Now, I wasn’t totally unemployed this past year and a half or so. I’ve been doing gig work and other self-employment projects since I started this blog, but for a whole 20 months, I didn’t have a boss.

I’ve been able to do some really cool stuff during this time. I had some pretty “normal” weeks, which I described in A Week of Unpaid Labor & Greetings from your unemployed friend on a Tuesday. I lived on a really small budget and traveled a ton (Giving Myself a Mid-Year Performance Review), continued to explore non-monetary ways to meet my needs (Time, community and the true cost of living) and became a Buy Nothing fiend (Bringing the Gift Economy back).

Also, if you’re new here – hi, I encourage you to check out my “About” page to learn more about this blog.

This was an experiment though, and the findings revealed that it wasn’t sustainable for me for the long-term. I didn’t have regular or consistent work hours, which made it hard for me to maintain routines. The projects I worked on were cool, but the availability of my co-conspirators constantly fluctuated, making progress unpredictable. I wanted a bit more structure, a bit more routine, and to be part of a team putting in the hours to do something big. Unless I could find other comrades who are also living a similar lifestyle and take an oath of loyalty to the same project, I don’t think I was going to find that without getting a slightly more traditional J.O.B. – plus, the extra income is nice.

As of this new year, I’m now working 25 hours per week in a role that combines community organizing and public health. Again, I know better than to believe that a “perfect job” exists, but I’m very excited about the ways that this job merges my interests and skillsets, and my supervisor and co-workers also seem like a good fit for me.

I’d been on the look-out for a part-time opportunity like this for a while. I was trying to “trust the process”, but to be honest I started to get pretty anxious about it this fall. Things are sparse in my sector, economies of scale and the logic of capitalism mean that everything is full time unless you have niche knowledge or a strong network and can do freelance consulting.

Is this experiment over?

I don’t think so. I think it’s just moving into its next phase. In this phase I’ll continue to use the skills I’ve sharpened – of living frugally, bartering for goods and services, and just generally looking for non-monetary alternatives. With more income, there definitely will be times when I choose to pay for a good or a service that I didn’t before. If I can get paid for something I like to do, then it makes sense that I can pay someone for something I don’t like to do, or that I can’t do efficiently. The important part for me is that this is an active choice, not something that I automatically assume requires a monetary transaction.

I’m definitely still researching and thinking about the concept of work as well. If I ever get these thoughts more condensed I plan to publish them here.

Is my lifestyle changing a lot?

Yes and no.

Time-wise, I won’t to be able to fuck off on adventures like the one-month trip I did out west. I also won’t be able to physically show up for my community in last-minute ways as often (but still more than if I were full-time).

I’ll probably end up eating out more. I’ll pay for more services as I’ll have less time to DIY them. I’m looking forward to doing a weekly exercise class because it’s something I really enjoy.

One area where things are changing in a big way is that I’ve now become a lease-holding tenant for the first time in nearly two years. I’ve been in some pretty (short-term? fleeting) situations and find that while I’m really good at making such things work for the short-term, I can’t shake the longing I have for a more stable home. I’m excited that I now have a bedroom where I can hang my art and I can put my food dehydrator and chest freezer in the basement for all my meal prepping.

Other than this, I’m hoping that my spending will only change a little bit. Previously, I was barely covering my month-to-month expenses, now I hope to put away most of my excess income for the future. Sure, there will be some lifestyle creep, but in general, I’ll be saving for future travel and property ownership.

My wish is that someday flexible opportunities in jobs that serve our communities (instead of extracting from them) will become the norm. –

And also that we can all have more moons and mountains in our lives (something that emerged as a theme in my latest gouache paintings).

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If you’re new here, I encourage you to check out my “About” page to learn more about this blog.

Something I love about myself is my curiosity and wide-ranging skills. I want to explore all the intricacies of our planet, art and societies. I can’t focus on just one thing for 40 hours per week for the rest of my life and I don’t want to.

What I want is a life-time of learning. The hard part is accepting that lifetime timeframe instead of trying to fit the equivalent of 58 credits into one college semester.

What I’ve been thinking about for a while now is a concept called ‘slow learning’. In a manifesto to this concept, some proponents came up with this “Bill of Rights” for the slow learner. While there are 10 rights in total, here are the ones that I’ve been trying to internalize the most.

• Focus on direction, not destination - Immerse yourself completely in the journey and you will reach your final goal gradually.

• Learn at your own pace - Find your rhythm, find your flow. Don’t compare yourself to others.

• Leave it unfinished - We live in a super busy, multi-tasking, results-oriented society. Step away from your long to-do list and enjoy once in a while the beauty of an unstructured day.

• Unlearn and forget - Harness the power of unlearning. Reboot your mind, abandon old knowledge, actions and behaviours to create space.

On the one hand, it feels good to finish something and move on to another achievement. When trying to learn facts, there’s a lot to be said about diligence and frequency. But when you’re pondering deep topics or working on a complex project, I think slow learning can actually be more productive as it allows one to take their time digesting information and considering their project from different angles as they continue to move through their lives.

This reminded me of a work-stay I did in France where we were training a horse. We did one training session and then got busy with other tasks and didn’t do another one for a whole week. I was worried that our effort was lost. The owner assured me that when they’re trained carefully, horses do not forget anything. In fact, that’s why “careful” must be emphasized. If you’re in a hurry, sloppy or in a bad mood, you might teach the horse bad habits that will take a long time to untrain.

I’d like to think that my own learning—whether it’s in community organizing, writing, or art—works the same way. Even if I’m not practicing every single day, I’m still growing. Instead of measuring progress every month, I want to learn to trust that careful, intentional effort will accumulate over time.

This blog itself is an example of slow progress. I made my ‘Slow Progress’ linocut fall of 2024, and wrote the first half of this blog post in March of 2025. Finally, my thoughts were re-sparked more recently and I decided to polish it up for sharing.

Thank you for reading.

If you appreciate my art and/or writing and want to see more, please consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee. These blogs take a significant amount of time and effort to research and write, your support helps make it sustainable.

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People who read are more compassionate

Years ago, I heard that people who read a lot are more compassionate or empathetic. The idea is that when you get to know different characters, their motives, how they think, and how they’re affected by their contexts, you become more able to imagine and have empathy for people you come across in the real world. Sounds believable enough, and apparently it’s backed by research too!

The books in this first set of recommendations may not seem all that radical at first, but as I learned from these fictional characters I was reminded of the radicalness of being in relationship and learning from those that are different from you. While I like to think that I don’t live in too much of a bubble, the reality is that all of us do. Only through understanding can we create a new world together - and books can offer a door to understanding when face-to-face options aren’t as easily accessible.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

I think I found this book in a Little Free Library, and I think it’s a fitting place for me to return it to as it’s a book that’s relatable for many in these times. (Sidenote: I actually gave it to my mom for Christmas, not to a Little Free Library.) This book follows a middle-class family who, despite doing everything “right”, have found themselves nearly bankrupt and living in a historic but poorly-built home that is crumbling around them. In a separate timeline, it follows two natural scientists who lived in the exact area almost a hundred years prior and were othered for their beliefs in the natural sciences. Both timelines reveal the ways that societal change can cause upheaval and how personal and collective resilience can shine a light forward.

