That’s a pretty fucking stupid take, our ancestors had to be busy all the time just to survive.
We are living in a time of 24/7 news and access to way too much information that’s a way better explanation.
In fact I even like the explanation of anxiety being a result of abundance of calories more than this shit. That theory posits that our brains can go into overdrive simply because it has access to so many excess calories whereas in the past it didn’t.
There is also the move towards white collar work, work that’s not physically demanding, that we didn’t evolve to deal with. Try going to the gym/exercising regularly and you will notice a significant drop in anxiety even on your worst days.
You are 100% correct.
It’s not that we’re too busy. It’s that we’re too busy without purpose. What’s the point of being busy when it doesn’t proportionately translate to having our needs met?
We have more abundance than ever before in all of human history, and yet we work harder than hunter-gatherers just to feed ourselves, and we have less leisure time than they did. We work more hours per day and have fewer days off per year than medieval serfs. And for what? What’s the purpose? So some asshole who was born on third base can buy another mansion?
Thats our monetary policy. People must consume more every year to create more inflation, as technology actively reduces the price of goods.
If goods get cheaper we have deflation, they create more money supply via lower interest rates, and the price of inelastic shelter gets bid up, and asset holders receive a value windfall until prices rise. Which is why we are at a higher price to income ratio than 2007.
People born closer to the gold standard are richer, they got in when currency wasnt tethered to consumption.
Preach.
Exactly! I work in a group home, so my work is very easy, but I want to go into IT, so I can actually go into a field I love
I’m so tired of working. I just want to live modestly in a bought off house but the ever inflating cost of living will make it an impossible dream.
Nancy Birtwhistle has some great books that can help a bit with the cost of living. They include recipes for your own cleaning products and toiletries. It’s only a few £s here and there but they start to add up into some real savings, plus you get the benefit of knowing exactly what’s in your products, peace of mind from potential health effects, as it’s all vinegars, citric acids, and alcohols instead of (to the layman) mystery chemicals.
And to save even more money they are available on the high seas, although she’s put considerable care and attention into them so I’ve purchased the real things. But for getting started, they are available is all I’m saying.
Obviously that doesn’t help with buying a house or anything as they’re crazy prices everywhere but it’ll save you on your shopping bills each week at least.
I retired from my software developer job right before COVID hit, bought a very small (and very inexpensive) fixer-upper house for cash, and started driving a school bus. I make like 1/5 as much as I used to and I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my life. I work less than five hours a day and I have a big break between my morning and afternoon runs so I can ride my bike, have a leisurely lunch and a nice nap in the middle of my day. If the school board would just take my suggestion to send all the middle-schoolers to the Antarctic for three years, my life would be perfect.
I’m in a similar job but I only bought my house about 2 years ago. The mortgage is ridiculously high even for my salary. If things are already tough for me, I’d hate to think how the average person can afford basic necessities. Good on you for being able to buy a cheap house though, I wish that was an option for me.
Yes I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter please and thank you.
It’s only unpopular for the 1% extracting wealth from the 99%
Sort of, but there really are huge swaths of Americans that grew up learning about “work ethic,” putting in those extra hours, etc… I still struggle to turn it off sometimes myself. And then have to learn over and over and over again that “put in extra unpaid work and it’ll pay off” is horseshit every single fucking time and I’m a fucking idiot.
Kinda sorta.
It is more that the things we are busy doing are not fulfilling. Half of everything we do is because we are forced to do it to survive.
Contrary to popular belief, people actually like to do things and to keep busy/be productive… when we have control over what those things are
Not being busy will make you braindead and depressed too = shorter lifespan
It’s a balance. Not being busy is good sometimes; it’s called “resting” and it’s important for mental health.
But yes, to what I believe you’re trying to get across, being forced to be stagnant for extended periods of time (such as solitary confinement) can have deleterious effects on one’s mental and even physical health.
The point is also more about having agency over whether or not you have to be doing something and how you get to do it.
Yes I was merely adding to your earlier comment
Your statement does a poor job in its addition and neglects certain important nuances by being overly generalized in its phrasing.
“Not being busy” doesn’t make you braindead and depressed. It is an important distinction between simply “not being busy” and “being forced into stagnation to the point it becomes hazardous to your health”
Not a native speaker and living in different culture, commenting online is always a risky game. I wish people would understand the correct undertone.
Undertones are entirely social concepts and depend on the culture of a region, and usually involve nonverbal communication in things like tons and body language to discern differences. Adding the language barrier just complicates things even more.
Most people unfortunately don’t consciously consider this stuff and just assume everyone is like them.
