Introducing...(Beyond) Passions and Survival

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of my graduate thesis "Beyond Passions and Survival: The Prospects for Meaningful Work, Livelihood, and Radical Social Transformation in the Cracks of Capitalism." Enjoy and let me know what you think... -MD

As a teenage punk rocker in the late 1990s, I found myself walking around town one day with a high school friend who was upset about the recent news that a band he liked had signed to a major record label. “They're called Chumbawamba,” he told me. “And they used to be part of the anarcho-punk scene in the UK, but now they've sold out. I'm pretty bummed about it.” This was the first time I had ever heard of them. A few months later, the oldies station on the local FM dial was transitioning to a Top 40 pop station and for an entire week they played the number one hit song at that time on loop. When you tuned into 93.5 that week you were guaranteed to hear either the boisterous “Coming soon!” 15 second promo for the new station or, more likely, the infectious chorus of that song: I get knocked down. But I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. Soon, Chumbawamba was performing live on late night television, touring the globe, and their catchy anthem “Tumbthumping” began appearing in advertisements and Hollywood movies. All of this firmly establishing their legacy in music history as a “one hit wonder.”

At the height of “Tubthumping's” commercial popularity, the long-running underground punk magazine Maximum Rock n' Roll re-printed an excerpt from its 1984 interview with Chumbawamba. The quote referenced their boycott of EMI—the corporate record label that had owned shares in the weapons manufacturing industry. By reprinting this, MRR sought to expose the hypocrisy of the group's decision, after years of putting out records independently, to sign to that very major label they had once militantly protested with others in the UK anarcho-punk community.

Reading the old interview, and learning about the full extent of this hypocrisy that had initially enraged my friend, inspired me to contact Chumbawamba directly and let them know what I thought about it. I sent them a message from my first-ever e-mail account, informing them about “recently discovering” this old interview and detailing how I felt about their recent popularity with “the ignorant MTV generation.” To my surprise, Chumbawamba responded. Their response was thoughtful and disarmingly intelligent. In addition to explaining why it is dangerously problematic to generalize about an entire generation of people, they pointed toward the shifting nature of the lives and beliefs of everyone affected by the economic realities of the system. And they named that system: “capitalism.”

Capitalism.

Coming of age during the end of the Cold War, I was familiar with this word. But even as a self-righteous, politically-conscious teenage punk, this e-mail from Chumbawamba made me realize that I actually did not understand what it meant. What is capitalism? I reached for my dictionary, and read a relatively unhelpful definition about “the private ownership of the means of production.” What did that mean? I was still confused. Over time, after starting to overcome my ignorance of its meaning, I realized that simply naming capitalism can often be a radical act.

Despite the fact that we are socialized to take it for granted like gravity, or the air we breathe, capitalism is not a law of nature or physics. In fact, when one takes into consideration the full history of human societies, it is a relatively new mode of production and social organization. As Cynthia Kaufman writes in her new book Getting Past Capitalism, “When capitalism comes to dominate society, when all other ways of meeting our needs come to be devalued and pushed out, when governments operate to serve the interests of privately owned capital rather than the needs of people, we have a serious problem.” She adds, “That problem is capitalism.”

For me, this level of analysis didn't develop until my third year in college. That was when I began thinking more deeply about alternatives to capitalism. I was inspired by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel's vision of Participatory Economics (Parecon) as a better kind of economy; one based on equity, solidarity, diversity, and self-management. Their ideas were exciting to me because they went beyond critique and towards confidently declaring that another type of economy—one with vastly different values—truly was possible.

I was so inspired by Parecon that I decided to write my senior project about it. My research focused on three worker-owned collectives (presciently prefiguring my current study) in Winnipeg that all incorporated aspects of the vision into their workplace structures, and explored the challenges and potentials of those projects within the constraints of capitalism.

That inspiration really began after seeing Michael Albert speak about Parecon and the importance of developing radical vision, I decided that I wasn’t interested in contributing to the long list of merely documenting what is wrong with the world. I decided that I would focus on highlighting visionary efforts, of people who were putting transformative theory into practice and planting seeds of a new world. In doing so, I hoped to document that there are possible alternatives to the dominant structures of the current society, and to encourage the expansion of such efforts everywhere.

This decision, of course, was not to discount the important work that radical academics, journalists, and activists are doing to expose injustice and oppression across the world. I believed, and still do today, that all of it is necessary. It’s just a matter of how I want to make my own contribution, because I can’t do it all; none of us can. Additionally, as Albert pointed out, there are not enough people articulating new visions and if we are only documenting the horrors of the world, then we will likely be immobilized by powerlessness and then we won’t have anything to offer to replace all the bad stuff with—if we ever do get to that point.

All of this brings me, finally, to the present, to my current research at Goddard. Instead of focusing on the evils of capitalist society I have decided to continue to highlight the visionary efforts of those who are developing and practicing new ways of being and doing, against all odds. In my new research I have chosen, once again, to document three collectives—these groups of people who have come together to create alternatives. In doing so, I continue to sustain my own dedication and desire for social transformation; against hopelessness, against powerlessness.

                                                                    * * *                                                                                                          

This is the story of how I began thinking about capitalism. And then how I came to engage in the critique of it and, furthermore, how I eventually began to participate in the imagining and celebration of alternatives to it. Exploring the complex realities of daily life under capitalism (particularly for activists and artists) is the drum I have been beating all these years, with an evolving, increasingly collective beat.

In this thesis, I revisit and expand upon the central question that I tirelessly grappled with during my years following college a decade ago: The dilemma facing activists and artists to follow their passions while surviving under capitalism—the question of “passions and survival.”

As this dilemma began defining my daily reality, I decided that I would take it on as an investigative project, but with the larger goal of collective liberation beyond capitalist society. What initially started as a potential book idea would evolve into a weekly radio program with the title Passions and Survival. That project eventually ended, but I have continued to grapple with new ways of thinking and navigating these issues, of the economic imperatives of survival. So, while I’ve returned to my generative question, I’ve done so in hopes of going beyond “passions and survival”—transcending both the limitations of my previous project and the structures of capitalist society that persist in our lives.

My central question remains: How does the dilemma of surviving under capitalism affect the potential for radical activists and cultural producers in the United States to follow their passions and prefigure a new society?

The continued pursuit of this study is rooted in my own life experience and struggles in capitalist society as an activist and writer working a variety of wage jobs to support myself over the past decade. The choice of this subject springs from two interrelated desires: to support a vibrant community of artists and activists, and for social transformation centered on meaningful work and livelihood.

One of the limitations of my radio project was that I was only speaking with individuals about their personal experiences. The implicit point I was attempting to illustrate was that we all (well, most of us) must sell our labor to survive in the current society, that we are all affected by and also dependent on the system we are trying to transform or dismantle. But I think this point was partially obscured by the individualistic nature of the one-on-one interview format.

