the end: We have to make ourselves happy. To embrace what that means to us individually because it's not a one size fits all situation. I'm not waking up at 5am and writing about my feelings.. I'm going to sleep until 8am, because those extra three hours of rest will help me to better manage my feelings. I live by keeping my eyes on my own paper. My life is mine and I don't need to compare it and shape it to other lives to be successful... it's taken so long to learn this and to stop being so fucking tired and unhappy all of the time.
Have fun. Travel. Spend time with the people you love the most. The vacuum isn't going anywhere <3
Thanks, Monica.
Yes yes yes! If getting up at 5am and working out is your jam, if it really helps you feel ready for the day then go on with your bad self! But don't feel lazy if you like sleeping in! And I must admit, I also enjoyed Rachel getting called out on all her shit but also felt guilty for feeling that way. I just saw she's back to tryna tour with her message, whatever that is.
Her message is: please buy my books and pay $$$$$ to hear me talk so I don't have to get a desk job.
I've never been a religious person, and I wasn't brought up in a religious house. I really, really, really *HATE* when women put unrealistic expectations on other women while slapping a Jesus sticker on it next to the price tag.
Girl, tell the truth.
**chuckling**
Yeah. As much as I don't wanna to critique somebody's - ahem - hustle... Hers is damaging and problematic in so many ways. It's such a sad trip to watch from the sidelines as thousands of women buy into it.
It really is. It makes me sad for them and it makes me sad for her. It's just yucky.
It is a sign of my times that I have been meaning to comment on this blog post since you first posted - and I'm alarmingly late. Firstly, I love your writing so much. I felt like I was in that river with you at the beginning - it was so descriptive and beautiful. Being in nature is the greatest gift of all. Which is why I go cold water swimming every single week, come rain, come shine - it is like a drug. It is fucking cold yes, but also it makes me feel intensely alive. So many things I want to say 'amen' to in this blog. I listened to a podcast this week with Gabor Mate talking (I worship at his altar) and he told the interviewer that at a talk he gave to hundreds of women - one asked what is the best thing a Mom can do to be a good parent and he replied 'to look after herself.' Ironically that is the last thing any Mum I know does... We are all so busy working, managing households, often without a tribe (what tribe? My husband's family are in Oz and mine Ireland and we are in England) and then we are sold some Gwyneth perfection (painted in gold at 50 - you too can look this ace if you drop $$$$$$ on a sauna, spa, and all my products.... oh and a housekeeper/nanny/trainer/dietician/trainer and home gym.... - though I find myself admiring her work ethic which is also ironic) to make us all feel less than. I CANNOT be an amazing friend/mother/daughter/cousin/colleague/writer/counsellor/keeping a perfect home/plushly decorated/my animal walked twice a day and fed/look like GP and have sex swinging from the chandeliers...and still remember to floss. Oh and deal with the menopause. Another gift women get given. Something has got to give. So I gave my fucks. I only have so many fucks to give as the book says. I have struggled all my life to do nothing and feel raging guilt when I am not unloading a washing machine or working out something that needs done in the house when I get 5 mins to sit on my ass. I reject perfection. I reject competing against other women. I reject feeling that I need to do X to be Y. I am enough. *Lies down in a darkened room.*
I wish we lived closer than an Atlantic ocean away from each other, dearest online friend. All the love.
Ah, me too x