Bullshit Jobs and Existential Labour
Hey beautiful people,
Good news!
The Stoa now has a mug. I aim to release it on an updated Stoa website— along with my upcoming book— on September 26th, which is the 6-month anniversary of The Stoa. If you recall we launched this thing with Jordan Hall’s first Situational Assessment on March 26h, which was when COVID arrived in our collective consciousness.
Here is a photo of me totally not posing while holding the mug and probably thinking about the meta-crisis …
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa49a301e-3fcb-48e8-8cf2-1b0f35a03c51_2576x1932.jpeg)
Socrates totally digs it as well …
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4da66fa9-f176-4e74-bd77-56a4df9339ab_4032x3024.jpeg)
The quote on the mug is a tweet from Stoa facilitator Niklas Limacher …
Why are so many hot people attracted to the Stoa?
Probably because hot people have the proclivity to solve the meta-crisis in Zoom rooms, or maybe this steward just has really tight metagame. Probably the former.
Come be hot with us at tomorrow’s events:
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie. Everyday Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET.RSVP here.
Evolving Ground: 01 Method w/ Charlie Awbery and Jared Janes. August 23rd @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
Memetic Mediation Campfire w/ Jason Snyder and Peter Limberg. Every Sunday @ 3:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Newly posted events:
Dying: East and West w/ Daniel P. Brown. August 30 @ 5:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
How to be a Metamodern “Thought Leader” wtf w/ Jason Fox. September 8th @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Mental Models w/ Peter Wang. September 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th. RSVP here.
Bioenergetic Analysis w/ Devaraj Sandberg. September 19th @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
The Alexander Technique w/ Michael Ashcroft. September 26th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
The Hollow w/ Bonnitta Roy. October 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th. RSVP here.
Here is a snapshot of the shit load of upcoming events (which can be RSVP’d on the website) …
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F692a68a9-a2c8-42de-8ecd-691705728a42_2147x1355.png)
LOTS more coming.
***
August 22, 2020
Bright Eyes released a new album, and I have been drinking a lot of delicious espresso based drinks today, and this is making me want to write.
On Monday I said I was going to attempt a return to the work world. For three days in a row I woke up at 5:30 AM, looked at job boards, and started applying. I applied for two managerial positions, and my soul revolted after writing bullshit like this: I am extremely interested in applying to this normie job.
No. I am not “extremely interested.” You lied bro. Lying is against everything you were practicing in these journals. It is against the axiomatic foundation of my former therapist's worldview, which he pounded into my mind, session after session: tell the truth as if your life depended on it.
For those of you who have not been following these journals from the start, you may have missed that Jordan Peterson was my former therapist, before he became (in)famous. He was a pretty intense dude about being truthful ...
When you speak truth, you speak paradise into being, and when you speak falsely, you speak hell into being, and that's the truth. What that means is that with every decision that you make, you decide for yourself and for the world whether you're going to tilt the world a little more towards hell or a little more towards heaven, and that's the burden you bear for your existence.
Dang. I agree with David Graeber that a lot of the jobs in the job market are bullshit jobs, or at least have strong components of bullshit in them. He defines them as: a form of employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence.
One of the awful things with bullshit jobs is engaging in existential labour. This is the hidden labour of acting as though you find your job meaningful, when in reality you do not. This is soul-sucking and leads to burn-out.
Working in bullshit jobs requires that you bullshit to get and maintain the job. Just go on LinkedIn and take a look around. It is a sea of bullshit. You can become successful and powerful if you get skilled at bullshitting. Our “Game A” world is kept alive with bullshit.
Maybe writing this is just an excuse for me to stop applying for jobs, but I am not so sure. I am not sure of anything at the moment. Dipping my toes back into that world did feel like I was corrupting my soul though.
Yes, I want to have children, and I want to have them without experiencing financial anxiety, but the truth is I am not in a desperate need to return to the normie work world. Camille is the most supportive wife a man on a spiritual mission could have, and she wants me to listen to the daemon.
I think the pressure I am putting on myself here is stemming from shame: the shame of not living up to a certain story of success. The “Game A” story of success. I do not think I can collapse the daemonic energy I am tapped into and easily convert it to money; when I attempt that the daemon goes away.
While writing this, impression management fears kick in. Will people see me as this wishy-washy guy who flip-flops too much? I want to present myself with penetrative certainty, as somebody who has an impenetrable vision. I do feel that way sometimes, but if I were to present myself as that I would not be listening to my former therapist's advice.
I’ve come not to agree with many positions he takes, but I strongly agree with his stance of telling the truth, and the truth is I do not know what is going to happen. I sense I am destined to swim in the liminal until I get good at swimming in it. I also sense it is the wrong move for me to revert to a top-down command-and-control mindset— which goal-setting encourages—to ameliorate my shame. There are better ways to address shame.
I do know I enjoyed listening to the new Bright Eyes album, while writing here. No new decisions have been made, I just missed bleeding real with you already.
***
The Stoa has hosted over 300+ free events since the pandemic started, and it will continue to do so, but it could use your support to continue to do so with quality and integrity. Support The Stoa @ https://www.patreon.com/the_stoa