Here, at this point in my exploration, I have chosen to investigate the following premise: It is important, and arguably necessary, for activists and artists to join together collectively with others to work toward transcending this fundamental dilemma of capitalism and to attempt to provide themselves a means of survival, but in ways that strive to undermine the logic of capital and prefigure new possibilities.

                                                             * * *

Matt Dineen is a graduate student at Goddard College and lives in Philadelphia. 

Grad School & Survival

by Matt Dineen

After the sixth day in a row working my wage job at a Philadelphia coffeeshop it was time to put things into perspective. Because we live in a society that tends to define us by what we do for money, I struggled to remind myself that this was not all that I was doing with my life. And of course I understood that intellectually, but by that last closing shift my body solely identified as a barista; not only what I do, but also who I am. Pointing this out is not to demean this labor, or others who work in the caffeinated service industry, but as a reminder that we are all much more than the tasks we perform for money. We are all multidimensional creatures and our desires exceed what we do to survive.

At recent reunions and weddings, people that I haven't seen in years ask me what I am up to now. I tell them where I live first and then proceed to talk about Goddard. This program is a more accurate reflection of the kind of life I want to be living. But I am also not just a grad student. I tell them about the anarchist bookstore where I have been active the past four years, but feel obligated to add that we're all volunteers. These are our multidimensional lives.

My first semester at Goddard began two months after I started a job I hated. I was a driver for a corporate catering company, delivering food to offices around Philadelphia. In an attempt to balance school and work, and to makes sense of that whole experience, I kept a journal documenting my hours on the clock; my time in uniform, taking orders, and entering spaces where, given my politics, I never should have been allowed. When I first returned from the residency I tried convincing myself this was just field research, as a coping mechanism, or perhaps a mechanism of empowerment. But that quickly faded and the job began to take its toll, on my spirit and my studies. The reality was clear: I was only working in order to pay the bills, in order to survive.

How do we balance Goddard and survival? The imperative to sell my labor, whether it's through delivering lunch to a business meeting at JP Morgan's office or in the more relaxed and palatable environment of the hip café, is in dialectical relationship with my study plan. It would be an oversimplification to suggest that the two are just at odds, or that my time on the clock necessarily subtracts from my school work. That experience with the catering company, for example, was exhausting and comprising, no doubt, but it also provided rich material to write about and analyze. And the Zen time I have washing dishes at my current occupation is often the incubation site of some of my best ideas. It is a complex, sometimes complementary relationship.

A prevailing challenge, though, is maintaining focus in a social construction of reality that does not recognize low-residency education. After our week on campus ends and we return to our everyday lives outside of Goddard, we must swim against the prevailing current of production and consumption, of business-as-usual, conference calls, and law students studying for the bar exam together. Every morning that I wake up and prioritize my interdisciplinary graduate work, transforming corner tables at neighborhood coffeeshops into a mobile office, is a small act of resistance. I look up and the clock is ticking. It's noon and I have to be at my job in one hour. I need to make that money. Have I gotten anything done yet? This is the balance we face every day.

After my shift at the catering job, I would feel emboldened to seize the rest of the day. I felt more conscious of this time off the clock, to read Marx and write with a sense of urgency. My experience at the cafe is different. After a six hour shift my coworker and I will go to the bar around the corner and continue conversations that we began earlier while we prepared sandwiches and espresso drinks, this time more candidly, over a pitcher of lager. We'll order another round and further explore the politics of online dating or the efficacy of celebrating the death of an imperialist former prime minister. On the clock, we are baristas, but also DJ's creating an atmosphere that reflects our mood or that provides a soundtrack to closing up shop. We are also free to feed ourselves, concocting elaborate meals when our boss isn't around. Sometimes we are DIY bartenders, throwing cans of beer from the basement on ice an hour before closing time, or mixing some fancy sparkling lemonade with the remains of a bottle of tequila hidden in the backroom.

Which is all to say: it's not that bad. But not-that-bad can be stifling, even oppressive. It can limit our potential to actualize our dreams. It numbs us because it begins to seamlessly fit into everything else. It feels like it makes sense even though we may never freely choose such an arrangement otherwise. The challenge is to be conscious of utilizing one's time off the clock and to make sure that the not-that-bad job doesn't take up too much space, that it doesn't seep too deeply into everything else. Because it is not the priority right now. This is easy to forget.

What if we didn't have to work while we were in school? This is the reality for some. The capitalist work discipline shapes us to be dependent on a structured schedule so that we don't know what to do with such abundant “free time.” I have heard other students say that people who do not have a full or part time job have a hard time with their Goddard work. So it is it, then, not merely economic imperatives that prevent us from putting all of our time and energy into our graduate studies?

On the cusp of my final semester, I think ahead to my post-Goddard life. 2014 is a big, wide-open question mark for me. There are, however, two things that I know: I will graduate from the IMA program in February, and I will stop working at the coffeeshop. I'm ready for new challenges. I'm ready to start over again. The not-that-bad job I'm working this year extends to describe my experience these past four and a half years living in Philadelphia. I have chosen to stay in my comfort zone, to avoid risk-taking—with the exception of selling my soul for the catering gig. My life now doesn't look much different from the year I lived in Madison, fresh out of college, almost one decade ago. 

I want something more; something different. I'm not sure what this will look like and that is okay, as I choose to embrace the unknown, the infinite uncertainties of the future.

After six days in a row closing the cafe last week—navigating leaky refrigerators, lack of air conditioning, and passive aggressive notes—I found myself in my hometown having breakfast with my dad and stepmother. They asked me about school and I told them about this remaining timeline ahead. My stepmother proceeded to ask what, exactly, was my degree going to be in, and then, what does that mean exactly. That same question that my grandmother sternly confronted me with at the beginning of this semester: “Well, what do you do with that? I mean, what kind of job will you get?” I fumbled, muttering something incoherent about nonprofits, and, um...teaching someday. Maybe. Eventually.

I...don't...know.

And then, just in time, our breakfast arrived and I changed the subject to their recent membership in the town's re-emerging Odd Fellows society. The fellows, apparently, have no idea how to run an organization. I filled my mouth with raspberry-butter-covered French toast and pretended that I was on summer vacation. Everything is just fine.

The uncertainty of our post-Goddard, interdisciplinary futures is, I believe, one of the greatest virtues of this education. Since the market collapse five years ago, there are no certainties, no guarantees. In choosing this nontraditional route, we are recognizing the frailties of the system. Those who continue funneling themselves through the standard professional and trade schools, pursuing nursing, education, journalism, etc. degrees with hopes of economic security and stability, are increasingly being squeezed out, crushed by the new reality of austerity, job freezes, and mass layoffs. This of course, affects everyone—besides the “one percent”—in myriad ways, but those of us who are not buying into the pyramid scheme anymore are at least attempting to carve out a way around it. We will have more potential to adapt, to be flexible, and open to alternative arrangements and experiences.

