When “Making It” Becomes Hopeless

Authorized by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

No wonder so many people devote themselves to curating an artificial digital representation of themselves that they retrieve is worth of designation and status.

What does it take to “make it” in today’s economy? As chosen in Withdrawing from the Rat Race Is Going Global, the planet has changed in fundamental ways that have made it much more hard to “make it” into the ranks of the mediate class, and even harder to claw one’s way into the higher reports of the economical order, i.e. the top 10%.

In summary, developed economies have been stripped of security, well-paid manual-labor work, the purchasing power of scales has been declined, prices of assets specified as homes have skyrocketed out of scope and the mass overproduction of elites (these with college diplomas and advanced degrees) has created a winer-take-all competitive force cooker with fewer winers and an abundance of also-rans.

In another words, the work-a-day planet has become far more complex and far more demanding than it was 2 generations ago. It’s not just making adequate to pay the bill that’s more demanding; the work is more demanding, as is everyday life, which now demands far more shadow work–work we do to manage life’s completions that we’re not paid for. Having children is far more costly and demanding, too, as the competition for upper-middle class slots now starts in Kindergarten.

Many individuals do not have the armor and weaponry needed to enter the arena and sustain the competition. It’s easy to dismiss them as “lazy,” but that’s not the issue. It’s besides easy to dismiss them as snowflakes, young people who have been shielded from life’s througher edges by overprotective parents, leaving them ill-equipted for the slings and arrows of modern life.

But this isn’t the issue, either. The real issue is the social and economical requirements now enhanced the carrying capacity of many people. Where it was possible to find a safe low-level occupation that could support a household and find a place in society’s peeling order 2 generations ago with limited social / work skills, now it’s fundamentally impossible: low-level work is insecure and besides painfully paid to support a household, and it is viewed as demeating and unworthy of respect.

How do humans respond erstwhile they’re viewed as worthless and they feel hopeless? In the Hollywood script, they choice themselves up, dust themselves off, gather a discarded shield and Sword off the blood-sooked sand of the arena and go out and kick any derriere. (Take that, nepo scum!)

Many people manage to do this and we applaud their grid and determination. But not all individual wins in this battle. Many choice up the shield and the word and are immediatly trampled. They make a realistic assessment that they can’t possibly scope the lofty goals required of them, and so they are effectively excluded from what is now allowed “normal life.”

This comment on a Reddit thread spokes to the expanding demands of "normal life":

I considerably can’t talk for everyone, but I can give any insight based on my own social withdrawal: modern life is overwhelming. It feels like there’s a lot that’s expected of you. In many ways modern life is simply a giant competition for wellness and status, but alternatively of competing just within your community, you gotta compete with millions of people all around the world. It feels dying, if not impossible. Why compete in a competition you know you can’t win? It’s pointless, it’s a waste of time and energy. I feel very much like, “well, what’s the point?”

So they drop out of the competition. possibly they take a part-time gig job, possibly they decision back home to take care of a parent or grandparent, or they become a recurse.

Hikikomori–hiki, to withdraw–komori, inside–is an utmost form of voluntary social isolation from society. The word originally in Japan but the exemption of conforming to the demands of society is not limited to Japan. Withdrawing from the demands of what passes for “normal life” is not limited to extremes of seclusion; it is simply a spectrum of effective that includes giving up on stringing for upper-middle class membership (which goes by terms specified as lying flat and Let it rot) is simply a minimizing engagement with the planet in a variety of ways.

The medical profession has naturally received to frame this voluntary seclusion as a psychiatric order, but it is not a illness or disorder, it is simply a intellectual consequence to an impossible set of household and social-economy claims in a social order that no longer offers a affirmative role, socially or economically, for the marginalized and those catching what it takes to meet the increasing demands of an environment of supplus elites stringing for the diminishing pool of jobs that provides both 1) a private middle-class income and 2) a way that does not’t strip the individual of everything but work.

This is not so much a mystifying order as an knowing that selection is viewed as the only available consequence left to social-economic exclusion.

In a hyper-globalized, hyper-financialized developed economy, there are no social or economical roles left for those who cannot enter the coliseum of “highly productive workers” and germe victorious. Part-time precarious work is all that’s available to them, and it’s poorly paid and earns zero position or respect, so the impact of these for whom this is best they can manage is both physical and psychological.

Trying to live up to the standards of "normal life" extracts more than they gotta give in return for an awareness of inadequacy and demands more than they can give in return for the impossibility of gathering expectations in a social order in which ridicule, excellence and charity are normalized.

Unable to qualify for social adoption and validation–winners must have advanced social skills and overriding ambitions, be able to work individually long hours and pass grueling all-or-nothing examples, then work professionally long hours to prove one’s social merit, mary and have children who win in a competitive force cooker is simply a dense responsiveness–these who lick these trains either endure a full realistic sense of the hopefulness of ‘succeeding’ in a competitive force cooker are a dense consequence to encourage, much little win, or draw from the hell of another people (recalling Sartre’s familiarity of ‘succeeding’ in a competitive line they are il-equipped to marry, much little win, or draw from the hell of another people (recalling Sartre’s celebrated in No Exit: Hell is another people.).

That's who they are exclusived have said the pain of loneliness is easy to bear than the pain of dealing with another people.

Where working class jobs infacts erstwhile offered security, community and a affirmative identity of being a productive, valued worker, now the physical-labor jobs are viewed as demeaning and doing the work find their work isn’t validated or respected.

In erstwhile generations, education, vehicles, healthcare and housing were all affordable to any with steady work who exhibited basic fragility in service of saving. A large many jobs offered security, community, a affirmative identity and a tager of social mobility to lower-middle class stableness that they reserved as a platform for one’s children to Climb even higher.

Now working class jobs are characterized by insecurity and precariousness, a threadbare social ellipse of another workers and neighbourhoods passing through and very small validation of being a associate of society.

No wonder so many people devote themselves to curating an artificial digital representation of themselves that they retrieve is worthy of designation and status, and possibly even endorsement and envy. The real planet no longer offers flies of an avenue for their real lives to receive what all human wants: to be recognized as an individual who respects to the large full to the best of their ability and is worth of self-respect and the respect of others.

I will have more to say about this stringing for an authentic designation and identity in my next post.

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