There is no "safe and stable 9/5 work" anymore, not for my generation. That's even more true for this country. Not that I ever aspired to settle down for a quiet life of an office worker, but the opportunity was there. Now it's not, and it is somehow liberating.
Any choice is a burden, especially if it is an illusion of choice. Or maybe I'm looking for a silver lining in a situation that is otherwise... well, unpleasant.
@academicalnerd Well. I feel that too. Sometimes I think these somewhat incoherent, but related thoughts:
1. for most of the history individual people felt like an object of history, rather than fully sovereign agents. In Russia even more than elsewhere, but it holds everywhere. Only the last 100, somewhere perhaps only the last 30 years gave us the opportunity to feel as masters of our own individual destinies. We internalised that feeling and often convinced ourselves that that is "the normal". But what if it isn't? What if it was just an anomaly of history? A bleak world picture there.
1. to deal with thoughts like that, I found stoicism (and perhaps especially it's more modern incarnations) to be a useful guide. Not that I am good on that path, but those thoughts occasionally help. In a way, they are not dissimilar to what me, as a non-religious person observe on most Muslims. They still interleave their speech with things like "insallah", which to me, signals a level of acceptance, if not even fatalism. I find a grain of that in life healthy - to understand that there are forces affecting our life beyond our reach (whether religious or not is besides the point).
Such things occasionally help me to overcome the despair and frustration stemming from lack of control over parts of my own destiny - and BTW, I am one of those who try very very hard to control it 🙂 - yet, in vain so far.
@academicalnerd The rub is that a "safe and stable 9-5 job" was never nearly as safe or stable as it was cracked up to be.
Well, yeah, but this idea is becoming even less realistic over time.
@academicalnerd
> it is somehow liberating
Is it? Sometimes I long for such a world. And it actually exists in places, but one needs to rid oneself of all ambition and fun at work. Then those places do indeed still exist.