What will I do, exactly? That remains to be seen. But I am hopeful.

I am hopeful despite the fact that seriously looking ahead to that moment, post-Goddard, also invokes the unsavory topic of debt. Like the question of how we support ourselves, and as a corollary—how we balance school and work, the issue of the debt that we are accruing to attain this education is one whispered about at the residencies during meals, but never directly addressed by students outside of workshops on navigating the bureaucracies of debt and aid. I believe that a radical approach to debt is necessary, one that goes beyond individualistic approaches to a very systemic problem. And of course, debt and survival are inextricably linked. So why can't we even begin to have a serious conversation about this?

Next year, after graduation, I will be expected to start repaying my student loans. I will no longer have my overpayment checks at the beginning of the semester to help me get by and, perhaps, will start to feel the pressure to secure a job which pays a living wage. Not that there would be anything wrong with that.

Over the past decade I think some of the choices I have made have perpetuated self-exploitation under the guise of resistance to compromise. I think this new era of my life, in which I will hold a masters degree, I should add to my list of ways not comprise my beliefs: never work a minimum wage job ever again. That won't include volunteer work however—our voluntary laboring outside of the market in an effort to sculpt meaning and purpose, to supplement our livelihood in dynamic and fulfilling ways, with activities that we are truly passionate about. But, as my mom likes to point out, volunteering doesn't pay the bills. And there will still be bills.

I feel grateful that I will be confronted with the consolidation of massive amounts of student loan debt just as the debt resistance movement is growing and becoming more sophisticated and strategic. The resources that Strike Debt, for example, has started to put together will prove to be invaluable tools and a reminder that I too “am not a loan.” 

It might be seen as a distasteful comparison, but I am thinking about military veterans returning from overseas, alienated by the vast bureaucracies holding their futures captive as they attempt to re-acclimate to being back home, out of duty. The comparison is not that of higher education and the military industrial complex—although there is a relationship between those institutions—but that of the emerging debt resistance movement and the groups that do veteran advocacy work, including Iraq Veterans Against the War. Again, instead of approaching a systemic problem through an individualistic lens, the institutions responsible for suffering and exploitation are held accountable, thus empowering individuals through collective action.

I think this is how change happens.

That's what Howard Zinn taught me when I was in high school. First, through his masterpiece, A People's History of the United States, and then in person, the evening that he visited the program I was in my senior called School Within a School (SWS). Howard and his wife Rosslyn used to stay on Cape Cod in the summer, in Wellfleet, where their son Jeff directed a local seasonal theater company. In September 1998, three months before President Clinton began a bombing campaign against a sovereign country in the Middle East called Iraq, Howard came to my high school one Thursday evening to speak to our group. He told us about his own experiences as a bombardier in World War II and in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements in the 1950s and '60s. After his talk in our high school auditorium we were able to ask him questions. I nervously raised my hand and asked, “What is your advice for young people like us who want to change the world?” In his response he reminded us that throughout history change has only happened when people have come together, when they were organized in groups fighting for what they knew was right. You can't make the world a better place all by yourself.

I need to keep reminding myself this. Another option after Goddard is to start a business, but not alone. Instead of just applying for jobs and attempting to establish some sort of career with a salary and benefits, I could get together with a small group of other people and put these politics of collectivity and direct democracy into action, beyond merely studying what other people are doing. Starting a worker-owned cooperative is one of the more realistic and practical options out there that is truly appealing to me and where I am at with my life right now.

Back at the coffeeshop, I don't understand why anyone would want to be a boss. Washing dishes in the back, I think about how we could run this place ourselves, horizontally, without anyone in charge. We would all be a lot more invested in the cafe and more accountable to it and each other. But do we really need another cafe? I have one friend in Philly that I have talked with about potentially starting a co-op of some sort in the near future and I think that, ironically, a worker-owned collective could be a pretty successful marketing pitch, like how the new vegan cafes and restaurants in the city have created a substantial customer base around ethical eating. Philly definitely needs more democratic workplaces. I'm excited about the potential of making that happen.

But there is also a chance that I won't even stay in the city after this year. Despite a number of important friendships and other social ties, there isn't anything that is keeping me anchored there, nothing to prevent me from moving wherever I want or traveling indefinitely. So, again, we will see.

No matter what happens, I know that this experience at Goddard will be worth it, despite the debt I will be saddled with at the end. Perhaps I will one day move to Vermont and work for the college. I guess anything is possible. For now, I continue to balance work and school, a part-time day job that is not-that-bad and a low-residency program that holds the potential to encapsulate my wildest dreams and to catapult me somewhere that I can't even begin to imagine yet. Hopefully into a world beyond bosses and day jobs and capitalism itself, but, as Howard reminds us, I can't do it alone.

---

Matt Dineen is a writer and activist based in Philadelphia where he staffs at the Wooden Shoe, an anarchist bookstore. He is also a graduate student in Goddard College's Individualized MA program.

Get in touch with your rage.

We live in a culture where most of us have to sell our labor to survive; in which the creativity and passion of cultural producers is drained by stifling wage jobs; in which the political imagination of activists is safely chanelled into a non-profit industrial complex that is committed to prevent the rocking of a boat that really needs to be sunk. Beautiful abstract painters forced to serve food to the wealthy and entitled. Fierce community organizers resigned to data entry and carpal tunnel syndrome. We live in a culture in which most of us have almost no control over our own lives. But every day, within the cracks of capitalist misery, people are taking control back. Here, in the shadows, we can see the myriad ways in which new worlds are being envisioned and put into practice--despite the vast constraints of the current society. 

-Matt Dineen

Beyond Daily Humilitations: The Struggle for Meaningful Work Amidst the Capitalist Crisis

“…work, is, by it’s very nature, about violence – to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations."
-Studs Terkel

Is it possible to find meaningful work, to make an honest living amidst the current capitalist crisis? Millions of recent college graduates are confronted with this dilemma, along with so many others who have been laid off from their jobs and those drowning in debt from health care bills, student loans and credit cards. As unemployment rates continue along a record-setting trajectory the cost of living shows no sign of declining. What does this mean for those of us looking for work or trying to create a better life?

So-called expert analysis and commentary on the dismal state of economic affairs has saturated corporate media as non/working people struggle to make sense of it all and to feed themselves and their families. But one does not need to hold a PhD in economics to be able to accurately comment on and analyze the world in which we have found ourselves. In fact, the collective experiences of people navigating the ruins of the twisted free market fantasy are more revealing and honest. These stories must be shared with each other in order to dig ourselves out of this mess and to work together in creating something better.

My own story is not unique, but I think it is worth telling. My recent experience in job-hunting and eventual employment, like those of millions of other unemployed or low-wage workers, must be looked at within the context of the crippling structures of capitalist society and its latest permutations. In sharing this I hope to make more sense of what has happened, both to me personally and in the world I have found myself.

to be continued...

