culture

Fear Of Fragmentation

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Right now it’s a challenging time for many of us. Politics is a nightmare. Wages are stagnant and the inevitable recession looms while US economic policy is made by tantrum. The planet is heating up. Medical care costs skyrocket.

It’s also a challenging time for people I know, and doubtlessly you’re in the same boat. I get it.

I’ve got several friends and family dealing with medical issues.

Other are coping with layoffs and challenges of finding work.

Still others live in places that are being hit or will be hit by climate changes.

And of course, several people fit one or more category. You’re also probably nodding your head, if not trying to cope with sudden anxiety from reading this. We know something is really messed up.

This is something we rarely talk about. It’s not just that our travails of today hurt us or hurt people, they hurt the connections we’ve built. They hurt friends and family and groups and clubs because these stresses on people stress the social bonds we have. It’s hard to keep it all together when everything else is coming apart.

Again, you’ve probably been there. Sorry. And, yes, with climate change it’s going to be worse as we wonder if our friends in Florida will be flooded or our family in Arizona will have their AC crash from overload.

I think it’s up to us to work hard to hold our friends and family and groups together as we face a much more challenging world. We’ll need to stay in touch, back each other up, and help each other out. Then again, that’s what our social structures are for, and man are we going to need them because they are the only thing that’s going to let us get through these times.

So let’s get ready. The world is changing – and not for the better in many ways. We’ve got to survive the change so we can change it back – and not be alone.

So connect with chat. Send text messages. Do a newsletter. Cool someone a meal. Lend them some cash. Do your part to keep it all together.

Steven Savage

Timely Isn’t Always Relevant

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Thus it is that the Great man abides by what is solid, and eschews what is flimsy; dwells with the fruit and not with the flower.

  • Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38, Legge translation

Over at his blog, Serdar discusses the seeming constant need out there to keep track of what’s timely, relevant, and so on. There’s so much to keep track of, and people want us to have opinions on everything. We can’t, yet we’re somehow supposed to because everyone demands our time, demands opinion.

If you’re any kind of writer or artist, if you comment on culture and politics, you know what this feels like. I experience this myself.

There’s a sinister side to this as well, beyond the merely annoying. It keeps us distracted, it keeps us fighting, it keeps us arguing. If you’re a news junkie like myself, you know how exhausting it to watch the media clog with manufactured outrage or see important issues disappear under a wave of B.S.

Ultimately it’s up to us to decide on what’s relevant and what matters to us and bow out of where we can’t. There’s only so much attention to go around, and society has made itself into a spectacle enough as it is.

It’s also up to us to give people a break and understand their limits. They too have only so much time to spend or space to care. Much as we need our boundaries, they need theirs.

Maybe if we give each other enough space to focus on what matters, enough truly important issues will be paid attention to.

Steven Savage



Fun Is Fine Because It’s Fun

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

The ever indomitable MagenCubed had a great comment on Twitter about how we often feel we’re not allowed to have fun. That writing, art, everything fun has to have Some Deeper Meaning, or Some Potential Profit. I have to agree with her, the idea that our fun must somehow Become A Big Thing seems very pathological and way, way too common.

Sure, I write on how people can use their hobbies on the job, but as I’ve often stated know the value of your hobbies and just fun is fine. I feel it’s best we’re honest and clear on our interests, and part of that is to say something like “shut up I’m playing Overwatch to goof off, go away.”

It seems everything has to be monetized. Or therapeutic. Or advance our careers. Or it has to have some meaning beyond what it is. I actually remember when it wasn’t this way! Really!

So I began asking why. What happened? I think there’s five factors affecting turning fun into work.

The longest trend is simply our culture, which idolizes work and productivity and earning money. The idea that somehow if we’re not making money or planning to make money or working real hard something is wrong. It’s sort of an unholy fusion of American Capitalism, Protestant Work Ethic, and a fetishization things having to be “useful.”

Secondly, in the last few years, we’ve also seen the increase of the gig economy, from contractors to Uber drivers. This kind of economy is one without permanent employment or reliable income, and thus one is always hustling and scrambling. It’s too easy to have that attitude leak into our hobbies, and in many cases the “permanent hustle” leads us to constantly worry about tradeoffs of profitable versus unprofitable time.

Third, even when employment is reliable, it doesn’t seem too reliable in the last few years. There’s always the temptation to add a second stream of income, or just see if one can monetize a hobby. How many of us are worried that one corporate acquisition is going to kill our jobs, and isn’t the temptation there to have some cover . . .

Fourth, with all the other crap we have going on, it seems that we think that art or tv or whatever has to have some Great Healing Purpose or Deep Personal Exploration. It’s as if something can’t be good for us because we enjoy it. It has to be some deep thing that transforms us utterly or has some great deep meaning. Also, of course, this justifies us not making money at it – we’re pursuing something Great And IMportant.

Finally, we’ve also created so many tools and options, from Patreon to self-publishing, it’s easy to try and monetize any work. It’s not much effort to shave the serial numbers off of fanfic and hit up Kindle or Draft2Digital. Sure you like art, but it couldn’t hurt to try a Pateron, could it? It’s so easy to try and monetize we may try it before we ask if it’s a good idea.

Our culture, our economy, the push to have deep healing meaning, and the ease with which we can try to monetize hobbies is a powerful combination. I think it’s left us constantly worried we’re not working, and turning fun into work just in case – and because we can.

So no matter, have fun. Fun is it’s own purpose. Fun is fine. Fun is good. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t just have fun.

Even me. Now and then people like me need to be told “back off, I’m goofing off.”

Steven Savage