An update since "I'd rather be kinda poor than work most jobs"

I'm just a 26 year old figuring things out in a crazy world- idk what I'm doing half the time but at least I'm trying things out!

“I would rather be kinda poor than work most jobs” blew up more on Substack than I ever anticipated. After all, I wrote this article believing only a few hundred people (at max) would read this, and perhaps get half a dozen comments or shares.

This is wildly successful for me on Substack, given that I do not take my Substack all that seriously.

I’ve hardly posted anything on Substack in the past couple of months because I feel like I don't understand what I am thinking & feeling these days. And I’ve been feeling “lost” to a greater degree than usual. I think everyone goes through period of their life where they don't really know how they feel and what's going on, but particularly for myself and the current state of events, I have been feeling crazy, directionless, and plagued with confusion/anger/sadness more than I wish I was. Some days are totally fine (of course), but too many days are clouded with existential dread.

Being on Unemployment was fun until I started to experience high degrees of self-loathing because I didn't have a “purpose”. Unemployment can be described as a ticking clock of bare minimum benefits popping into your bank account, each deposit a reminder that you have a limited number of weeks to get your shit figured out before you don’t get any more support. It feels like every week that I am not getting closer to where I am “supposed” to be, I have wasted precious time. It’s a constant reminder that I am “behind in life”, even though I don’t like the prescribed game to begin with.

At the same time, I've noticed far more people looking for jobs these days as compared to last year. It seems like everyone is asking around for something new, and I think about how I have temporarily chosen not to participate in applying for jobs (in a serious manner- I still have to apply to jobs to receive my benefits, but I do not actually want one, because I would rather “hold out” until I find something aligned for me). I think about how whenever I am at a vintage store in Baltimore, I notice more people this year asking for a job there compared to last year. I wonder what kind of jobless pickle they are in, and how it compares to mine.

I've been spiraling because I want purpose and connection and community, but that is half impossible in the world of oil-driven, profit-obsessed American capitalism. It feels impossible to find a career that has you working 4 days a week with 5 weeks of vacation a year, a hybrid model, managers and coworkers who respect you and have everyone's best interests at heart, a job that fills you with purpose, makes the world a better place, has you working with your hands, pays you enough to live well with benefits such as retirement and healthcare (I guess I’d have to move overseas to get such a life balance). I have one friend who recently became fun-employed because they plan to move cities this summer, and so they have allotted themselves two months of not working before they find a new job in their new-to-be city. We were reminiscing about the frustration of wanting work that is purposeful, interesting, and pays a living wage, while also knowing options are limited, especially now. We keep our heads up, because we know that things could be better, but we also know that things could be worse.

The National Guard still swarms DC. People have already moved out of DC because of it- several of whom moved to Baltimore due to the ease of proximity.

I found a community garden to start volunteering at. I also have friends who collectively own a welding studio and once a week- the same day as the community garden- they have open shop hours where anyone who is not a member of the studio is allowed to come and participate in the building of random things. Wednesdays are my new favorite day of the week because I get about six hours of dedicated time towards things I find incredibly fascinating and fulfilling. I am learning about the science of compost and the skill of welding. I'm doing things that are both individual and group oriented depending on what you please. These activities are all like cycling (my favorite sport) because it's something that you can do alone when you want, can do with a group, or alone but still with a group (aka, just “being there” without talking because all you want to do is be present but not chit-chat). At the garden, we weed the beds in silence for a little bit until someone decides to strike up a conversation. Then one person asks for help turning the compost, one person volunteers, and the mix of who is working where, near whom, and on what, changes seamlessly.

Last week at the community garden, one of the head volunteers asked for more art. My brain and eyes immediately lit up. I rose my hand and said “I know a place and I know people who can make that happen”. They were all enthusiastic in response to my enthusiasm and said “go ahead make anything that you want. We just want something funky to be here”. I biked to the welding studio right after the garden hours ended, began jotting down everything I learned from the community garden (what we harvested, what we planted, how we churned the compost, how people learned the things they were now teaching me, how they created and found their careers, what native plants we do/don’t want in a certain garden bed etc.) because I really want to learn this stuff. Ah-ha! I’ve finally found something which piques my interest and focussed for hours at a time. After my half-studious half-social time, I got the core stuff about the garden scribbled down, so I started thinking to myself, “What do I want to make for this garden?” I'm on Pinterest looking at ideas, but I don't want to merely copy someone else’s- I want to make something unique of my own. I start thinking of the tools that I do understand how to use. Primarily the angle grinder, drills, and the parts of bikes that I prefer to work with. I decide on making windchimes out of scrap bike parts. I estimate two days to make this happen- half that very day, and half next Wednesday.