-Matt Dineen 

The Embrace of 360 Degrees

by Matt Dineen

Life really does come full circle sometimes. I guess this is no surprise since our lives are not single linear journeys of constant progress. We are on a continuum that ebbs and flows and our personal histories often have the pesky tendency to repeat themselves. Our current selves are an amalgamation of all of our ups and downs, and the journey we’re on is a complex one.
On the cusp of 30, I feel like I’m 15 again. Half a lifetime ago I spent the summer washing dishes at Nonnie’s Country Kitchen in Orleans, MA—my first job. I was paid under the table, in cash, to scrape the remains of chocolate chip pancakes larger than my face, scrub lipstick stains off coffee mugs, and listen to the classic rock station that the sexist cook would sing along to all morning. It feels like yesterday.

Actually, it was yesterday.

I arrived at my new job to discover an envelope in the back room with my name scrawled in full-caps: MATT. It contained a (small) pile of 20 dollar bills for my previous week of labor. After counting the bills, I stuffed the envelope in my backpack, grabbed a glass of ice water, and squeezed into a fresh pair of bright-yellow dishwashing gloves. Something was different though.

Instead of elderly retirees filling Nonnie’s counter (and inhaling her second-hand Lucky Strike smoke), there were tables full of people gazing into laptop computers, sipping lattes and eating pasta salad. Instead of AC/DC and Van Halen on the transistor radio in the back, Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire were playing on an iPod through the surround-sound speakers of the café. Everything has changed. But as I stood in front of the industrial sink scrubbing lipstick off a coffee mug it hit me that, actually, everything has stayed the same. In one week, I will be a 30 year old dishwasher with a college degree.

How has my life reverted to this, 15 years later?

It would be pretty easy to wake up on the morning of my 30th birthday in despair that my life is not going anywhere; paralyzed by an internalized classism, making me feel like an utter failure of a human being. Luckily, I have dedicated a lot of my time since school to analyzing, rejecting, and documenting alternatives to the dominant culture that defines people by what they do for money, first and foremost. I have spent more than half of a decade now interviewing activists and artists about the dilemma of following their passions, doing what they truly love, while surviving in a cutthroat capitalist society. So I have thought about this stuff a lot.

Over the years, when people I meet ask me, “What do you do?” the answer is always complicated. “Well,” I’ll reply. “It depends what you mean.” We are all so much more than our wage jobs. We are complex, multidimensional creatures. And this should be celebrated.

As I approach 30, I think back to that requisite thought exercise throughout many of our childhoods: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Is this it? Am I grown up now? At one point, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. Apparently I told my mother (who was 29 when she had me) that I would become rich as a Major League star and buy her a house. She lovingly reminds me of this broken promise every now and then. Sorry mom!

It has been essential for me to talk to people who have spent their lives redefining what success means—prioritizing happiness and community over the accumulation of wealth and power. This is also true of the aging process.

In my mid- to late-20’s it was really inspiring to talk to people in their 30’s who were truly embracing getting older. Actually, I have found that if you ask people who have passed the 30 year milestone, almost across the board they will talk about how much better life is than in their 20’s. So why is it then that many twenty-somethings in our society are so scared of this moment?

I wear a pin on my jacket that reads: “Growing up is awesome!” The person that created (and gave me) this pin explained that it was in response to the popular subcultural slogan: “Growing up is giving up.”

In a culture that fetishizes youth and perpetuates “glory days” mythology, that teaches us to fear and misunderstand the natural cycles of life, embracing one’s 30’s is a radical act.

The vision I have for my 30’s is to actualize all of the things that I talked about doing in my 20’s. I want to take inspiration from, and further cultivate, the best aspects of my youthful past. Simultaneously, I want to learn from the mistakes I’ve made, the low points of my personal continuum. This is not to say that it will be easy or that history won’t continue to occasionally repeat itself. My life will inevitably come full circle once again, but I am hopefully for what the next 360 degrees holds for me. Turning 30 is awesome. I am not giving up.

---
Matt Dineen lives in Philadelphia, where he turned 30 on April 7, 2011. This essay is part of his 360 Months project, which features 30 essays by 30 different people about turning 30. Contact him at: passionsandsurvival(at)gmail(dot)com

Looking Back on Capitalism, in Haiku

By Matt Dineen

In the recent past
before the revolution
everyone worked.

Things were different
work was separate from meaning
work was meaningless.

Back then, some were rich
the rest were poor or in debt
work was survival.

Time was limited
true passions were not valued
they were just hobbies.

Greed and boredom ruled
imaginations suppressed
by clocks and bosses.

One year all that changed
seeds were planted all over
a new world was born.

We refused to work
wild dreams were cultivated
passions were realized.

Money disappeared
and life had meaning again
work was redefined.

We wake up each day
grateful of this great struggle
and what we now have.
---
Submitted to a collection, a "large-scale reimagining," proposed by Cleveland-based writer and activist Kate Sopko who writes, "We’re in new times now, and new times call for new myths that answer to the times, making sense of the world as we know it. So, I want to start asking people a question: what could you use a myth to explain for you?" Read more on her blog: Stewards of the Lost Lands.

Contact Matt Dineen at: passionsandsurvival@gmail.com

Chasing Windmills (Revisited)

Recently, I have thought about an article I wrote 7 years ago. Not so much the article itself but larger issues it addressed. Inspired by a 1960's antiwar activist's charge of living one's life in a way that "does not make a mockery of one's values," I reflected on the prospects of continuing to lead a principled existence after college--in the compromising, shark-infested waters of the so-called "real world."

The article, first published in the student newspaper and then in Clamor, told the story of my interaction with an alumna of the college and her thesis which I discovered on the life of the legendary anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman. I contacted her through the alumni association and soon learned that she had become a high powered, corporate lawyer working in the Manhattan office of one the nation's largest firms. This experience forced me to address the privileges of my idealism and negotiate a sense of self-righteousness with the complex implications of my own post-collegiate future.

After turning 28 last week, I now find myself in that future moment that I pontificated about as a student. About as far away from being a corporate lawyer as one could possibly imagine, I think that 21 year-old me would be proud of my resiliency in avoiding compromise or "selling out" over the past 7 years. But there's nothing glorifying about being in denial of student loan debt that still looms over me or being uninsured and unemployed. Or is there?

The title of my article was appropriated from the project about Emma Goldman: Chasing Windmills. Just as Goldman quixotically pursued her anarchist ideal after being deported from the US because of her incendiary beliefs, I pledged to continue to live in accordance with my politics.

What actually evoked the 2002 article was learning that someone I grew up with also moved to Philadelphia recently and reflecting on the vastly different paths that led us both to this city. He moved here to begin a career upon completion of a PhD. I moved here for love and to simply start over. In true 21st Century fashion, I only know this through the Internet, where we are "friends" on a popular social networking website. My old little league teammate has proudly documented his new life here through photographs of his upscale apartment and backyard patio along with brief life updates such as the recent gourmet meal he consumed at a ristorante in his neighborhood.

