Beautifully expressed. My work in the realm of sculpture has shown me how more primitive, less ‘optimized’ tools are often the most conducive to creativity, flow, and skill development. The grind is so antithetical to art-making, and I worry that our social and economic trends will eventually abandon any arts that require capital and overhead to practice.
It’s also a pleasure to see the word ‘invention’ applied here - I’ve been musing lately about what it means that we’ve largely abandoned the word in favour of ‘innovation’. We’ve given up on the idea that there’s anything left to discover, and that contributes to the pervasive sense of meaninglessness.
I was about to close the window thinking this would be yet another Millennial we-got-screwed screed (Yes, I'm a Millennial). I'm glad I didn't.
I still think that Millennials overstate the dysfunctional state of society and the good fortunes previous generations, but the latter half of this essay is excellent.
"The baby boomer generation lived a life of relative ease, with a stable, well-paid employment, affordable housing, and the bull markets of their time."
I can't read any further when I see something like that. You know nothing of what the baby boomer generation went through (or, probably, anything before you were 18). "the bull markets of their time." didn't start until 1982. The 70's featured a long, long bear market, 15% inflation and 20% interest rates. Not to mention gas lines. And of course Vietnam, the first lost war.
And there WERE layoffs, and the PC revolution hadn't started yet.
Stop pretending to be a victim gramps and understand what the word 'relative' means. Yes the fed couldn't get inflation under control in the 70s but that was 50 years ago, what about the 45 years since? Also I notice you decline to mention the housing issue in your little rant, as on that point you have no argument at all.
"The problems that we're seeking to solve—the atomisation of the individual, cultural and spiritual loss, the capitulation to a depressed economy—are not susceptible to brute force. They can't be worked away. They are indifferent to personal effort." This is the core of the piece and I can't argue with a word of it.
The philosophical core, the Kierkegaard despair of defiance passage, the Nietzsche why/how inversion, and her distinction between suffering as means versus suffering as end, are sound enough that I threw imaginary roses the first time I read it.
But late GenX didn't escape this. I sure as hell didn't. We were sold the same capitalist mythology, and we believed it, because our Boomer parents told us to, but we didn't get the conditions they had. I worked my way into a soul-crushing job at an LA startup that paid great but required 60-70 hour weeks, 24/7 on-call, and no days off, all for the promise of an IPO that never came. When Google recruited me it was worse. People in cubicles like a veal farm, carts of food circling the floor so no one would ever actually get up from their desks. I ran as fast as I could.
To handle the stress I lived above a bar so I could have some kind of social life and still be five minutes from putting out a fire when an alert came in. That social life very quickly became that of a barfly, and all my friends were also barflies and I soon found myself frequently in barfights with some of Hollywood's most histrionic douchebags, because what other hobby was there to have?
I lived like that for six years before I quit, sold everything, moved across the world, and went to grad school so I would never have to take orders from a boss with Star Wars toys on his desk again.
It worked. I had a meaningful decade, using my actual liberal arts education and artistic skills in work that supported an unexpected music career and gave me real travel and real life. Then I came back to the US, didn't know anyone, and no one would hire me. After promising myself I would never go back to IT, I went back to IT. At least it's public sector, higher ed, and nobody demands blood, I told myself. I don't love it, I don't hate it. It's purgatory.
I paid a price to escape the grind. I had my meaningful decade. And the economy pulled me back anyway, for exactly the reason Miss Bocchi identifies: structural conditions are indifferent to individual virtue. She names that clearly.
My second complication is using Da Vinci and McGregor as examples any mortal can emulate. Miss Bocchi can attract patrons because she is extraordinarily talented, likable, and has a record of delivering exemplary work. I am one of her patrons, and I would give her more if I could afford it because she deserves it. But patronage isn't a lifestyle most of us can opt into, and it's hardly a prescription for escaping the gaping maw of the Machine God.
The ending she calls for, joy through meaning, lightness through instinct, I would let her tattoo that on my soul. I just wish she had gone further into the darkness, because I know she understands it: even the people who do everything right, successfully escape, find meaning, and build something real, are more often than not unable to escape the gravity of a system doing what it is designed to.
