Time Poverty

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

We have too much work and too little time. When will we talk about this? How about NOW?

Happy Labor Day!

For all the alleged advancement of civilization, people everywhere live in abject poverty. They have very little life-only what they can squeeze in after returning home exhausted from work. This is time poverty.

We’ve vastly improved worker productivity, and invented innumerable labor saving devices, yet none of this has had any measurable effect. Billions of us are working 40+ hours per week (or 60 or 80) for decades. When and if we can retire, the damage has already been done. And we typically live out the remainder of our lives on a tight fixed income or in literal poverty.

I would like to point out two things that should be obvious.

1. This is a waste of billions of lives, and
2. There is no Earthly reason why we need to keep doing this.

Think how CRAZY this is! We spend our whole lives seeking to make enough money to have some time to live. And few of us are fortunate enough to achieve this.

We think this is normal. We think this makes sense. We think this is just the way life is. We think there is no alternative.

Our thinking is muddled because we are tired, and because others are telling us what to think, and we can’t seem to formulate a coherent response. So, we just work. And die. Without ever having lived.

Take A Nap

When we get home, we could try something different. We could take a nap. It doesn’t need to be long. Maybe 15–30 minutes. Recoup some energy, some brainpower. Recoup your SELF.

If you can, afterwards go take a walk and use that refreshed time to think, to daydream, to imagine. Because what you need to think about, to understand, to do differently is within you. But it’s absent from this clueless and morally bankrupt civilization.

Our civilization doesn’t care about people, about humanity, or even about the planet. Our civilization-like any institution-is primarily concerned with keeping its game going. The game is feeding billions of people, generation after generation, into a meat grinder of wasted life, to serve an undeserving elite. The elite themselves are also wasting their lives, in soulless servitude to the same system.

Yes, the elite get more toys and are treated better. But ultimately they lead a useless and empty existence. It’s all about hierarchy and pecking order. A ridiculous competition with no real reward.

To begin recovering our souls, we should begin with a short daily nap…and a walk.

Then What?

Life is short. We have at best a few decades of existence, of consciousness, of living. Few of us make it to 100, and most fall well short of that.

We need to figure out how to make the most of our present situation AND also to begin changing the situation by changing civilization itself.

We need a less cruel, less stupid, less empty civilization. We need a civilization that sees human beings as valuable in themselves, not merely as productive resources to serve plutocrats, or a communist party, or a dictator. We need to respect human life and all life and the planet itself.

We need the exact opposite of the civilization we have today.

Your time is your life. Today, we seem to have little or no power over our lives. We must work for The Man. We need to earn money to eat, to put a roof over our head, to get medicine when we are sick.

We have no choice. Or do we?

We can take our own (terribly limited) time more seriously, value it, and live it. After our nap, we can spend some time (between other obligations and chores) being whole people.

What do whole people do? We express ourselves. We write, draw, tell stories, create various kinds of art. We relate to other people, with some level of depth and honesty. We rest fully and, when we are creating or socializing, we do that intensely.

I can’t tell you how important this is. These limited moments are all the actual real and meaningful life that you have today. That’s it. So don’t throw those moments away. Embrace them. Insist on them.

But we want more. For ourselves, for our loved ones, for friends, for strangers and even for enemies. Because all human beings deserve to LIVE their lives.

So, we need a plan to get from this hellish today, to a humane future. Oh, and we need to get there pretty quickly, because our current civilization is turning our Earth into an uninhabitable hellhole with massive ongoing climate abuse.

The Plan

As it turns out, we ordinary powerless people, we the (minimally paid) “help” are not helpless. Because we do all of the work, we have enormous (latent) power.

We can slow down. We can pretend to work normally while working less. We can “make mistakes.” We can call in sick. We can steal time back for ourselves while at work. We SHOULD do all of these things.

Why? Because it’s a matter of self-respect. It’s a matter of justice. And it’s practicing the skills we will need to use to save the world and humanity: strategic resistance in the form of nonviolent noncooperation.

This is how ordinary people have overthrown dictators, humbled empires and acquired some basic human rights. The official powers do nothing; they are wholly dependent on US doing everything for them. When we stop, they are powerless. When we slow down, their power is reduced. When we work carelessly and inefficiently, they are wounded.

Our plan is to exercise our powers of noncooperation and then apply them strategically to take down Big Oil and then take down hierarchy and elitism itself. We will be using tried and true methods. And while nothing guarantees success, we have studied history to determined which approaches have the best chance of succeeding.

Our group, The Saners, is dedicated to preventing climate collapse and granting justice and true freedom to every person on Earth. We should all work the minimum required, producing only necessities like food and medicine. We should slash fossil fuel use by refusing to work for elites, producing mountains of ridiculous commodities to enrich an undeserving few while dooming our children and the species that share this beautiful planet with us.

We can and must stop the evil, and plant the seeds of a better civilization. Join The Saners. Learn more by watching the video below.