My favorite part of the current-day timeline was the 26-year-old character Tig who has just returned from several years in Cuba and refuses to own a cell phone. Despite going through her own heart-break, she quickly meets the neighbors and dives into knitting their fractured community back together. I felt that lessons she’s learned from abroad inspired new ways of thinking and imparted hope on her mother, family and community.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

After being raised in a family with a conservative view of women and feeling stifled and held back in her first job out of nursing school, Frankie joined the US Army and went to Vietnam. The book doesn’t just describe the horrors she witnessed during service, but also those she faced when returning. In my experience, the challenges faced by veterans is something that people in my circles tend to turn a blind eye to. As a result of our disagreement with most of our country’s military interventions, we’re often confused and unsure how to act towards the individuals who were involved, even at the lowest levels. Although he didn’t serve as a nurse, this book inspired me to introduce myself to my neighbor who is a Vietnam Veteran.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Looking for an escape from a bureaucratic workplace that claims to be doing good but is really just a mess of impersonal policy? So was Linus, the main character who is sent to oversee an orphanage of magical children in this heart-warming, whimsical and inspiring novel. I loved following Linus’ character evolution and getting to know all of the unique child characters who become family to each other. While following their journey, this book also gently provokes you to change your outlook on life and maybe even your life choices.

Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Like many of the books on this list, I listened to Summerwater as an audiobook while making linocut prints at my makerspace. As the weather got colder this fall, I often found myself in a melancholic state, working there alone in the daytime (the space is more popular in the evenings). As one of the most melancholic books I’ve ever read, this was fitting. Each chapter follows the train-of-thought of the diverse residents of a summer park in Scotland. Moms, dads, children of different ages, an elderly man and woman… “Bleak” is used to describe it in one review I read. Still, I appreciated the reminder that we all view the happenings around us from our unique contexts, according to our life experiences, the input of those around us and the media, and with a variety of intentions. Ultimately, it reminded me to put myself in other people’s shoes more often.

People who read are harder to control*

The second theme of this year was dystopian fiction. Last year I wrote utopian fiction, so I guess this is just the way the pendulum swings!

Not only does reading help us empathize with different character types, it also helps us step back and see the bigger picture. In the case of dystopian reading, we can learn to recognize patterns around us and see where they might take us if we don’t act when necessary. We can learn from resistance strategies and, through the characters, get ideas for our own roles in the revolution.

Hum by Helen Phillips

Just a few years ago this storyline would’ve felt like a distant future. Now, with the rise of AI and my increased awareness of surveillance, the world of this book felt disconcertingly not-so-distant. The book begins with a woman, May, undergoing an experimental operation for pay. She has recently lost her job to automation and along with her husband who relies on gig work, they are struggling to support their family with two kids. Their kids prefer to talk to the AI personalities in smart watches (called “bunnies”) and industry has obliterated anything that could be considered “nature” around them. In an effort to reconnect the family to each other and nature, May takes their family on a trip that ends up much different than planned. I can’t tell you anymore, but I really hope some of you read this book and let me know what you think about the ending because I found it a bit unexpected.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

If you’re concerned about the rise of authoritarianism in the US then you may have already read this one. If you haven’t… DUDE!! you need to get around to it soon! Honestly, it’s a classic. It follows the journey of Lauren Olamina in the last days of her LA neighborhood’s devastation and her evacuation up the coast of California. Throughout the journey she learns skills for survival, develops a new religion and gathers followers. Written in 1993 and taking place in the year 2025, it’s eerie how many of the author’s predictions have already come to pass in things like Trump’s ideology and the LA fires of January 2025. While it’s important to dream of utopian revolutions, this book reminded me that it’s just as important to prepare for dystopian ones.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

This book begins with the disappearance of Eilish’s husband, a trade unionist leading a campaign against authoritarian concerns sweeping Ireland. Over the course of mere months, the city falls into unrest and full-scale civil war emerges. As a mom of three, and with a difficult father suffering from memory loss, Eilish has to make hard decisions of how much to fight back and when to flee. Many parts of this book directly paralleled tactics I experienced or heard about in the conflict zones where I used to work, making it seem even more plausible. Unlike dystopian books written in sci-fi settings, this book reminds us that, even in “the west”, it could happen here.

Books can offer blueprints for liberation

I usually read quite a bit more non-fiction, but this year I needed the escape more than anything (yes, reading dystopian fiction is an interesting method of escape…). Still, non-fiction is exceptionally important and I urge you not to disregard it as much as I have! I think I’ll get back to it in 2026 and would love some recommendations.

Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield

I listened to this one in January and then I ordered a paperback and re-read it in February. That’s how good it was and how perfect I think it is for our current moment. Don’t let this summary stop you from reading it, but the first three chapters are essentially: why our neighborhoods need to be prepared for the coming climate emergency; how past movements have developed systems of mutual aid that helped them through crises; and what municipalism is and where it’s been seen around the world. The last chapter is where the author brings all these elements together to propose ‘Lifehouses’, or neighborhood-based community centers of mutual aid that will be run democratically and act as disaster response hubs.

*This subsection was named after, and this overall blog was heavily inspired by this youtube video.

Getting a hold of these books

You can find the full list of these books (and last year’s list) on my bookshop.org profile. I also added affiliate links to all the books above. In the off-chance that you decide to purchase one of these books and use a link above I’ll receive a handful change as commission. I used bookshop.org because this is a more ethical alternative to Amazon.

Borrowing these titles from your local library (or library-linked app like Libby or Hoopla) is also a great option. The more we use our libraries, the better-placed they are to expand important services to our communities.

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Disclaimer: In the past when I’ve written about such things, trying to go beneath the surface – maybe you’d say philosophizing – I’ve felt like my writing hasn’t really landed with people. Either I’m not very good at writing in this style, people aren’t interested in reading this stuff, or maybe my thoughts are shit. Whatever the reason, I’m trying it again. I’m still going to be writing more practical stuff on here so if you don’t like this please don’t unsubscribe yet!

If you’re new here, I encourage you to check out my “About” page to learn more about this blog.

For the learning part of the weekend, we operated on the model of an Unconference, wherein the participants are the presenters and the topics and schedule are chosen at the time of the event. Some unconferences may have detailed protocol for how the schedule is created. Such “scaffolding” might look like: explanatory handouts, time blocks preset for the not-yet-defined sessions, and a specific protocol for ranking/scheduling the sessions. In other cases, the facilitators may improvise and follow the cues of the participants, perhaps asking the group in the moment, “what do we think about going around and everyone who suggested a session introduces it and then we gauge interest by a show of hands?” Our scheduling session looked like the latter.

