Just got back from my latest surgery, it went fine. The staff were nice, ones I hadn't seen before. Although I got the dreaded question, "So what do you do?" And had to say "Nothing at the moment," and then justify it by explaining all my health issues, but these were some of the rare people who accepted I couldn't be expected to work in my condition instead of being judgmental about it. Although they did do the whole "You'll get better soon," thing, and imply that I can get back to work eventually. Why is our society like this? No matter how insurmountable your health issues society can never just accept that you're on the scrapheap, work-wise. There always has to be some undercurrent of "You should be working." Hence why even people with degenerative conditions get re-assessed for disability benefits again and again instead of being left in peace.
And don't even get me started on "So what do you do" being the standard conversation opener for everyone, everywhere, always. Always immediately judging and classifying someone by their job. Are we really so unimaginative that we can't think of another way to start a conversation with a stranger? How about "So what music do you like? Been anywhere nice lately? What's your favourite film?" I mean, literally anything that is about an individual's personal interests rather than how productive they are to capitalism and where they fit on the job-based social respect scale.
I remember a news article years ago about a poor elderly couple who worked in a supermarket. They won millions on the lottery..... and kept their jobs. They said the work helped pass the time and all their friends worked there too. I just thought, how sad. You could do anything with that money but you can't think of anything else to do except stack the shelves and sweep the floors in the same place you've been doing for decades.
I'd defend their decision, because it is very human to keep working, because all their friends work there too.
This is definitely going to be a diagnosable mental illness after the revolution. The treatment would include a forced vacation, and something like a job fair but for hobbies.
SRSLY Wrong has a great bit in one of their life after Utopia episodes about the need for authoritarian vacation police who force you to take time off work and spend it doing leisure activities
So many of the old people in my life are miserable because they don't have hobbies, or at the very least didn't keep doing them once it got a bit difficult.
Structure is important, I kinda get their idea.
It's sad that some people can't structure themselves without a dead end job though. If I had no money worries and wasn't disabled I could easily structure my day around hiking, political activism, learning art, reading and other such activities.
If you have enough money to be save from any financial troubles, why care if your job is dead end? Enforces structure is easier to keep, so why not? They see their friends, their boss can't threaten them with destitution, their day is structured. Sure they could create their own structure, but for many this leads to vibin' through the day, which isn't healthy at all.
I don't think "vibin' through the day" is inherently unhealthy, but capitalism can certainly make it feel unhealthy or be more unhealthy than it is, since it probably means you don't have much money and so your options are pretty limited for what you can do with your time. And on top of that, you will have a harder time relating to the majority (who are working heavily) and can't spend much of that time socializing with other people if they're busy working. There's also self-esteem to consider and because capitalism has this culture of "you're valuable for how hard you work," you could feel worse as a person simply for not being someone who is busting your ass.
Like if you go back to some people in previous societies in history, many of them were probably working far less hours, just due to the logistics of things. Now I'm not saying that necessarily means their lives were easier, but I doubt they were sitting around in their downtime going, "I just wish I had more structured busywork to do."