So, as you said, commenting online is a risky game.
30 years in the forest, surrounded by family and friends, a life spent close to nature, around a fire, below skies that have not yet be tainted with light pollution. A naturally human schedule, based on natural cycles. Or a long life spent under a hazy sun and enough toys to distract you from how alone you are, surrounded by strangers and neighbors who have no reason to learn your name. I wonder which is longer, and which is more full.
I don’t think you understand what busy means, you are clearly busy spending time with your family and doing things to make them happy, helping friends, making fire.
That’s a productive life where you add value.
A life of chemicals, to extend your productivity and to extract what it can from you. A life looking for distractions, when the meaning was there. In the woods. In the plains. In the mountains, the valleys, in a natural garden of eden. We traded it all and all we got was a clock to make us all slaves.
I’m not a primitivist, but you’re also not wrong. For my part, I wish we could just make a better trade. We don’t need all the toys — just the ones that directly impact our flourishing.
You can’t just state facts and then call it an unpopular opinion for likes
Is this your first day on the internet?
no but I’m getting tired of this “unpopular opinion but I think the sky is blue” shit
But then how is someone supposed to argue about how how the sky is red sometimes?
Got 'em.
I often find this aggravating, but in some cases, I think that stating an opinion as being unpopular is a defence mechanism that may stem from previous responses to said opinion.
On the topic of everyone being busy, for example, a friend once shared a similar opinion at work and their colleagues jumped on that opinion and argued against it in a manner that was effectively dick-measuring about how tired and burnt out they are, but how they’re going to take on more work nonetheless. It was an especially toxic work environment, but it’s not abnormal to find people who seem desperate to sacrifice themselves on the altar of capitalism.
I speculate that some of this bizarre defense of hyper productivity arises from people who are forced to work that way for so long that they start to think of it as a thing they choose to do. My friend was fortunate enough that he was able to quit his job to stay home with his newborn child, but far too many people don’t have that opportunity. I wonder if some of the men who mocked him for quitting the job did so because they wish they had been able to do the same thing, but given that that ship had long since sailed, pretending that they chose to stay at that shitty job helped them to weather the stress.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that I sympathise with people who hedge their beliefs with saying an opinion is “unpopular”. I think that sometimes, it’s a way of saying “this is something I believe, but I’m not actively trying to change your mind about it”. There may also be an element of someone hoping that people will say “idk what you mean, that’s not an unpopular opinion”, in search of validation. That’s annoying, but I’m sympathetic towards someone fishing for validation in this topic, at the very least.
Some people basically hibernated in the past. Slept for most of the day in winter to conserve energy(ignore the part where they slept a lot because they were hungry, we have food).
Modern “work ethics” is a scam.
Yeah this is one of the reasons labor needs to organize.
There’s one boss telling 500 workers that they all need to work themselves to death? Fuck that. We outnumber him. We could be productive without burnout and things could be fine.
For anyone else reading this: you could be the one to make that change, and gain you and your coworkers better pay and time off.
Seriously consider joining the IWW. They’ll train you on how to organize your coworkers and form a grassroots union, no matter what your job is.
Thanks for the recommendation. I am heartened by recent pushes towards unions. In particular, tech workers are beginning to understand that they are workers (as opposed to the narrative that tech workers exist at a level above the kind of people who need unions).
I haven’t heard of the IWW, but the website for the UK branch has the headline “Bigoted bourgeoisie courts never cared about workers, whether cis or trans” (regarding a recent UK supreme court ruling). I haven’t read the article, but that headline has given me a strong first impression of these guys. They seem pretty based
I’ve been excited at that development as well. It’s honestly a bit baffling it took them so long, especially game developers, where extreme crunch time and post release seasonal layoffs are the norm.
The IWW is the only union that leans heavily anarchist, with a rich history going back to 1905. :)
Unfortunately there is a pyramid scheme in place filled with fools that think they can become that one and are willing to fight against those “beneath” them.
Under the table were the fatcats are sharing slices of the cake, squirrel the little mice living of the crumbs that fall down, and once in a while one of the mice catches a bigger crumb, proudly raises it above its head and shouts: “See, the System works!”
“recursive bulling”
True. There are also many idiots who think like, “I work hard and when I take a break it’s well deserved. When they take a break, they’re lazy good-for-nothings”.
There’s a name for this I can’t remember right now. Something more specific than “stupid” or “no empathy”.
Arrogance? Greed? Being a clueless asshole?
Fundamental attribution error
Fundamental attribution error
Yes! That’s it! Thank you
Wiki on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
Stress causes burnout. That’s something else.