While I mention the Unconference as an example of (dis)organizing, it wasn’t just the learning schedule that was less structured, but a lot of the weekend in actuality. While we had loosely-assigned point-people for the domains of food, transportation, medical, accessibility, etc, we didn’t have head chefs specified for any of the meals or a written plan for chores. We also didn’t designate anyone to be a point-person for schedule changes or operational decisions. Anyone who wanted to make an announcement and try to organize something could. You could say that we were just “going off of vibes”.

Now, imagine if you went to a conference or multi-day event that had almost no plan. In most cases, it would be a disaster. Participants would be upset at the organizers, people would leave, a select few people would step up to take on tasks and would resent the others who didn’t. For the most part though, the vibes at our gathering were excellent. Folks stepped up to cook and do dishes, the trash was taken out, trained first-responders carried their medical kits, and I didn’t see anyone have an attitude about it. Yes, meals were regularly served late, but no violent acts of “hanger” were documented. In the end there weren’t any major interpersonal conflicts that I’m aware of. Sure, there were small things, but folks seemed to have the skills to solve these on their own.

I don’t think that this excellent outcome was just luck. I think it’s because of our shared mindset and our extensive experience with collaborative organizing. With just a little bit of effort, we were living out our vision of a leftist utopia.

Human Nature, Shared Mindset, and Prefiguring the Future We Want

Critics of anti-authoritarian visions for the future argue that we can’t trust fellow humans to put other’s interests ahead of their own, and thus, these “leftist utopias” can never succeed. Really, this comes down to what we believe about human nature. As a self-described utopian, I naturally have a positive view of human nature, and I think this is where our group came together in a shared mindset. We believe that capitalism and electoralism turn us against each other.* We know who the enemy is – in most cases it’s the system and not each other.

Alongside that collective consciousness, we (as a subculture) have developed and practiced our own strategies for counteracting those divisive effects. Folks were empowered to turn their criticism to action, suggesting and creating the changes they wished to see. sidenote: check out the concept of a do-ocracy as a way to structure spontaneity!

What we created at this small gathering was an example of prefiguration, or coming together to live out the new society we desire “within the shell of the old”. This gathering demonstrated to me (and I hope others) that cooperation, justice, equality, and solidarity can come as naturally and easily to us as competition, selfishness and brutality come to us under the current system. That demonstration is the power of prefigurative projects.

Between Utopia and Reality: The Necessity of Structure

There is a Marxist concept that as socialism is achieved, the need for the existence of the State will wither away. My experience caused me to question, to what degree is structure similar to the State? The question this gathering has left with me is “As we create a new world, will the need for structure wither away?”. I’m curious what folks think about this, but I also acknowledge that we’re not there yet.

Since the end of the event we’ve held a few debrief sessions where folks could give feedback on how they felt it went and what they would suggest doing differently next time. A lot of the recommendations equate to structure. Some of the ideas I liked included: bringing flip-charts for chores sign-ups, and creating a welcome board with information that folks could reference as needed.

While living prefiguratively, we still need to stay rooted in our reality. As a result of our societal baggage, structureless groups will tend to mimic laissez-faire capitalism, eventually replicating power structures that disadvantage others. Effective structure is thus required to create accountability and empower all participants to be leaders. For more of this, read The Tyranny of Structurelessness, it’s an absolute must for any organizer!

Yes, our next gathering will likely have a bit more structure. While relaxing a bit in the safety of that structure, at the same time, I think I will be mourning the loss of the utopian magic that came with the cooperation that we achieved in the moments without it.

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The project's website explains that "We offer members a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a network of local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors."

The gift part is what sets the Buy Nothing Project apart from the generic "Buy/Sell/Trade" groups that you can find all over facebook. In contrast to the market economy that we're used to, in a gift economy items are given without any agreement for immediate or future payment or reciprocity. In a society where we've taken to commodifying and calculating the cost of nearly everything, operating a gift economy is truly radical and anti-capitalist. At the same time, it's an idea that doesn't appear radical or subversive right off the bat. You're not being asked to sign a political petition or block a road during a protest. You’re just sharing with your neighbors.

My hauls

To give you an idea, in the last year I've received the following from Buy Nothing: a backgammon set, a bike (it needed a lot of work, which was a fun project), envelopes to ship my art in, dried lentils and beans, some house plants, and a black raspberry bush. In one case, someone was moving and I got all of the following from a single pick-up: two tables, three SLR cameras (two broken that I plan to fix), a camping hammock, a large storage bin, and a megaphone.

Last August, I asked for some linocut supplies and while the owner wasn't willing to part with them forever, they let me borrow them for a month. That's when I made these "Let Gaza Live" art prints. I realized I wanted to continue doing linocut art and confidently made the decision to purchase supplies of my own.

As for myself, I’ve given away a jewelry box, some tent poles, and some clothes. As someone with a constantly changing housing situation, I haven’t been in the position to accumulate and give away many things, so instead I give back through volunteering. This was definitely part of my motivation for hosting the event I describe below.

Here in Detroit we have a Buy Nothing Signal group which I’m thankful for as I’ve been trying to get away from Facebook. However, Detroit is pretty big, and as I’ve tried to rely on my car less and less I’ve found myself wishing for a more hyper-local group, one for just my neighborhood. Surely there would be enough interested people in the neighborhood, they just needed to be organized! So, in June, I decided to try to meet more of my neighbors and maybe even kick off such a group by holding a "Buy Nothing Market" on the empty lot next to me.

What I did

• I announced the event in my block club’s monthly meeting and made an email list with people who expressed interest there.

• I distributed 200 fliers to households and a few key businesses in my direct area

• I shared the flier in some signal groups and on instagram (for these ones I put “DM for address” since I didn’t want that all over the web)

• Someone else from the block club posted the flier in some local facebook groups and on Nextdoor

• I set aside two times for people to drop-off items during the week before the event

• On the day of, I hung signs at both ends of the block that simply said “Free Stuff”. About half of the people said they came because they saw the signs

• For physical infrastructure, we had 1 10x10 foot canopy (my own), 4 4-5 foot folding tables (all lent by neighbors), a large tarp (also loaned) on the ground for clothes

• Set-up and clean-up both took only 1 hour. I didn't worry about things being arranged nicely, they’d probably get messed up as people went through them anyway

What was given away?

• Lots of clothes and books

• Some very cool basketball kicks

• A dog cage

• Cleaning supplies

• Colored glass vases

• 2 large decorative elephants

• A bike trailer for kids

• An orchid with caring instructions

• Pots and pans (a recently re-housed person got these!)

• Leftover paint

• A microwave (the first person even brought their old one back for someone else to take!)

• 2 CB radios w/ some accessories

• 2 polaroid cameras

• A full rainbow set of embroidery thread (seriously like 30 different colors at least)

• Macrame wall hangings

As the main organizer, I also scored a lot of useful items including clothes, my first ever pair of bluetooth earbuds, iphone cords and a macbook charger, and a full box of picture frames.

For anyone thinking about organizing something similar, there are a few challenges that you should expect. Some people will take large amounts of stuff that may make you uncomfortable. Personally, I didn’t stop this. There was also one older man who stayed for over an hour, talking my ear off. At first it was cute, then it got a bit weird. Eventually he moved on. Lastly, I thought I had sorted out a place to donate the leftover clothes after the event but when that fell through the clothes stayed in the back of my car for a week.