There might be a river that seperates where we live here but perhaps the social and economic barriers that divide us are more artificial than my initial reaction would indicate. Maybe not. We have both been invited to attend our 10 year high school reunion next month, to reunite with people that neither of us have seen since then; who, unlike us, have not left since graduation. I think about getting in touch with him and catching up. It would be interesting to see where our experiences and aspirations overlap and where they diverge. If nothing else, I could ask him for a ride back home for the reunion.

-Matt Dineen

Philadelphia Chronicles: Part One

I moved to Philadelphia on New Year's Eve with no safety net. Well, at least not economically. During the 3 months that I've lived here I have faced a number of challenges as far as following my passions while also managing to get by goes. Much of this has been related to the process of transitioning from one place to settling in somewhere new. From the bureaucratic nightmares of forwarding mail and opening a bank account to just figuring out how to frugally access resources in an unfamiliar city.

Before I moved to Philly I planned on structuring an independent work week in which I would get up every morning (at least Monday through Friday) and spend the days working on my own projects: Booking tours and doing publicity work with Aid & Abet, the activist booking agency I started with former Clamor editor Jen Angel, along with publishing my own writing. The idea was that if I worked on this stuff as if it were a full-time job then I could get paid enough to sustain myself, to at least be able to scrape by without an hourly wage job working for someone else.

The first challenge that arose involved my previous hourly wage job working for someone else, in Massachusetts. I was depending on my final paycheck being mailed to me in a timely fashion, as my former boss had promised, in order to get by during my first month in Philly. What actually transpired is a long frustrating story that, most significantly, involved that promise being broken/forgotten and me not having access to the money that I worked hard for until early February; over one month after the fact.

In addition to the immediate material problems that this situation posed, it affected me psychologically in terms of my ability to work on my own projects full-time. With no money in sight I was distracted from fulfilling this goal. The economic imperatives of survival trumped my motivation and desires. With basic needs like access to food becoming uncertain, I began to delve into the dark, disempowering world of job hunting. But because my heart was never in it, because I never intended to begin my experience here working for someone else, this process simultaneously impeded my own projects and only served to perpetuate my lack of income.

This brings up larger systemic challenges that I have been confronted with in this new city: The cultural and economic pressure to conform to the capitalist work ethic along with the dominant definitions of work and employment. Because our identities in the US are so shaped by our occupations, it's hard not to internalize a certain amount of shame around "unemployment." This is the case even as we struggle to redefine what work means by devoting endless hours to the things we are passionate about--often for little or no money. It can involve more risk than most folks are able to take though, as debts multiple or we become ostracized by family members and peers, among countless additional challenges. The system is designed to prevent many of us from even attempting to engage in new ways of living and working.

I continue to struggle with this especially amidst the economic crisis that seems to be profoundly affecting this city and the entire world. My work booking tours and writing still has not been able to provide me with enough money to live, but that continues to be the goal.

-Matt Dineen

Final Episode of "Passions and Survival" on VFR

After nearly 3 years, Matt Dineen produced the final episode of Passions and Survival on Valley Free Radio WXOJ-LP in Northampton, MA on Monday December 29th. Since January 2006, the program explored the collective dilemma of following our passions while surviving and transforming capitalist society, mostly in conversation with amazing activists and artists in Western Mass. Listen to the recording here!

Time Without Work Revisited

By Matt Dineen

For the past four months I have been unemployed. During this time I have intimately revisited the dilemma of time without work in a work-obsessed culture. Part of this obsession is the survival piece--under capitalism we are obligated to sell our labor in order to meet our needs, to "make a living." This makes it difficult and often impossible to live without a job. We need to earn money in order to pay for food, housing, and the less essential items that help us get through each day. Without a wage job one needs to be creative about fulfilling these needs, often relying on the kindness and generosity of others, or by carving out non-capitalist forms of cooperatively sharing resources.

The other dominant aspect of this phenomenon is the way this culture defines people by their jobs. What you do to make money may not be the most important thing in your life but it serves as a reflection of your social status when you inform people "what you do." You are defined by your work. So what does this mean for those of us who are unemployed? Because of the economic challenges of not working it is rare that people can joyously revel in this moment. Even if we are enjoying this time without work it is socially unacceptable to admit this. Rather, we have to defensively explain that this is a transitional period in our life and that we are vigorously looking for work--even if we are not.

Unemployment is also associated with laziness and irresponsibility. Many of us who are not working paid jobs, however, still stay busy with things that we are passionate about. Of course these things are devalued in a culture that emphasizes profit and power over happiness. I could spend a day writing articles, producing a radio show, going for a bike ride, interviewing a friend, cooking food, playing music, and dancing. None of these are contributing much to the GNP, but they make me feel alive.
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Contact Matt Dineen at: passionsandsurvival@gmail.com

The Risk of Change Revisited: Housing and Resistance in a Capitalist Society

By Matt Dineen

"Honest hope derives from a belief that positive change is possible in the world. And we will only believe this if we experience ourselves changing. The key is risk, doing that which we thought we could not do."
-Frances Moore Lappe

Hope and risk. For those of us committed to transformative change it is this combination that fuels our actions—-the belief that change truly is possible and that we are willing to take risks to create a better society. But sometimes the risk is too great. All too often those actions which would accurately reflect our values are compromised or avoided simply to maintain survival. This is particularly common in situations that directly affect our lives. Campaigns to improve working and living conditions may not be as celebrated or significant as protesting war and corporate globalization but they tend to always involve more personal risk. This is because and despite of the fact that there is more potential for change in our immediate circumstances. I want to address the complexities of these risks and also connect the politics of everyday life with dominant global structures to illustrate how they are part of a common struggle.

I have already explored this dilemma in comparing my personal involvement in the movement against the war on Iraq with a failed campaign at my workplace three years later. Because of the economic power that our boss wielded over us the risk of fighting for change at my job was higher than the relatively low risk of protesting in the streets against the Bush administration. What about affecting change in our living conditions? Is the risk too great to improve our housing arrangements?

Along with work, housing is one of the primary institutions of capitalist society. The two are deeply connected. Much of the money that we earn selling our labor to bosses goes directly to the landlords that own the buildings we live in. Housing and work are both integral to the economic imperatives of survival. Everybody needs a roof over their head but must work to afford this basic human necessity. Although conditions differ immensely depending on geographical location and the nature of the workplace and apartment complex or house, both are inherently undemocratic spheres.

In both cases the property-owners possess a virtual monopoly over decision-making—decisions that affect the lives of those that work and live on the property. Decisions such as how much one is paid and how much one must pay and ultimately the destiny of one’s job and place to live. Workers and tenants are controlled and pacified by the lingering threat of termination or eviction. After all, in “today’s economy” there is always someone else to replace you. We get paid a week or two after we work, but we must pay before we live in our homes each month.

