There is a real psychic violence in a life arranged around repetition, pressure, inherited ideals, and the gap between what sustains the system and what sustains the soul.
The system stays alive by teaching us to repress whatever exceeds productivity. Push, keep your head down, internalize the pace, feel guilty for not achieving, call it normal. Humans were never meant to have such choice and restriction at the same time.
No wonder rest so often fails to restore. Rest itself has been colonized by the logic of optimization and scarcity. Even spaces like Substack can become miniature versions of the same pressure economy.
I go through the same paralysing indecision whenever I have a day 'off'. Whatever I do, I feel like I've shut the door on something equally important.
We have to get out of the productivity mindset. It’s so difficult.
Thanks for the read and thanks for sharing! Although I’d prefer it weren’t the case, but it helps to hear I’m not the only one.
Really relatable read.
There is a real psychic violence in a life arranged around repetition, pressure, inherited ideals, and the gap between what sustains the system and what sustains the soul.
The system stays alive by teaching us to repress whatever exceeds productivity. Push, keep your head down, internalize the pace, feel guilty for not achieving, call it normal. Humans were never meant to have such choice and restriction at the same time.
No wonder rest so often fails to restore. Rest itself has been colonized by the logic of optimization and scarcity. Even spaces like Substack can become miniature versions of the same pressure economy.
Your last line about Substack really hit home.
Thank you so much for reading all these post and helping me understand the thoughts by putting them in new forms.
I‘ve had those Saturdays too. Wanting to do it all and stressed to decide what to choose in the little time that’s there.
And I’ve noticed that a lack of mental capacity is often the biggest blocker to real change.