What’s next? I started a google group with the contact info I collected during the day, but I haven’t put much further effort into getting it going yet. Even if it doesn’t take off in the end, the event was still worth it!

Similar projects to check out

• The concept of a Really Really Free Market also intrigues me. These are especially unique when different people come together to provide their own products and services like you’d find at a traditional market - except for free!

• If you’re in the Dearborn/Detroit, MI area, check out Metro Swaps - I met this group at a local market where they were giving away plant seedlings, seeds and a wonderfully-curated table of books. Check out this article about them as well.

And yes, the requests and offers on Buy Nothing Groups can get a bit silly. Just for the laughs, here are some slightly unhinged ones I found online:

Feel free to share your Buy Nothing experiences in the comments!

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When you’re rushing, you’re paying

This past December I was driving back from the DC area when my car started feeling… not good. A friend referred me to a shop where they diagnosed a problem and charged me $400 to fix it. In terms of car repairs, that cost wouldn’t have been that bad, except that they actually messed it up badly.

As I continued on my journey, it became apparent that things were even worse. In a hurry and on the verge of breaking down completely, I didn’t feel like I had the option of going back to the original mechanic. I visited three mechanics in that town before I found one that could help me that same day. It turned out the previous mechanic had switched two important wires. I was quoted another $400 to re-wire it correctly.

Switching two wires should not cost so much, but I didn’t feel like I had any other options. I didn’t know anyone in that town that could say, “hey, I know you and I want to do this 30-minute job for you because I know you’ll help me or the community out someday in the future.” I was shaking a bit as I swiped my card, bringing the cost of repair up to $800.

When you have time, you have options

Fast forward to this past month when my car began having issues again. This time, everything was different. I don’t drive as often these days and I can usually get around by bike, so finding a solution wasn’t as urgent as before. I had time to explore alternatives and lean on my community.

A close family friend gave it a look over and we ordered some parts online. I left my car with him for a few days and he solved several of the issues (I didn’t even try to quantify how much money this part saved me). Still, there was one problem left that needed higher expertise.

I took it to a mechanic in Detroit I’d been to before. He’s Lebanese and we spoke some Arabic together and caught up on where I’ve been the last few years. He quoted me $1,500 for what I’m sure would be a good-quality fix. He has an important reputation to hold in the community, and as such, won’t offer short-cuts or cheap solutions. I don’t fault him for that at all. Had I been in a hurry to have my car back for commuting I likely would’ve agreed to it. But this car is from 2006 and my income is less than $500/month so that kind of investment didn’t make sense financially. I’m thankful that he didn’t charge me the usual overnight fee to leave my car while I thought about my decision.

I tried to imagine my life without a car and I kind of gave it a shot for a week and a half. Detroit has notoriously bad public transportation, but it is relatively flat, so biking isn’t too strenuous. I like the idea of biking more, but every time I looked at my calendar for the week ahead, the logistics felt overwhelming.

I took my car to a second mechanic for another opinion. This one diagnosed the same problem but offered a different solution. I got some advice from friends and decided to go for it. I can’t tell you what it was exactly because it’s a little bit shady, but it only cost me $250. Time will tell if this solution holds up (as of posting its been 3 weeks and it’s still ok).

The financial savings were significant, but something else has changed since December. Through my time at the local bike coop, learning how to fix bikes at the local bike coop, I’ve gained a new confidence in general mechanics. Maybe next time I’m traveling I can even fix that wiring problem by myself with a few supplies from Autozone.

This story isn’t a warning against travel — travel is so important for knowing ourselves and our world. This is about how having time and community helps lower your cost of living and improves your community relationships and quality of life.

Time poverty steals from us all

For some small income, I’ve been doing pet-sitting gigs through an app. This work has given me another example of how time poverty affects our communities. If you’re gone for a long time or have animals with high needs, paying a pet-sitter to stay with them or stop in once or twice a day can be very worthwhile. However, if you have something like a low-needs cat, a frugal option might be to ask a neighbor or friend to drop in and check on them once a day, maybe paying them a small amount.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that several of the people who have hired me to check in on their low-needs pets are doing their medical residencies or in other jobs with long hours. They are “time poor”. Despite living in densely populated areas, they probably don’t have the time or energy to get to know their neighbors (not to mention all the ways society discourages this kind of mixing).

Being so detached from your community is detrimental to more than just cat care, but also responding to emergencies and providing effective mutual aid. Where people don’t have the time or energy to build local relationships they lose access to the informal networks that can provide support and they are instead forced into expensive market solutions. You don’t just spend money and harm the planet through over-consumption, you also miss out on building relationships.

Building communities of care in the face of our realities

“Communities of care” is a term that refers to networks of mutual support where we look out for each other’s well-being rather than relying solely on market solutions or institutional services. There are a lot of factors that prevent us from forming these types of communities today. Personally, I’ve found that working less has opened the doors to such opportunities for me. But I think this applies beyond just myself – I really believe that we can’t achieve those communities we dream of unless a lot of us start working less at our places of employment.

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Here’s the original:

Here are a few of my favorites:

I love how, instead of portraying the unemployed as lazy or any of those other negative stereotypes, these memes celebrate unemployment and show how it can be an opportunity to explore interests. Some days of underemployment really feel like this for! Outdoor adventures, diving into special interests… the benefits go on! I’m no meme designer, but at the end of this post you’ll see a few of my own attempts…

What is the life of the “un(der)employed” really like? Back in the fall I did a post on “A week in my life”, where I shared some of the adventures I’ve been up to. Folks seemed to enjoy it and things have changed a little bit since then, so I’m doing it again.

Saturday:
This week starts on a Saturday because this was a really exciting one! I spent all morning organizing, making signs, and getting super prepared for… my first Art Market!! It went really well and I was really glad to have my partner D there for moral support and to bring snacks. A lot of friends came through and bought some of my work as well as a bunch of strangers who are now friends. After the market ended, D and I went to a bonfire hosted by a queer urban farm collective.

Sunday:
D spent the night, but we had to sleep in their (camper)van because their dog couldn’t handle sleeping in the same house as our foster cat. Waking up in my own driveway and going inside to use the bathroom and make breakfast reminded me of being on the road out west in March. We walked the dog around the neighborhood and then had our monthly(ish) relationship check-in conversation. After D left I caught up on my favorite Youtubers and took a nap. A friend asked me to body double for her and we had some good conversation while she worked in the backyard and I lay in the grass. She then lent me a sparkly top and drove me to Melina’s birthday party which was Mardi Gras themed. Halfway through the party I took a break to pick up my bike that I had left at a friend’s house nearby a few weeks ago. After the party I rode my bike home.

Monday:
Monday was what I call an “office day”. I mostly sat on the couch going through a long to-do list of admin-like tasks. I caught up on some tax-related things, updated my finance tracking spreadsheet, renewed my phone plan, re-applied for some state benefits and applied to more art markets. In the evening I went for a walk around the neighborhood and made a new friend who gave me a bunch of supplies for our foster cat since his cat recently passed away.