Yet most of us accept this state of affairs. It is only when our living conditions become even more egregiously unjust that we begin to think to do anything about it. Earlier this year such a situation occurred where I live which inspired me to revisit this dilemma of the risk of change. This story runs deeper than a landlord raising the rent in my building. It speaks to how change occurs in our society, how people react to injustice, and the potential risks involved in struggling to improve our everyday lives. That is why I think it is worth sharing...
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To read this article in its entirety visit Toward Freedom.

The Risk of Change: Thinking and Acting Globally and Locally

By Matt Dineen

“Think Globally—Act Locally,” read the fading bumper stickers on thousands of cars and guitar cases across the United States. This influential statement has defined a popular activist strategy that politically connects our local movements with those in other countries. But what does this idea really mean and where has it gotten those of us working toward social change in our communities and across the world? How does the challenge to think globally and act locally play out in our everyday lives?

These questions have been plaguing me lately. Three years after the start of the Iraq War, I’m trying to reconcile the gap between my antiwar activism as a student before the bombing began and my current reality as a twentysomething worker struggling to survive. Three years ago I was part of a vibrant global movement working to obstruct the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. It was powerful to know that we were in the streets protesting simultaneously with millions of other people in solidarity around the world. Despite our numbers and sustained efforts against the war “the other superpower,” as the New York Times called us, was defeated and the brutal occupation continues to this day. The antiwar movement is still active but the urgency that fueled us in 2003 has been largely extinguished as we attempt to figure out what went wrong and what we can do now.

Recently, now nearly three years out of college, I found myself trying to remain politically active while working an alienating service job. After speaking with a number of my coworkers off the clock it was clear that we all had issues with our boss and the way things were run. If we could get together and organize then we could collectively address these issues and improve our working conditions. The primary demand, beyond more dignity and freedom, was an increase in the length of our lunch breaks to match the legal standard. I saw it as an opportunity to put my politics into action. It didn’t work out that way though. Without a union we were vulnerable to the economic control our boss exerted over us. After all, we were all working there because we needed jobs so we could pay the bills and feed ourselves. It became too risky.

What is the connection between these failed global and local struggles? I want to dissect both of them in terms of how they are intertwined in a larger system and to try to learn from our failures as we forge ahead toward creating a better society—locally and globally.

In these two campaigns, one to prevent a war and the other to democratize a workplace, the targets of power were very different. On the one hand we had Bush as the personification of the empire that was waging war. On the other was the owner of a small, local business. The former wielded vast political power on a global scale, while the latter possessed power that only affected her small staff. How did our relationship to this power, in both cases, affect our strategies for affecting change as activists?

It seems obvious that the potential for the successful reform of a workplace would be greater than that of the ambitious task of stopping a war. This is clearly true but it becomes more complex when we factor in the dilemma of risk involved in each campaign. In my personal experience the risks associated with protesting the war was less than organizing my workplace. This may appear counterintuitive but the reality is that the cost of dissent is higher when we are able to directly confront our oppressors. The possibility of change is better but the act of initiating such a confrontation can be downright terrifying.

I think back to World War I and the Vietnam War and the passionate struggles against both of those horrific episodes in our history. During World War I, antiwar agitators were imprisoned and sometimes even deported for merely speaking out against it. Decades later, the young people drafted into the unjust war in Southeast Asia faced immense risk, until the movement reached a critical mass, when they burned their draft cards or demonstrated in the streets. Some were jailed or denied the right to an education while others were forced to flee the country.

My experience as a student antiwar activist was dramatically different. In my work mobilizing groups to represent our school at national actions or local protests, reporting back from these events, and speaking publicly against the war I never felt that what I was doing involved any serious personal risk. In fact, my activism was inspired by the belief that to not take action, to remain complicit in my government’s policies was more dangerous. I also went to a liberal college where there was a virtual consensus for peace and against Bush. And even though it was surrounded by a conservative population in rural New York State, our local activity was supported by other activists in the area. The day after the invasion began we marched into the center of the small neighboring town where tension between the college and the locals was present but complex. Despite a prevailing pro-war sentiment we never faced the threat of violence or repression.

The week before the war started we held a campus-wide student strike in conjunction with hundreds of schools across the country. Most of our professors worked with us as classes were transformed into antiwar teach-ins. Even the president of the college participated in the evening panel discussion on the responsibility of educational institutions in opposing war. This further strengthened us as we felt part of a global movement working against the proposed military action. The month before that we marched with over one million others in New York City in solidarity with dozens of other protests around the world. February 15th saw the largest worldwide demonstration in history as millions of people in every single continent (even Antarctica) sent a powerful message to Bush to rethink his plans.

This is all to say that to speak out and take action against the onslaught of war was simultaneously empowering and risk-free. I vehemently argued against the notion that the war was inevitable and sincerely believed that we could prevent it from happening. Coming out of the global justice movement that successfully shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle just a few years before I felt that if our numbers were big enough and we were persistent in our actions and our persuasive case for peace and justice then we were destined to win. But this is not how things turned out. Even though we had the entire world on our side the targets of power in this campaign were too untouchable to directly confront. Or maybe we just did not try hard enough.

The situation at my workplace differed immensely from the daunting landscape of this effort to slow down empire. Unlike Bush or Rumsfeld we would see our boss virtually everyday that we worked. She had opened the business just a couple years before and would often put in 90 hour work weeks—in other words, she was always around. Her micro-managerial psychosis created a stressful environment for all of her staff. Many of my coworkers were on friendly terms with her despite the underlying tension and discontent. Some even attended her wedding. The first two months I worked there I felt isolated and alone with my issues about the workplace conditions. The fast food-like pace seemed inhuman to me and after working a 9 hour shift with only a 15 minute break from being on my feet I knew that something was wrong. My analysis ran deeper as I resented the hierarchical and undemocratic decision-making structure that is the standard of capitalist workplaces. We had little or no say over things that seriously impacted our lives. Bi-monthly “staff meetings” involved our boss telling us what we were not doing well enough followed by a brief discussion of what we could do to improve our communication. Nobody dared to bring up any grievances primarily out of fear of prolonging these tiresome meetings.

With another staff meeting looming less than two weeks away some of us began to talk about getting together outside of work beforehand to discuss issues that we wanted to address to our boss. Without going into the unnecessary details we failed to gather before the meeting as we had planned. This caused us to be unprepared when it arrived and instead of putting her on the defense about her illegal business practices we were subjected to a lecture about improving customer service. When the floor was opened for discussion nobody said anything critical and we just walked out of there in shock. I left the job later that week for reasons unrelated to these issues. It was frustrating because I was sick of merely complaining about how bad things were and wanted to actually stand up and do something about it. It made me realize that people will often passively endure unhealthy conditions in order to maintain financial and personal stability. We compromise our desire to survive under capitalism. We could’ve tried taking the place over but none of us wanted that kind of responsibility for something in which we were so alienated. Even politely asking our boss to change things seemed scary, too risky.