Depression is when you don’t do anything. You won’t be “too busy”. You’re not even leaving your bedroom.
Anxious people can’t handle stress.
Depression isn’t only “when you don’t do anything.” That’s one of the forms severe depression can take, but it’s better generalized as persistent lack of positive emotions and/or motivation resulting from decreased brain activity in key areas
Also people diagnosed with anxiety can “handle stress,” just not to the level demanded by modern society without significant impairment and distress
Nah we cannot handle stress. The difference before and after anxiety medication is tremendous. I went as far as having stomach damage from anxiety. Losing 20 kg because the anxiety kept worsening the condition. Trust me, we cannot handle stress.
Depression’s enemy is serotonine and dopamine. If you aren’t stuck in your room, then you’re able to workout. Able to get going. It doesn’t feel like life’s worth living at those moments. Life’s on a pause button. But once you get that energy surge. Grab it with both hands and make sure that the motor doesn’t stop running.
Medication against depression is basically the same thing as you get from being active.
I took Amisulpride for a while against depression after losing the 20 kg, then now am on 10 mg sipralexa. I feel 0 depression whatsoever. Quite the opposite. I have too much energy.
never going back to anxiety disorder, it has nothing to do with the amount of work. It’s just how my brain is wired. I’m very productive right now because I’m not anxious.
I think how well anxious people cope with stress varies. I’m a pretty anxious person, but I’m actually incredibly good to have on hand in a crisis. I also bizarrely enjoy these situations, because of how much calmer I feel. Like, it’s not that I’m not anxious in these scenarios (there is at least one point where I had someone else’s life in my hands, and that was fucking terrifying), but it felt like good anxiety.
I’ve heard similar experiences from some others with anxiety (and one friend who effectively “solved” her anxiety by becoming a paramedic). it blows my mind how much variety there is in how ill mental health manifests, and how much we still have to learn about how things work.
I’m glad to hear that your medication has helped you. It’s awesome to find something that helps, and to be able to blitz through tasks that were previously impossible to do. I felt a similar thing when I started ADHD medication.
Wouldn’t that be adrenaline or such helping you be calm?
Personally the way I cannot handle stress would be: deadlines that aren’t feasible. I’d be scratching heart area because it would feel weird.
When I’m overly stressed, I can’t keep myself from scratching certain areas. As my mind is going wild.
In such situations I am completely useless to others. It should be illegal for me to drive on the road with a car in such moments too. It feels like I’m more impacted than when drunk.
It makes more sense to me if I consider the potential impact of hypervigilance — “the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats around you”. It’s associated with PTSD, and whilst my paramedic friend doesn’t have a diagnosis of that, I know that their family were abusive, and they identified that much of their anxiety stemmed from hypervigilance.
It makes sense to me that if someone’s anxiety is being driven by hypervigilance (a chronically dysregulated stress response), that some people may find it beneficial to put themselves in genuinely high stress situations, to sort of channel the stress into a sensible outlet.
Another related example is that I have a friend who goes for a run when she feels very anxious. She says that she’s found it ineffective to try logicking her way out of feeling anxious, or trying to calm herself down, and that going for a run feels like saying to her body “you’re absolutely right, there was something scary here, but now we have escaped it, and can relax”. I always find it interesting how people sometimes speak about their bodies and brains and existing separately from themselves, often in an attempt to reconcile the tensions between different aspects of ourselves
Going for a run is good against anxiety. Mostly because of the hormones in releases.
Endorphins and serotonine. Anxiety medication is about increasing the amount of serotonine or dopamine that gets used by your body/brain.
That’s why I said earlier that people should workout when they are depressed. The problem with depressed people is that they are too depressed to work out.
Hence, when they finally get some energy back, they better get active and workout to prevent a future episode as harshly.
I have absolutely no idea about traumatic experiences. Can’t relate how that would feel.
My experience is just due to genetics, it’s not anything that my environment did to me.
yea, “unpopular” because we’re all indoctrinated from preschool onward that it’s “natural” to be yanked out of sleep by an alarm, bust our asses to show up at work, move on to things at the sound of a bell for all the daylight hours, then get minimal, if any, sleep in order to do it all over again tomorrow. god forbid you get an opportunity for a nap in the middle of the day
thank the industrial revolution: slavery dressed up in “freedom and opportunity” – same as the other familiar phrase “arbeit macht frei”
you exist to generate value for your owners. that’s it.
I worked 55+ hours a week for years. During the pandemic I became a stay at home mom. I suddenly, never sped while driving and any road rage tendencies vanished, nearly overnight.