Tuesday:
I usually don’t do errands until after noon, but I got an early start on Tuesday and took the tram downtown to print fliers for the Buy Nothing market I’m hosting and then bought some matte-boards at Blick. After lunch, I rode my bike across the city to document the food selection and prices at a grocery store for a nutrition study being done at the university. On my way back, I stopped in another neighborhood to help plant a pollinator garden in a public park. Someone had shared this opportunity in a mutual aid group that I’m in. They’d also gotten some local kids involved and we all got a bit wet while watering the new plants. In the evening I walked around my neighborhood putting fliers in mailboxes for that Buy Nothing market I’m hosting.

Wednesday:
I was TIRED from the day before and felt a bit of soreness in my legs from all that biking. I worked on a few admin tasks in the morning and then saw a call for support at the court house where some asylum seekers had been arrested by ICE as they left their hearings. I rode my bike there but the protest had already ended by the time I got there. Back at home, I worked on a couple watercolor paintings of homes that a realtor ordered from me (another side hustle of mine!). I went to a nearby bakery -cafe with my roommate who just finished work for the summer and then picked up my car from the mechanic despite it not being fixed yet. After having dinner with my roommate I started a gouache painting and then had a video chat date with a friend.

Thursday:
In the morning I finished my gouache painting and did some reading (currently reading: The Warmth of Other Suns). In the afternoon, I visited a friend at a Fab Lab/Makerspace that is being developed in my neighborhood. I’ve been hoping to go there often this summer, volunteering and doing some of my own work, but a few weeks had passed since I’d made it in last. On my way home from there I stopped and did some grocery shopping at a cooperatively-owned grocery store. The prices are a tiny bit higher, but I’m paying for everything with food stamps and I get excited about being able to support local autonomy on the government’s dime. After that, I drove my car for the first time this week - to the house-sit where I’m currently at with a super cuddly dog and cat.

Friday:
After taking care of my new animal friends, I took my car to a second mechanic. Following the diagnostics and some more research of my own, we agreed to try a fix… and it worked! My car is running “normal” again! (Keep an eye out for a blog about this next week). In the afternoon I had a virtual session with my therapist and finished the watercolors that I started on Wednesday. In the evening I drove back to my regular “home” where my roommate was having a gathering.

Just for fun, I made the below memes with activities from my real life. I hope they make you smile :)

If you appreciate my art and/or writing and want to see more, please consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee. These blogs actually take a significant amount of time and effort to research and write, your support helps make it sustainable.

Buy Me a Coffee

If you’re new here, I encourage you to check out my “About” page to learn more about this blog.

Previously, I wrote a bit about how I’ve managed my finances to make this possible. The numbers in that blog don’t tell the whole story, though. The generosity, frugal choice and luck that I mentioned above? That can mostly all be tied back to privilege. In this blog I want to take a minute to break down some of the privileges that have made this past year possible. I’m also going to share some of the discomfort that I’ve felt from blogging about my privileged journey.

Rich White Girl

Melody, an older black woman whom I’ve formed an unconventional friendship with, jokingly called me a “rich white girl”. I cringed and started to protest, “I’m on food stamps too!”. She laughed, “Yeah, yeah, but you’re white and you’ve got your mommy and daddy.”

I can’t argue with her. I have so many privileges that have got me to where I am and will see me through hard times, despite forgoing my opportunities to be making substantial money in the now.

• Whiteness has granted me unearned social and economic advantages. These have likely included greater access to opportunities, fewer systemic barriers, andmore favorable treatment in some settings.

• Being able-bodied has meant I haven't had to allocate resources toward managing health limitations and has allowed me more flexibility in my employment choices.

• Being free of dependents, such as children or other family members, means I can direct my limited resources towards my own needs and choices rather than expenses such as food, housing, healthcare and education for people other than myself. Risks I take are only on behalf of myself, not others.

• Generational knowledge passed down to me about health, finance, and relationship building allowed me to learn these essential skills at a young age. This allows me to navigate such things more easily than those who learn them later in life or haven’t learned them at all.

• Generational wealth provided me access to an undergraduate education without debt. In turn, my education expanded my employment options and introduced me to further opportunities through people I met and things I learned.

• A result of this generational wealth, and possibly the most important factor in my risk-taking, is the financial and housing security of my parents which would act as a backstop to any downward spiral I might find myself in.

• My social wealth has created a safety net through friends who have hosted and supported me through both physical resources and emotional support that would otherwise cost money.

A few more I’d like to acknowledge: citizenship status, English language fluency, mental health stability, geographic privilege — so many things I take for granted!

Psychological freedom from survival anxiety

The combination of all the above resources, especially the last two, give me confidence in my safety net. This allows me to take career risks that those without similar backup systems simply can’t afford or even imagine. The internet refers to this as psychological freedom from survival anxiety. This freedom allows me “to make decisions without the constant stress of potential destitution, creating mental bandwidth for creativity, risk-taking, and personal growth rather than security-focused decision making.”

I like to imagine what a different place our planet would be if we weren’t so burdened by survival anxiety. Our capitalist conditioning might tell us that resource scarcity is necessary to prevent reckless consumption and harm to the planet and others. I have a different perspective though, with more faith in the goodness of humanity. I believe that it’s the survival anxiety itself that drives us to exploit each other and the earth. Heightened competition for resources causes us to lose our connection with each other as human beings.

Is this tacky?

I agonized for months about starting this blog and broadcasting this “project”. With all my privileges in mind, is it cringe for me to be blogging about my underemployment?

While always relevant, one could say that it's in even worse taste right now as the US and global economy crumbles around us. Millions are losing their jobs and are desperate to find new ones amidst the reckless tariffs being imposed by the US.

I want to show empathy for communities that are struggling to acquire resources. I understand that for many people living in precarious economic situations, the concept of "choosing" underemployment isn't just unrealistic but reads as tone-deaf to their daily struggle.​​

The principles I’m exploring — prioritizing well-being, rejecting toxic productivity, and strengthening community ties — shouldn’t be offensive though. My experience may look different from others, but the underlying questions about what sustains us are relevant across divides.

For many people with completely different circumstances, my blog will feel irrelevant. I hope though that people can look at my experience and say “this could be possible for all of us if manufactured scarcity and survival anxiety wasn’t holding us back.”

So, am I proud of what I’m doing? Yes, and I think that anyone who chooses to prioritize community and happiness is resisting the capitalist imperative in their own way, and that is something to be proud of.

A new theme of bragging

If this is bragging, then it’s just bragging about the ways that I’ve created a lifestyle that matches my values. Maybe if more people bragged about this kind of stuff then we’d be living more sustainably and caring for each other better.

I want to hear more about:

• Times you skipped the after-work business networking event to help out a friend or neighbor

• When you turned down a job opportunity because the company’s work didn’t align with your values

• Times that you decided not to splurge on something fancy (because that might mean you’ll have to work more and miss more good weather later!)