This makes me wonder how bad things have to get before we have no choice but to do something. How can we expect to improve things on a global scale when we can’t even successfully improve our immediate conditions locally? I think of my universe of obligation and how much it has expanded since I became politically active as a student activist. I was no longer just concerned with the wellbeing of myself, my family and friends. Working for peace and justice is about also improving the lives of those in our communities and doing something about how our government’s actions influence and often destroy other communities around the world.

In terms of connecting these issues together I think back to one of the most compelling arguments the antiwar movement presented to the supporters and logicians of the “war on terror.” In response to their claim that invading Iraq was essential to avenge the 9-11 attacks and to prevent further terrorism we responded that the war will have the opposite effect making us less safe. Here we prophetically connected the global and local while turning the case for war on its head. As the occupation continues and the number of casualties on both sides mount we begin to see who is most directly affected by this war. This explains why the most outspoken and most active segment of our movement, despite the very serious risks involved, are veterans and their families.

But how can we prevent other wars from beginning in the first place while also working toward improving our local communities and the schools and workplaces that shape our lives? One month before the war began, Michael Albert of Z Net provided some constructive insight for this struggle. He wrote, “Success is not a single ‘all or nothing’ affair…Whether this war occurs or not, our on-going task is unchanged. We must grow larger, more conscious, more militant, more organized—to try to prevent this war and the next one, to reverse globalization, and to continually challenge and eventually replace basic defining institutions.” Albert continues, “None of this will happen overnight. But we are on a path toward all of it, and we need to realize that's our trajectory, to take it seriously, and to work tirelessly toward it.”

As I write this I find myself back at my old workplace drinking coffee that one of my former coworkers served me. I overhear some of the regular customers, oblivious to the issues of worker discontent here, conversing about Iraq and Bush’s plummeting approval rating. I think about the potential for change here, in this space where I sold so many of my labor hours, and about change on a global scale. Despite the challenges we face I remain hopeful that a new world is on the horizon. I think it will be worth the risk.
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This article was written for Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events.

Redefining Success Beyond the "Quarterlife Crisis"

By Matt Dineen

“A bomb-maker or a comedian.” When I was 8 years old, this is what I would respond when grownups or peers asked me the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m not really sure where this came from. I wasn’t particularly funny and I was much more interested in geography and baseball than weapons manufacturing. Back then, I didn’t even know what that meant. This response was arbitrary, random and served only to shock and confuse the people asking this seemingly soul-searching inquiry.

Fast forward 16 years...“What do you want to be when you grow up?” has (d)evolved into: “What do you do?” I am grown up now so what have I become? What am I doing? The prevalence of these questions reveals a lot about our culture. Its obsession with work and jobs begins to shape us from the moment we are able to speak these words. From the very beginning we are conditioned to base our (future) identities around our jobs. This is a cultural assumption that we are discouraged from ever questioning. It is taken for granted throughout our lives.

So what have I become? What am I doing? After high school I attended a small liberal arts college for four years and received a bachelor’s degree nearly 3 years ago. During this time out of school my paid work has more closely resembled that of a teenage wage-slave seeking parental independence than that of a skilled college graduate. In a work-obsessed culture this situation creates a disconnect between “what we do” and what we enjoy and are capable of doing. It affects those of us in our twentysomething years more dramatically than others because this is when we start to confront the complexities of the so-called real world. But the collective dilemma of living in a capitalist society is the ongoing struggle to follow our passions while surviving.

The quarterlife crisis is unique because it is when we begin to viscerally understand that our cultural conditioning around work and success is nothing but mythology and functions only to preserve the status quo. It is when we learn that a college degree does not guarantee you anything close to job security. We start to grapple with the dilemma of passions and survival as we search for a semblance of meaning in a society that is based on an empty construction of material success and power.

In my experience with the quarterlife crisis it has been essential to personally reject these constructions and expectations in an attempt to redefine success and wellbeing. My life goal does not involve getting a powerful job and making more money than I really need at the expense of others. It is not centered around acquiring and consuming lots of things and turning toward these material possessions for happiness. I have tried to live a simple lifestyle that does not require a 40 hour a week wage job. By cutting back on reckless consumerism and by living in places where I don’t need a car I have been able to have more “free time” to pursue my true interests.

This is not to suggest that I haven’t struggled as much as other twentysomethings or that I have somehow transcended this crisis. I have been riddled with financial debt for over a year now and that’s not even counting the massive student loans that I have been nervously deferring. In between periods of unemployment I have worked a number of jobs that have been unfulfilling and have interfered with sustaining inspiration to follow my passions.

The most recent example was at a café where I took drink orders, made sandwiches, washed dishes, and cleaned the bathrooms. This particular café happened to be in the same building as a national media literacy organization that I had respected for years. It was so frustrating for me to be downstairs working a job that I hated when all I wanted was to be upstairs working with them. Occasionally, I fantasized about what it looked like up there and how much happier I would be doing research about issues around race, class and gender in the media than I was cleaning off tables and mopping the floor. Instead I just tried to carve out time for my own writing and research and for playing music and staying politically active.

In my quest to redefine success it has also been important for me to be connected to a network of independent, underground culture. This world has provided me with mentors and models of what uncompromised success can look like. From indie musicians and artists to community organizers and radical school teachers, there are people out there that have made it through this quarterlife struggle and are able to fully incorporate their passions into their daily lives. It has been really inspiring for me to speak with people who have actualized this dream, completely on their terms and in line with their values. This gives me hope as I continue to work a wage job that is separate from what I really want to be doing with my life.

I think back to the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? In a sense, what I am doing now seems just as strange and implausible as being a bomb-making comedian. When I was 8 years old I didn’t have a full understanding of how complex life under capitalism can be. Although we are molded to conform to a rigid occupation-based identity the reality of growing up is much more complicated. In order to thrive during this transitional moment we need to embrace the fact that our lives are multidimensional and from there do everything we can to follow our passions and redefine the recipe for happiness.
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Matt Dineen is a freelance writer living and working in Northampton, MA. This piece has been submitted to an anthology about the "quarterlife crisis." Go to Quarter-Life-Crisis to learn more about the project. Submissions are due March 31st.

Double Lives Commentary

Double Lives: The Dilemma of Education and Work under Capitalism was published last month on TowardFreedom.com and has received some feedback and criticism. Some of the comments were posted below the article. You can read them here: Double Lives.