I hardly know what I'm doing, but I know that I can keep going. There is anywhere between 5 and 15 people at this garage on this weekday night, and for the members who use it on a regular basis to make freak bikes, I ask them (and others) for tidbits of advice, guidance, safety precautions, and creative ideas for the windchimes I am about to create. I drew a whole diagram of my creative vision. I wrote down everything that I wanted. I was completely locked in and, for 5 hours that evening, I created this sculpture for the community garden. I was halfway done this project in a single evening, born from the casual comment “if anyone wants to make art for the garden, we’d appreciate it!”. After banging certain steel and aluminum bike tubes together (to test for sound quality), I picked one frame that I liked and cut it into six tubes of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 inches in length. They aren't precise measurements, but it's good enough because this is a prototype for windchimes that could always be improved upon. I keep going until 11 o'clock and decided that I should not disrupt my sleep cycle and head home. The next steps of this project require materials that I do not yet have, and also the skill of welding which I hardly possess. One of the welders is being fixed, and I would rather have someone stand beside me to make sure I am doing things right and people are already starting to head home.

I met with a psychiatrist the other week to inquire about getting a diagnosis for ADHD, OCD, autism and anything else that might be related to the ever flowing anxiety and depression that I have had since I was a youngster. I've had reservations about meeting with a psychiatrist because it feels like they will meet you for 30 minutes and then prescribe you Lexapro or Ritalin or something else without taking the time to really get to know you on a deep level (it feels way too casual/easy to get prescribed daily drugs). I was diagnosed with basically everything under the sun, which I found quite irritating, useless, and lazy. How can you prescribe me a cocktail of ADHD, OCD, anxiety, depression, borderline, maybe some autism, in the matter of 45 minutes while you are walking around your apartment trying to keep your one year old from crying in your arms? I am sure the psychiatrist had good intentions, but it’s not enough- I deserve more consideration than that. I was offered a prescription for Vyvanse as a way to help my potential ADHD, and I have been calling many friends to inquire about their experiences with both psychiatrists and psychiatric medication for their ADHD and mental well-being On one hand, I want to try it because I think it could be a worthwhile experiment to see if it impacts me for better/worse, and on another hand, I don't want to, because I fundamentally don't think anything is wrong with me, I just operate differently and with different values than what mainstream society wants of us. I clearly am a highly motivated person- it’s just for things like community garden sculptures and biking across countries. Things that most 9-5’s can’t offer.

I get distracted and de-motivated from the marketing aspect of my business very easily, but when it comes to the community garden and the welding studio (and crochet and many other hobbies of mine), I am “locked in”- I’ve come to learn it is hard for me to get anything done if I am not deeply interested in it to begin with. I get obsessive for almost all the right reasons. For 6 hours I built wind chimes because this is what life is all about. It’s about working with people to make stuff for other people! I am not distracted in the slightest, but I am half talking to myself outloud, half chimed into the conversations around me, all while measuring the lengths of the tubes I want to cut. It’s almost like I’m in a trance. I wish someone would’ve told me when I was studying public health in college that almost all the career options from there were computer based (something which makes me feel like I’m part of a theatrical collective hallucination)- perhaps I would’ve studied engineering or environmental science instead.

At the studio (and on other creative projects) I am highly motivated, at times deeply impatient, but entirely focussed on making my vision a success (my flaw is getting bored when I am 80% done). I work the best when there is a very fluid and natural balance of teamwork versus individual work. I need to work with my hands, draw on paper, collaborate with people in person (not on Slack) when the need arises, then go right back to individual work when it’s best. I work optimally when I can see, touch, and feel the things that I am working on- anything that's on a computer doesn’t feel real 60% of the time. If I can’t understand it with my hands and eyes, I will probably never understand it with my brain.

In the case of my new favorite day of the week (Wednesdays), it's clear that I have intelligence and tremendous capacity to make things happen. I clearly love doing stuff. I clearly am not lazy. I’ve only just been reminded that I prefer working with systems, equations, drawings and making something come to life from my mind. I wish I could go back in time to my college self and scream “don’t study public health! You’ll hate every job available with that degree! You have to spend your life making things in order to be happy.” I wish it wasn’t normalized for so much of the world to waste their life working a Bullshit Job.