• How little you drove your car this week and how much you walked or biked instead

• The wonderful walk you took around the neighborhood and the neighbors you greeted on the way

At the same time, look for ways to dismantle the systems of inequality that produce privilege. If your circumstances are similar to mine, I’d like to suggest that one way might be refusing to engage with the eternal growth paradigm of capitalism and redirecting your time to other causes. If a lifestyle like mine does not sound possible to you, consider what barriers are limiting your options and what means we have to collectively break those down.

Buy Me a Coffee

If you appreciate my art and/or writing and want to see more, please consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee—right now, this work is my main focus, and since this kind of thing takes a significant amount of time and effort to research and write, your support helps make it sustainable.

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I met Melina in 2022 at a Prayer Walk for the Water in Detroit that was led by a group of Anishinaabe (Great Lakes indigenous) folks. That was the first time I heard of DSA and the beginning of mine and Melina’s social media acquaintance-ship.

Earlier this year Melina responded to an IG story I posted about exploring anti-work concepts and talking to other people with this lifestyle. I’m so glad we were able to catch up as our values align on this type line up so well. Melina’s work-life-activism balance is something I really aspire to have in my life so it’s great to have someone to look to as a model for that.

Katy: Yeah, so can you start with just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your story? How you spend your time, that kind of stuff.

Melina: I’m Melina, I use she/her pronouns and I’m 37 years old. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and I’ve been in Detroit since October 2018. I work as a program coordinator at the Detroit Waldorf School. I was working 30 hours a week, but I recently got that down to 23 hours a week.

I have a good amount of free time. I do a lot of volunteer work, mostly with the Democratic Socialist of America, and lately I've been working on my house. My boyfriend and I bought a house and it needs a lot of work, so a lot of my free time has been going to that. I also spend a lot of my time resting. I have multiple chronic illnesses, so I do take a lot of rest.

Katy: How did working part-time come about? What has your journey to that been like?

Melina: Yeah, so I have experienced, I call it “spectacular burnout”. Just completely.

That was 2016, 2017, it really started in 2015 actually.

I was working for a nonprofit. I was working a lot, like 60 hours a week. On top of that, I started to become really active with the Democratic Socialists of America. I've been an activist for my whole life, but it was Bernie's first run. And then with Trump's first presidency, there was all the organizing that happened with that. All the political organizing plus working a bunch, it made me really sick.

I ended up getting a really severe case of bronchitis. I ripped a rib ligament from coughing a bunch and that took me out. That led down this like 2017, I just spent like the whole year really sick. To the point where I was on bed rest– I could barely get out of bed. And then, I ended up having, essentially, a mental breakdown. I was put on medication and I had an adverse reaction, making it even worse. It was really, really bad.

After that, I took a step back from everything, from life. I asked myself, “well what made me that sick to begin with?”. It was working too much and overdoing it on the organizing. I didn't really work in 2017 at all, and most of 2018, and then after that I was like, “Oh, I don't have to work all the time.” I'm going to make it a point to only get part-time jobs, do gigs, you know, take like little jobs here and there. Since 2018 I've been intentionally working part-time jobs, and working as little as possible.

I have had my current job since 2019, but it has always been part-time. I actually applied for the job because it was a super part-time position.

Katy: Was it hard to make that decision to work less?

Melina: Yes, I was in my early 30s and there was part of me that was like, “oh, you know, like, you're young, you should be able to work a full-time job”. I was like, “no, we're supposed to… you know, this is how much we're supposed to work.”

I recognize it now as a little bit of internalized ableism. I did come away from that experience with all these chronic illnesses. Until this day, I'm still recovering. I don't know if I'll never recover from the physical stuff.

Thinking through how sick I had gotten and feeling like, you know, I quit my nonprofit job… that helped me think rationally. I got a pretty good severance package, but I also lost my health insurance. So yeah, there was a little bit of internal back and forth. But I've got it to a point where, now that I'm on this side of it, I do feel like, “okay, I'm making it happen”, right? I feel pretty good about it.

You know how people talk about work-life balance? I like to say I have a good life-work balance. Where my job is not my life, like at all. I do quite enjoy that. Like I enjoy leaving my place of work and just living my life.

Katy: Can you describe some of the other benefits you've experienced from working less?

Melina: I feel like I have pretty strong community ties. I think it's because working less has enabled me to build my communities more. If I was working 40 or more hours a week, I don't think I would have the strong communities I have now.

I've been able to pick up more skills. I get more time to learn things that we don't learn in school. I learn from other people too. I know more about gardening now. Gardening for me is like a sustenance thing. And I've gotten to that point where I feel pretty skilled at plant medicine.

I've been able to travel a little bit more. I get to spend more time in nature, like by the water or whatever. I don’t have to wait for the weekend to do that, I just do that before work.

I feel like I'm a more whole human, I guess. Like I'm more well-rounded in my knowledge and skill sets because I've had the time to build that up, now that I don't work all the time.

Katy: Yeah, I like that. When we’re working full time we're given like, “this is your one role and you don't get to do anything else.” You have to depend on everyone else to do those things. It's nice to depend on others, but also they don't even give us time to build those connections with others!

Melina: It just becomes like a money exchange, right? If you work 40 hours a week, then maybe you can pay other people to do the things. But when you are able to build a community of skilled people, it becomes more of … you know, “I'll watch your baby if you cut my hair”. There's been some fairly random trades I’ve done. I'll watch people's kids in exchange for whatever.

Katy: I actually need a haircut, so if you have connections…

Melina: I actually just did this last one myself, because I didn't want to wait. I don't have a bunch of extra money, and the last time I had my haircut it was like $160. So I just went and bought hair cutting scissors, and one of those razor things, and it cost me like 20 bucks.

Going back to like added benefits, I think a benefit has been, you're able to work more on yourself as a person. I've built up a confidence in my abilities.

Seven, eight years ago, I wouldn't have had the confidence to ask my supervisor – I had to ask a whole committee of people – for less time at work. I would have been afraid to even propose that I work less hours. I would have been scared to just get fired.

I got to this point where I'm like, and I think about this a lot is, you know, I've heard this saying, it's like, you know, “closed mouths don't get fed.”

It's like deep programming, you have to get over this idea of what we're supposed to be doing with our time. A capitalistic society wants us working all the time. And once you get over that, you start to get over things being impossible.

It’s like cutting your own hair. It does take a certain amount of confidence. There was a chance I could have fucked it up, but I've taken a lot of chances in the last seven years or however long it's been. I have fucked up, I make mistakes, everybody does, but I'm still here and I've learned a lot.

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Katy: How would the world be different if more people could work less?

Melina: I like to discuss this a lot. I think people would be less cranky. I think it's because people work too much. I know way too many people who are working more than 40 hours a week. I think that that has become, not the norm anymore, a lot of people are working way more than that. And then, commuting is a whole other thing, right? A lot of people are spending way too much time commuting.

I feel like, you could kind of tell, people have had their souls crushed. I think that if people would recognize that it's because they’re working too much, that wouldn't be such a thing. So many people have to deprogram from that mentality of, like, “I have to work all the time”.

