Capitalism is the Reason You’re Tired
Here’s how to fight back
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Yo… are you tired?
I bet you fucking are.
I am.
It’s tiring isn’t it, this nonsense?
And it’s meant to be.
The purpose of capitalism, this fucked up rapacious system we’ve found ourselves in, is to make us — us individuals — tired.
Why? Because tired people = more profit.
Tired people buy shit to stop being tired.
Tired people consume to try to destress.
Tired people are too tired to come together to rise up against the system.
When we’re tired, capitalism wins.
And boy is it winning now.
But, there are some things we can do to fight back (while yawning, admittedly).
Here are three ways to defeat the system that’s hellbent on wearing you down.
Create more than you consume
Consumption is the lifeblood of capitalism.
We buy, we engage, we subscribe, we watch. And capitalism’s bottom line gets fatter and fatter.
There is another way.
We aren’t meant to be creatures of pure consumption.
We aren’t brains in vats hooked up to pleasure machines (well, probably not).
We are living, breathing, making creatures.
We are born to move, to run, to dance, to sing, to shout, to build, to tell stories.
And the more we cultivate this side of our being, the less concerned we become with consumption.
When you spend your time painting or playing or pottering about, you naturally have less time to scroll and to click and to purchase.
But fuck me, is it easier said than done.
Our entire social and economic structure is geared towards the latter, and actively away from the former.
You are literally fighting the tide with every flick of the paintbrush, every strum of the guitar.
But you know, you know deep in yourself, that when you do those things, no matter how hard they are, they bring with them a reward all of themselves.
There is a flow yet a stillness, a spark yet a dulling. 10s and 0s. Rather than the flat 5s of consumption.
So today, when you’re about to turn on the TV or pick up the phone, just try… please just try… to take a beat. And think, is there something you could do to create instead?
You don’t have to win that battle all the time, or even most of the time. Just some of the time. And the balance will begin to shift.
Every word you write, every note you sing, is a penny out of the pocket of capitalism.
I think that was line The Police cut from the song.
Prioritise health over wealth
We are a profoundly sick society.
Our distinctly capitalism-induced ailments, afflictions of modernity, number into the thousands.
Our diet is a diet of capitalism. Our medicine is a medicine of capitalism.
Cheap, quick, easy. But wrong.
Listen, I’m not disparaging western medicine — I’m not a hippy alternative medicine shagger — I love science. The response to COVID, for example, has been nothing short of astounding.
But we can’t deny that the industry around medicine exists for profit first. And that means it doesn’t primarily exist to make us better. It makes us better, only if it makes economic sense.
Likewise, the food industry is not made for us to live healthy lives. It’s meant to provide us with the cheapest cost sustenance, at a profit, as is viable and acceptable.
And so we’re filled with chemicals and calories and shite.
And little nutrition.
Don’t even start me on mental health.
If the primary goal of capitalism is profit, can we really be surprised that also means it will be pursued, explicitly, at the expense of degrading our mental state?
If the choice is between happiness and profit, profit wins. If the choice is between nutrition and profit, profit wins. If the choice is between cure and profit… yep, you guessed it.
But as individuals, we can make a choice.
Much like the choice to create, we can choose to fight the profit imperative in health.
Eat as healthily as you can, move about a bit, meditate.
It’s not rocket science, and it won’t fix everything. But it’s a good start.
Embrace community over isolation
The greatest trick that capitalism has pulled is to convince us we are all individuals and nothing more.
That we are worlds of one, that only we exist.
Solipsistic masturbation fantasies of our own egos.
We aren’t alone. You know, we’re living in a society, as the great philosopher George Constanza once said.
And particularly after the year we’ve all had, it’s time to embrace that.
Embrace the pull of group congregation.
Embrace the crowds and people and others.
Embrace each other (* from Monday 17th May, if in the UK, as in accordance with government guidelines*).
Community is our best way to dilute the deleterious effects that capitalism has on us.
The coming together in a shared goal or experience, that is the one thing that capitalism can’t make a profit on.
Oh yes it tries, and it will try harder than ever this summer, but there will always remain a drip, a loss margin of unaccounted for communitas, that can’t be packaged up and sold via Ticketmaster.
The chatting breeze at the park, the cup of tea in your flat, the natter at the post office.
Focus on those human aspects, not the pay-to-play parts of them, but the human fucking contact.
Focus on that this summer, please.
And together, and I really mean together, we’ll beat this fucking bullshit thing.
And maybe, just maybe, one day in the future, you’ll wake up and feel refreshed.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Jackson Rawlings writes about politics and philosophy and has just about had enough of this capitalism nonsense thank you very much.
