It was ridiculous to think I'd get almost anything done last year now that I have some distance on it. I was just spent in every way possible. My expectations that suddenly having time would mean I could do everything I felt I needed to do were absurd.
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me: once I'm done with this year-long crunch mode of 18 hour workdays 7 days a week I'll have all that time to spend on these other things! reality: actually you can't keep that schedule or anything close to it and still have anything to give to anything or anyone
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last year i was like well ok game's out, gonna get all this other nitw work done, do all of the dsa stuff, learn how to do home recording and crank out a few songs, get this next game going, do some animated shorts, design lots of nitw merch, lose 100 lbs, solve america's proble
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and tbh it wasn't b/c i failed to do all of that. that is a ridiculous list. and i got through some of that? none of it entirely. still have a long ways to go on most of that. my failure was not understanding literally anything about my situation. hard lessons there.
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I've had two separate convos with friends in the past week about burning out. Seriously dealing with that is something that our culture and structures make nearly impossible to address, either b/c of material reasons or b/c rest and recovery are seen as weak and indulgent.
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Worse, the idea that taking time off is you asking for whatever calamities will befall you in the future. Oh if only you'd used those extra hours in some sort of entrepreneurial or self-betterment manner. Then none of this would have happened to you later!
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BTW the reason I never really grappled with this before is b/c last year was the first year in my adult life (I'm 36) that I ever had the opportunity to rest. To not be constantly working and trying to put new things together, to actually be able to just... stop.
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Been working and paying rent since I was 18. 36 was the year I had time off from that. And I realized I had no idea what that meant. We're materially cut off from time to recover from the work and lifestyle we're forced into if we want to have a roof over our heads.
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"Wow you're so productive!" Yeah I love making stuff a lot but I'm also just terrified of what happens if I stop. Probably it means we run out of money. I got so productive b/c I didn't have a choice. It wasn't some innate virtue. A lot of it was need and fear.
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Tbh this is why I cringe at the word "passion" now. It's a word bosses and exploitative companies use to insinuate that you should be free from this. That it doesn't matter that you're overworked and underpaid: you run on this alternate, transcendent, pure energy source.
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I know a ton of really amazing artists who dedicate as much of their lives as they can to making amazing stuff. But none of them talk about being "passionate". Like we don't get together and be all "WOW, IT'S AMAZING TO BE ARTISTS!!! THE PASSION! ART! WE ARE ARTISTS!!!"
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Like idk who talks like that who isn't trying to get money or free work out of you.
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Old boss: you don't deserve time off, b/c I'm the boss and you are replacable New boss: you don't NEED time off b/c you're a passionate doer and you just care so much!!! both: you should never expect to not work also the new boss really means the same thing as the old boss
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And when you're self-employed, you do this to yourself. Beyond just the necessity of making enough money to survive.
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Capitalism, austerity, the myth of meritocracy, this shit does things to your body and your mind.
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Anyway. Burnout is real. And it sucks! And we're conditioned to see avoiding rest and healing time when we can find it as virtuous. It's wicked bad and dumb.
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I wish I'd realized this around this time last year. But it took me a lot of months because I'm just very slow sometimes, especially when it comes to cutting myself any slack whatsoever.
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I wish I'd listened to anarchist me from 10 years ago: STEAL TIME.
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so I did finally figure this all out and I'm doing better now and so forth. sorry for the sunday afternoon tweet spam
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