I hate the advice to “do what you love.” Capitalism doesn’t allow for everybody to do what we love because much of what we love to do is not profitable enough in a system built around money. There’s a reason teachers make a fraction of what a corporate lawyer makes. It’s not because corporate lawyers work “harder” either. It has everything to do with which profession produces or protects profit most.
Here’s the catch: We actually SHOULD be able to do what we love, no matter if it means working on cars or teaching young people. We SHOULD be able to do what we love AND not have what we love measured the by the bogus metrics of what is profitable and what is not. We SHOULD be able to do what we love AND not have to compromise it for enough money to live, especially when those compromises suck the life from our passion.
How many artists can’t live because assholes don’t think producing art is work? The same people love to consume art at every corner, every movie, every song, every car, every piece of furniture, clothes or picture, all of it came from the creative labor of a person’s body and mind. It’s amazing how some things are only art when they are consumable on a scale that’s profitable (movies/music), and how other things cease to be art when they become consumable — the art and the artist disappear into the product.
Art is just one example. The point is:
In order to “do what you love,” what you love to do has to be something capitalism can love too. And that shouldn’t be our reality. But it is. And without that context “do what you love” is the most inane and inconsiderate advice anybody can give. If we are going to have a conversation about doing what we love, we have to have conversations about having livable wages, affordable housing, access to food and healthcare, and maybe we should talk about how fucked up capitalism is first.
andulkaphoto
titsay
stormborns
germansingergirl
2087
yousharknotpass