If people were working less, they would be able to enjoy spending time with their families and friends more. They would be able to spend time with themselves, build themselves up as humans, learn skills. And just rest, too. I love to rest. I love to lay down.

It makes me pretty sad how people overwork. One of the children I work with, we were waiting for their mom to pick them up, and then they were like, “I wish my mom worked less because I want to hang out with her more.” And I was like, dude, that's so sad. Parents are working as much as they do because they want to provide a better life for their kids, but, if you asked their kids, a better life for them would be spending more time with their parents.

Katy: Can you talk about some challenges that you've faced in transitioning to this lifestyle and what advice you would give to someone that's interested in doing it themselves?

Melina: Definitely, like, on a practical level, there’s the financial part of it. I get the question of how do you afford to live?

It's collective housing, number one. I don't need all this space to myself, and I'm okay living with other people. It's way cheaper. I participate in a lot of clothing swaps. I don't buy new clothes. My clothes are all gifts or clothing swaps. I organize pot-lucks quite a bit. It's all that community building stuff, that at the same time also enables us to take care of each other. Because I have spent so much time getting away from this mainstream mentality, I know how to have fun for free. I'm okay not consuming all the time.

I don't really consider myself anti-capitalist. I consider myself a post-capitalist. Or, if you want to get really nuanced, I consider myself a collectivist. Which is to mean, we can all take care of each other. We all have skills, we all are able to offer something.

I don't really have savings, but I do have multiple communities that care about me a lot. There have been times when I reach out and I post online. For example, when my cat got really sick. I started up a GoFundMe, and I had it funded within an afternoon. That's because I've had the time to build up relationships with people who will help me out when those times happen.

That's a piece of advice that I would give – you can't be afraid to ask for help. If you're not going to work all the time and not have typical ways of making money, you have to be okay asking for help. Asking for help could look like going to the community fridge and grabbing something. You have to be figuring out other ways, like trading a skill you have with somebody else who has a skill that you need in that moment.

Another challenge is building structure outside of work. Once I'm at work, I have a pretty strict schedule. If I run a few minutes late at work, it kind of throws everything else off. Outside of work, I'll get caught up with something. If nobody is expecting me to be somewhere, if I'm not expected at a job or an organizing meeting, I've definitely found myself doom-scrolling. I've had to build more structure in my life. I have a lot of alarms on my phone to kind of remind me to move on to the next thing.

Katy: I've been trying to figure that out myself. I'm like, “there's too much structure, and then… there's no structure!” What do I need? Having structure makes me anxious, and not having structure makes me anxious!

Melina: There has to be a balance, right. I keep this sticker on my notebook, and it's “you are worth so much more than your productivity”. That's something I have to remind myself a lot.

Recently, I was packing sentimental things and I found myself spending a lot of time with each thing. A part of me was, like, “oh, you're taking too long to pack, because you're spending all this time looking at every single picture.” And then, me to me, I'm like, “well, what else am I supposed to be doing with my time?” Sure, I can pack faster and just get it with. But it's nice to also take that time to reminisce.

A lot of the times CEOs talk about somebody being productive, it's about producing more profit. It's what the capitalist mindset is. When you don't have a regular job, and you're not producing profit for anybody, I then have to think through, “What does it mean to be productive?”.

If I spend a morning putting seeds in soil… is it productive? If I read an article about a political thing… it's different forms of being productive. And then at the same time if I just lay down for an hour, because I have the free-time, that's enabling me to rest up so that I can be there for my communities, be there for my partner, be there for my family.

Katy: Nice. Yeah, I'm very much trying to fight the productivity mindset, or maybe it's like you're saying, redefining what is productivity.

Melina: This whole thing is very much about redefining our worth as humans. It is something mainstream society kind of only sees where we're supposed to work 40 plus hours a week and then, like, live for the weekend. For a lot of people, that's what your worth as a human is – how much can work. And, I mean, it's fucked up, right?

We're worth so much more than that, we're so much more than how much we could produce for another person.

Katy: I noticed you said you don't consider yourself anti-capitalist. I was wondering if you could explain that.

Melina: It's an idea that I've been thinking through a lot, because I want to be for something rather than against something. And so I’ve kind of come away from the idea of being an anti-capitalist. It feels really, like, to be anti-something you kind of have to be in this rage mentality, I guess?

And part of my burnout in 2017 was this, like, I was so full of rage. I was mad, I hated everything, and I hated everyone.

We are very much in late-stage capitalism. This is the natural goal of capitalism, to get to this point. Everybody is working way too much and it's all for the profit of, what is it? A few dozen billionaires, right? They are all racing towards being the first trillionaire. And the rest of us, we're just pawns in that game.

For me, it's about being a post capitalist. It's about, one, acknowledging and accepting that capitalism has failed. And two, asking, “what does the world after capitalism look like?”

It looks like less work. It looks like spending more time with your family. It looks like taking care of your community. It looks like growing our own food. It looks like not using a private automobile to get around. It’s being able to ride your bike places, being able to walk places.

I spent a lot of time being mad at capitalism, which felt a little bit abstract in a way. I needed something to look forward to. Because otherwise I’m going to burn out again. I've accepted that we're not going to fix capitalism. So what comes next? That's post capitalism. I like that a lot better.

Katy: I like that a lot. We can't necessarily prescribe a definite solution, but we can start working towards it and at least set some frameworks and structures for how we want it to happen democratically.

Melina: In some ways, I like to think that I'm setting an example. We don't really have a lot of regular, working class people doing this thing, right? This is kind of me, like, walking the talk, right?

When I talk about being a post-capitalist, and when I talk about deprogramming ourselves and all that stuff… I am an example of somebody who grew up in poverty.

I am a poor person – which has been another mental shift – being poor isn't anything to be ashamed of, right? It is what it is, and I'm fine with it.

I do think that we need more examples of people doing this, so that people can be less afraid to do this. And my hope is that people will start to recognize that there are other ways to do life.

This interview was conducted in January 2025. Since then, Melina had to resign from her job as her employer was unwilling to provide further accommodations to help her avoid burnout. Through the support of her partner, she has been able to focus more of her time on renovating her new home and organizing with Metro Detroit DSA. Regarding her next plans, she said, “I hope to someday serve my community with my own childcare collective but for now I'm focusing on my health, my home and doing my part to protect democracy and human rights”.

Buy Me a Coffee!

If you appreciate my art and/or writing and want to see more, please consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee—right now, this work is my main focus, and since this kind of thing takes a significant amount of time and effort to research and write, your support helps make it sustainable.

Last month I wrote about my experience attending the Michigan Democratic Party Spring Convention. I told you how it went and how it could be improved. While, at some points, I felt a few moments of temptation to get more involved, I managed to hold myself back by reminding myself that I’m not actually convinced that this is the best way of going about things. Now that I’ve gotten myself away from all that energy I’ve had time to do some deeper research and thinking.