I have my own strengths, weaknesses, interests and ability to “click” like anyone else, and I am trying not to let myself get preoccupied with the ticking clock of unemployment which demands and answer to the question “what career will you choose once your unemployment is over?” I can’t let the anxiety of making the right choice by August ruin my capacity for learning the things I love right now. I don’t have an answer for what I’ll do after 08/01/2026 when my year of unemployment ends. I wonder if I should’ve been an environmental engineer like everyone told me I should be back when I was president of the Math Honor Society in high school. I wonder if I should stick with the tourism industry until I figure out what I should do next. My sibling recommends I be an engineering technician because of my need to do real, tangible, physical things.

On this year of unemployment soul-searching, I have to complete three “Unemployment activities” every week to continue earning my benefits, and I have learned there are some educational courses I can complete as an “activity”. The majority of courses are quite awful and likely created with AI, but I found a couple of gems, once of which was a course on organic farming. I just finished another course on Permaculture and Agroecology, but couldn’t make it through one on soil science because it was so poorly made. With all of the terrible news about climate change and ecosystem collapse that we must prepare for, it is more important than ever to consider how we nourish ourselves and communities all around. I do believe permaculture and agroforestry will be our future. I do believe humans were meant to be making things, outside, and close to others, more than we were ever meant to WFH on a computer 5 days a week. If things fall apart, we have to be the ones to rebuild it, and we have to rebuild it as something better. As my new favorite brand of ice cream says on the back of their pint, “the future of food is in the past”. I think many of us are beginning to feel the same, but not limited to only food.

I think of a family member who is going through a breakup and posted dozens of videos of what they were going through mentally and physically in order to actively showcase vulnerability. I feel like I have been publicly vulnerable for several years, but have taken a step back because radical vulnerability can be deeply overwhelming, and at times, sets you up for getting punched down when all you need is for someone to say “you’re okay”. I don’t have to be vulnerable to the public all the time, but I think this period of feeling closed off is coming to an end. I take my cousin’s message of vulnerability as a signal from the universe that perhaps it is time for me to be vulnerable again as well. Perhaps it will help me feel get out of this undefinable slump that has possessed me since the beginning of this year.

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I want to finish this article, so here are a couple of things I have learned about myself/the “world” recently:

• for people with ADHD, you need to learn to mistrust your sense of urgency. This approach helps make writing down lists far easier. It’s triaging your “to-do’s”, but with a better understanding of why and how.

• Maybe I do have ADHD, OCD, Autism, or something else, but at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong or bad about me as a person. I need to continue to align my life with my needs, rather than align my medication with how the world wants me to be.

• I have a high capacity to be “locked in”, but it is highly dependent on being genuinely interested in the project at hand, that project being something I can physically touch, and most often, a project with people around me.

• I am increasingly interested in learning about food systems, and continuously passionate about creative pursuits. The question from here is “is there a way to make this a career, or do I simply need a career which allows me plenty of time to make these pursuits of equal priority in my life?” I’ll continue to choose the Dirtbag Rich lifestyle I crafted for myself over the years.

• I told a friend I felt like a total flop with my business and general career aspirations in life, and he responded back (with such love) that I am just someone who needs more time to “cook” before I bloom- that I’m still brewing, and it’s taking longer than I first thought, but that’s because there’s something more special for waiting me down the line. I love this nugget of wisdom. Like some wine which may be bottled in 2014 but not sold until 2026, maybe I am someone who evolves in a mysterious and long way, and something beautiful is yet to come.

• Being a business owner means that structure isn’t given to you like it is when you are in high school or college or working for someone. I have to create my own structure in order to not feel overwhelmed, which is quite hard.

• The 9-5 feels like a collective hallucination and sometimes I feel crazy for not being a part of that hallucination.

• The world will, in fact, exist for the the foreseeable future. In 2105, in 2499, in 2862.

• I work best in situations which allow for personal focus and group co-working. It’s why I love biking, the welding studio, and the community garden. I also work best where I can touch and feel what I am doing- being on a computer feels like a dissociation, theatre, and unreal half of the time.

• The minute you stop trying to make the world a better place is the minute you’ve guaranteed you aren’t doing anything to help. You have to always try.

• I’d still rather be kind poor than work most jobs.