While I feel quite isolated and lonely sometimes, as everyone I know works and are busy all the time, I can’t stress enough how much of a change my driving habits went through when I was no longer in “workmode”.
I used to break an average of 3 traffic laws every morning getting to my 6am shift. Then, the rush to just.get.home.
To a point now, I don’t like driving during rush hours, or shopping after the work crews get off. 10am on a weekday at the grocery store? Everyone is pleasant and polite.“excuse me” I say, and we have a polite interchange. I’ll give a compliment to a womans dress, and I’ve passed some good on to a fellow human, sometimes I even receive compliments from the little old ladies, I’ve learned from them after all.
If I go to the shop after 4pm or on a weekend? I can feel folks souls have been ripped out and stomped on, knowing what they feel… I say excuse me as i have to scoot pass their cart, and I don’t even get a response just a glare. Then I return home sad.
i noticed a similar benefit to my mental state regarding the rat race. i’d been living in city/urban areas pretty much my whole life ~40 years. when i moved to a rural area and could travel 25 miles in 20 minutes instead of 10 miles in 45 minutes, the difference was indescribable. like 3 traffic lights instead of 12, people know what driving etiquette is, no road rage, etc.
now, even when i occasionally approach the nearest “city,” which is tiny by city standards, i feel the stress and irritability level rising right when i start to see more tail lights than road. it’s insane. and people do this all day every day. fuck. all. that.
Work/life balance is crucial. Ideally, everyone should be guaranteed a healthy work/life balance, while still being able to live comfortably. With one job.
It would be healthy for everyone to live comfortably, and then, work how and if they want to
I’m depressed if I’m not
Me too. I enjoy my job, and I’d do it for free if I wouldn’t need money for almost everything, from my daily commute to breakfasts that both guarantee I can work at all. My paycheck is ignorant of this secret taxation.
Yeah there’s something to that. Like I feel as though we should always be doing stuff but not what it is that we’re currently doing?
Like, we should be waking up and having tea with our neighbors or helping out in our communities and stuff … perhaps just building, planting, fixing things that we’d like? I don’t feel as though we should be fighting deadlines constantly.
I’ve only gotten one minute into the video and already it’s hit me with truth.
I’m a sahm, used to work in manufacturing. I enjoy keeping house, …mostly. The beginning of the video it’s stated in the stone age, people would usually have one day of heavy work, followed by a day of less work.
When I’m left to my own devices on planning and keeping house, this is exactly how my days go. I clean like hell for one day or do an outdoor project, and the next, I just do the bare minimum, maybe a load of dishes and a meal that requires more effort, but nothing else. I thought it was just part of my neurodivergencies. But I really do enjoy working in this manner. I actually get to enjoy the fruits of my labor for a minute.
Maybe thats what humans are missing, basking in a job well done is important to keep us motivated imo
removed by mod
There are actual differences in the brain and it’s not about capitalism.
I mean, historically, the majority of humans were meant die shortly after being born, with women dying in childbirth, and men dying young in wars. Those that lived those parts may have died from malnutrition or diseases/injuries today that are annoyances instead of being fatal.
With current use of antibiotics in farming; disease and injury will soon be very fatal again. At least we can hope for a reset of the infinite growth issue.
The world did indeed used to be a brutal place. I guess I’m trying to understand what conclusion you’re trying to draw.
The OP picture says “humans were never meant to be” something. That language suggests that either we’re biologically designed to be something else (which I don’t think that person was saying) or that human society was designed to support something better that is less anxious or depressed. I’m pointing out (not too seriously) that that isn’t the case either and that prior human societies were actually “designed” to be far far worse.
Realistically no one designed anything, so I’m having a lighthearted poke at the premise of OP’s picture.
Humans used to have a much more direct connection between what they did and their survival. Gather enough food and you won’t starve. Keep an eye out for other tribes/clans/families competing for the same resources and you don’t get killed. Processing TPS reports all day doesn’t seem like it does much of anything even though it gives you money. We’ve lost the connection and our brains can’t handle it.
If your work isn’t mentally stimulating, then get another job that is.
If you’re being complacent then that’s up to you.
I flat out tell my employer to automatise the monkey work because I’m not doing it adequately.
If you want me to perform, make the work release dopamine etc when I competitively complete it.
So modern life is simulating an impending death scenario for the brain. All the time.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Like the panic that occurs when layoffs happen.
Jokes on you, I am unemployed.
Joke’s* on you
(The joke is on you.)
Helping their employment prospects one correction at a time.