Double Lives: The Dilemma of Education and Work under Capitalism

By Matt Dineen

“Whatever you do, just don’t get stuck in a dead-end job.” These words had a powerful effect on me and have occupied my consciousness over the past seven years. It was the summer after my high school graduation and this advice was given to me while I was working in the mechanized bakery of a large grocery store chain. My coworker had been there for over 20 years and now, in the midst of back problems and middle-age, she was unhappy with her life and urged me not to make the same mistake.

I escaped that dead-end job in August to attend an increasingly respectable liberal arts college. Graduating four years later with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, I returned to the workforce with an education that provided me the opportunity to avoid getting “stuck.” But in the past two and a half years I have not succeeded in transcending wage-slavery. Rather, I have struggled with the collective dilemma of life under capitalism: How do we follow our passions while simultaneously survive? It is the challenge of life in the “real world,” in which we often have to neglect the things that are important to us in order to feed ourselves. It’s the reality of the artist who waits tables and the activist working for a big corporation. We are forced to compromise our true interests, what keeps us going, simply to make ends meet. We are resigned to the economic imperatives of survival.

Education is supposed to remedy this dilemma. The mythology of American class mobility is epitomized by the cliché, “I was the first in my family to go to college.” What function does education serve in a capitalist society? Does it really provide people with a chance to freely pursue their passions?

Unlike many of my friends growing up I had the privilege, thanks to financial aid and student loans, to attend college. Perhaps because of this I also experienced social pressure upon graduation to “do something with my education” and “find something in my field.” Being in this position has been difficult for me on two levels: First, like every other college graduate with no connection to the economic-political elite, it is not that simple to land an empowering and lucrative job right after school. Secondly, I have no desire to conform to a social construction of success that values wealth and power over personal wellbeing.

In his autobiography of his early years as writer, Hand to Mouth, Paul Auster articulates this dilemma describing the “double lives” that writers and artists must lead to survive in a capitalist society. “They earn good money at legitimate professions and carve out time for their writing as best they can: early in the morning, late at night, weekends, vacations.” In his personal rejection of this compromise he explains, “My problem was that I had no interest in leading a double life. It’s not that I wasn’t willing to work, but the idea of punching a clock at some nine-to-five job left me cold, utterly devoid of enthusiasm.” Auster continues: “I was in my early twenties, and I felt too young to settle down, too full of other plans to waste my time earning more money than I either wanted or needed. As far as finances went, I just wanted to get by.”

For me, this dilemma has translated into a string of alienating and menial jobs. While leading a “double life” I have been forced to segregate my passions from my work, my means for survival. I have carved out time for writing, music and activism but the sub-living wage jobs have drained my energy and inspiration. Last year I worked at a natural grocery cooperative stocking frozen foods and dairy products. One day I found myself on my knees in the walk-in storage refrigerator cleaning up a jar of pickles that I had dropped right before my shift ended. In that moment I knew that there had to be something more than this. I had to find something more meaningful to do with my life. But I have been unsuccessful in my applications to jobs that are “in my field.” From collectively-run bookstores to independent media organizations there are always a plethora of educated and qualified applicants in the same position as me desperately searching for something better.

This is not simply a “quarter-life crisis.” It is an issue that many people in our society deal with all their lives. My coworker in the bakery who warned me about getting stuck in a dead-end job has spent three decades separating her passions from a stifling 40 hour work week. Unlike me, she did not have the same access to resources that a college education provides. This has been a common story amongst working people throughout US history. So many people spend the majority of their lives at jobs they hate. Some carve out time to pursue higher education deep into middle-age in hope of creating a more rewarding life.

In response to a recent interview on Toward Freedom that I conducted with Pittsburgh activist Andalusia Knoll on “Redefining Work,” an inspired reader described this exact situation:

“I have been in the workforce since 1966, without any wealth to show for it. More importantly, the last few years (advertising encouraging people to buy more of what they don’t need) have been totally unfulfilling. At 55 years old, I went back to school to get a quick degree. I found out what I really missed was learning. So, I am going to grad school next year and will work part-time as necessary and perhaps seek a Ph.D. I also volunteer with Greater Philadelphia Cares and am much happier than I was getting and spending.”

The last job I had was at a coffeehouse in the small New England college town where I currently live. I found the work, ownership, and most of the clientele of the café oppressive and spiritually nauseating but I stuck with it because I needed a job. The other thing that kept me there were my amazing coworkers. They were all in similar places with their lives as I was—mostly college grads struggling to go somewhere bigger in this moment of personal transition. We were not simply baristas, dishwashers or counter help. When we weren’t making sandwiches, steaming lattes or cleaning toilets we were pursuing photography, massage therapy, poetry, radio production, journalism, and music—our true passions. Despite our boss’ contrived efforts to convince us otherwise, these were the things that were most important in our lives and the café was a mere stepping stone to something more.

In her book, The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work, Joanne B. Ciulla describes her similar experience with this transitional moment as she was advancing her education in pursuit of what she loved to do. She worked part-time in a restaurant when she wasn’t studying or teaching undergraduate courses in philosophy:

“I worked alongside a ballet dancer and a model. We all had great ambitions. The manager took sadistic delight in making fun of our aspirations and verbally abusing us. I don’t know what happened to the manager, but the dancer eventually went on to become a prima ballerina, the model ended up on the cover of Italian Vogue, and I landed a fellowship at the Harvard Business School.” Ciulla continues, “This experience helped me understand the relationship between hope and work. We can endure the worst of jobs, if it is reasonable to hope that the job will get us where we want to go or at least feed us along the way.”

This passage resonates so deeply with our collective experience of working at the aforementioned café. One day, one of my coworkers stood next to me as I washed dishes at the industrial sink in the back. She looked at me and stated, in a tone of disbelief and wonderment, “This is our life, Matt. This is what we are doing.” This seemingly simple statement contained enough meaning for me to fill volumes and volumes of books on the human condition.

This is our life. This is what we are doing.

Her relationship with work and hope was shaped by her passion for photography. In her double life outside of baking pastries she was creating a portfolio from photos developed in the dark room she built in her apartment. Along with another coworker, she was applying to graduate school for photography in hopes of escaping this job that was slowing us all down. This is an example of how education has the potential to liberate us from “dead-end” situations in which we are forced to compromise the pursuit of our passions.

Despite all of this, it is important to reiterate that it is still a privilege in this society to acquire such an education. Throughout history the power of the ruling, educated classes has depended on depriving the majority of the population such an education; hence the phrase: “Knowledge is power.” The social movements of the 20th Century were integral in democratizing education in the United States but this structural inequality is still in place today. Furthermore, we need to recognize and criticize the limitations and failures of existing educational institutions and their role in perpetuating these unequal power structures.

In my personal struggle to follow my passions in this complex society, I will forever remember the advice of my coworker that summer before I began my college education. I want to be conscious of my opportunities and privileges of which she was denied. In this struggle I will also be inspired by the words of Boris Pasternak:

“The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.”
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Matt Dineen is a freelance writer living in Northampton, MA.