Beautifully expressed. My work in the realm of sculpture has shown me how more primitive, less ‘optimized’ tools are often the most conducive to creativity, flow, and skill development. The grind is so antithetical to art-making, and I worry that our social and economic trends will eventually abandon any arts that require capital and overhead to practice.
It’s also a pleasure to see the word ‘invention’ applied here - I’ve been musing lately about what it means that we’ve largely abandoned the word in favour of ‘innovation’. We’ve given up on the idea that there’s anything left to discover, and that contributes to the pervasive sense of meaninglessness.
I was about to close the window thinking this would be yet another Millennial we-got-screwed screed (Yes, I'm a Millennial). I'm glad I didn't.
I still think that Millennials overstate the dysfunctional state of society and the good fortunes previous generations, but the latter half of this essay is excellent.
How sick I am of reading stuff like this:
"The baby boomer generation lived a life of relative ease, with a stable, well-paid employment, affordable housing, and the bull markets of their time."
I can't read any further when I see something like that. You know nothing of what the baby boomer generation went through (or, probably, anything before you were 18). "the bull markets of their time." didn't start until 1982. The 70's featured a long, long bear market, 15% inflation and 20% interest rates. Not to mention gas lines. And of course Vietnam, the first lost war.
And there WERE layoffs, and the PC revolution hadn't started yet.
Stop pretending to be a victim gramps and understand what the word 'relative' means. Yes the fed couldn't get inflation under control in the 70s but that was 50 years ago, what about the 45 years since? Also I notice you decline to mention the housing issue in your little rant, as on that point you have no argument at all.
... and you're blocked, little asshole.
"The problems that we're seeking to solve—the atomisation of the individual, cultural and spiritual loss, the capitulation to a depressed economy—are not susceptible to brute force. They can't be worked away. They are indifferent to personal effort." This is the core of the piece and I can't argue with a word of it.
The philosophical core, the Kierkegaard despair of defiance passage, the Nietzsche why/how inversion, and her distinction between suffering as means versus suffering as end, are sound enough that I threw imaginary roses the first time I read it.
But late GenX didn't escape this. I sure as hell didn't. We were sold the same capitalist mythology, and we believed it, because our Boomer parents told us to, but we didn't get the conditions they had. I worked my way into a soul-crushing job at an LA startup that paid great but required 60-70 hour weeks, 24/7 on-call, and no days off, all for the promise of an IPO that never came. When Google recruited me it was worse. People in cubicles like a veal farm, carts of food circling the floor so no one would ever actually get up from their desks. I ran as fast as I could.
To handle the stress I lived above a bar so I could have some kind of social life and still be five minutes from putting out a fire when an alert came in. That social life very quickly became that of a barfly, and all my friends were also barflies and I soon found myself frequently in barfights with some of Hollywood's most histrionic douchebags, because what other hobby was there to have?
I lived like that for six years before I quit, sold everything, moved across the world, and went to grad school so I would never have to take orders from a boss with Star Wars toys on his desk again.
It worked. I had a meaningful decade, using my actual liberal arts education and artistic skills in work that supported an unexpected music career and gave me real travel and real life. Then I came back to the US, didn't know anyone, and no one would hire me. After promising myself I would never go back to IT, I went back to IT. At least it's public sector, higher ed, and nobody demands blood, I told myself. I don't love it, I don't hate it. It's purgatory.
I paid a price to escape the grind. I had my meaningful decade. And the economy pulled me back anyway, for exactly the reason Miss Bocchi identifies: structural conditions are indifferent to individual virtue. She names that clearly.
My second complication is using Da Vinci and McGregor as examples any mortal can emulate. Miss Bocchi can attract patrons because she is extraordinarily talented, likable, and has a record of delivering exemplary work. I am one of her patrons, and I would give her more if I could afford it because she deserves it. But patronage isn't a lifestyle most of us can opt into, and it's hardly a prescription for escaping the gaping maw of the Machine God.
The ending she calls for, joy through meaning, lightness through instinct, I would let her tattoo that on my soul. I just wish she had gone further into the darkness, because I know she understands it: even the people who do everything right, successfully escape, find meaning, and build something real, are more often than not unable to escape the gravity of a system doing what it is designed to.