On the whole, I don’t think most of us are digging deep enough when we question the system. We might say, “oh, we need ranked choice voting,” “we need to get money out of politics”, or “we need to abolish the Supreme Court,” …but it’s much less often that we hear someone say, “I don’t want someone to represent me”, “I don’t think majority-wins voting is fair,” or “we shouldn’t have political parties at all”.

I think this is partly because we believe that elections and elected representatives are necessary elements of democracy. In school we’re taught that our government was designed to make us the “best and most democratic nation” in the world. If there are issues with our country, it’s just a matter of changing our policies by electing representatives to do that work or occasionally voting in a referendum.

Lets begin with a few definitions:

Politics is the process of making decisions about power, governance, and resource distribution within a society or group. It encompasses both formal systems, like governments and elections, and informal dynamics, such as activism and community organizing.

Electoral politics refers to the processes and activities related to electing representatives and making decisions through voting. This includes political campaigns, elections, party platforms, debates, and strategies used to gain or maintain voter-share within a democratic system.

‘Democracy’ comes from two Greek words that mean “rule by the people.” Just like we’ve been taught, many definitions erroneously specify that this is done through elected representatives. While electing representatives is one way of governing, it is an indirect way of receiving the people’s consent and shouldn’t be confused with the actual concept of democracy itself.

So why aren’t electoral politics very conducive to real change?

Majority-wins elections encourage division instead of collaboration. Unlike consensus-based systems that encourage cooperation, elections frame politics as a battle to reach 51%. This winner-takes-all nature forces people into opposing sides, deepening polarization where we could instead be practicing collective problem-solving. This alienation occurs both inside a “party” during internal elections and against those “across the aisle”.

Structural barriers reinforce exclusion. Bureaucratic systems like Robert’s Rules of Order create barriers to participation, prioritizing those already familiar with the process and reinforcing existing power dynamics. Similarly, when running in elections, working-class and radical candidates face structural obstacles such as lobbying, corporate funding, and media bias, making it nearly impossible for them to succeed. As a result, only those with time, resources, and institutional knowledge can fully participate in electoral politics. ‘

Participating in the processes drains energy and dilutes movements. Activists’ energy is absorbed into party structures, procedural hurdles, and endless meetings, draining their energy away from work with more immediate outcomes. Campaigns prioritize “electability” over radical demands, leading to compromises that weaken movements. Then, once inside the system, politicians often become absorbed into the very institutions they sought to challenge, abandoning their original commitments.

Gains are temporary and dependent on individual politicians. Even when progressive policies are won, they are only as stable as the offices and the politicians who champion them. As we’ve seen recently with Trump, when a leader leaves office, their victories can be undone.

Participation legitimizes an oppressive and ineffective system. It upholds the legitimacy of the state, capitalism, and hierarchical power structures. This reinforces the idea that change can come from within the system and through intermittent participation during elections, rather than challenging the foundations of oppression directly. (More on this at the very end)

An example of an alternative

If you’re thinking critically, all of this should lead to the very valid and important question of, “Well, what are the other options??”. I could write separate blog posts for each of the above points, and maybe I will do a few more, but for now I have an example regarding energy drains.

If I wanted to achieve some progressive changes to rent or housing rights in my state, I could:

• Spend a summer campaigning for a candidate that has a progressive stance on housing issues. Myself and 5 others might spend months making countless phone calls to constituents, working to whip up votes for this candidate, sending pamphlets and signs out to people, and garnering support. We’d likely end the summer exhausted and maybe burnt-out. The outcome would be one of two:

  • We win and there's one more progressive in the state legislature. Maybe they sponsor a housing bill, which will require another round of campaigning to whip up support for, and maybe they don't.

  • We lose the election. What we have to ask is this: what power did we build along the way? The cost of losing an electoral campaign is nearly 100% of our work. If we have built campaign capacities, those skills gained tend to remain in the electoral system and fail to build power among the general public.

• Spend a summer building tenant unions. I might spend a summer calling people, researching legal structures, producing how-to guides and getting connected with tenants in my area or across my state. I could spend my phonebanking time making calls to other tenant organizers (wherever you are, they already exist!), and coordinating our efforts.

  Our campaign could culminate in the recognition of a tenant union or the construction of a network of tenant unions. This strategy could still involve later sponsoring or pushing for housing policy reform in the legislature, but the process was one that built power. The outcomes of a legislative campaign could be:

  • We lose the vote on a housing bill our network of tenant unions sponsored, or

  • We win the vote on a housing bill our network of tenant unions sponsored,

  • Either way, the cost of losing is not 100% of our work. In the end, we have built the power of tenants whether an individual fight is won or lost.

Electoral campaigns can make change, but the cost of that progress is extreme, the reward for victory is temporary, and no power is built if you lose.

When thinking about strategy, we have to ask ourselves what we are building along the way. If we design a campaign that hinges on some form of power-building (tenant unions, neighbor unions, labor unions), at least we will have created a basis for future struggle regardless of winning or losing an individual fight.

Why do I call voting a scam? Do I actually want you to stop voting?

The title for this blog was inspired by a sticker that someone gave me and I now have on my travel tea mug. It says, “Recycling is a scam. Reduce consumption. Rewrite policy.” What it’s referring to is how plastic companies have convinced consumers that recycling is a valid solution to our environmental problems, while in fact, it is just a small ritual that does very little to address the immeasurable harms of fossil fuel extraction. Still, every time I talk to people from the public about environmental issues I hear someone say, “Well, I recycle at home” as if they’ve checked that box off and can go on with life.

In much the same way, I think that the majority of Americans believe that voting once a year or so means they’ve done their part for democracy. Maybe they even put a yard sign up for their favorite candidate. Maybe they even went to the Michigan Democratic Party National Convention - now they’re REALLY involved! Now, I’m not saying that isn’t doing anything at all. I still recycle my plastic when I can –it’s better than nothing! And for now I’m still voting.*

But what I’m asking is, what if we saw our electoral system as only a small part of participating in democracy? What if we practiced democracy more directly? What if we organized a people’s assembly where we talked things through with our neighbors on a more personal level and came to an agreement that everyone could live with? (Ok, this is all a teaser for that future blog post I mentioned…).

* Yes, this does kinda contradict that last point about participation as legitimizing the system. Every day we participate in unethical systems and we have to make decisions about what actions of ours will do the least harm. When it comes to filling out a piece of paper every year, I’m allowing myself the (possibly misguided) peace of mind that comes with doing so, even if the process isn’t as effective or ethical as I’d like.

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Despite years of “activism” work, I’ve not made any strict decisions on where to focus my energy. Mutual aid efforts? Elections? Protests? Academia? On the one hand, I really believe that our current system is rigged …

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From August of 2022 to March of 2023, I worked for a humanitarian aid organization in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine. Shortly after I arrived there, a friend of mine shared Yev’s Patreon page with me. Patreon is a website where creators of all types can earn some income through paid subscriptions from followers. Yev has since closed his Patreon, but at the time he was using it to share his perspective as a queer leftist Ukrainian.

I remember one of his weekly audio updates in particular. He described waking up to a loud explosion with grumbling thoughts of “not again”. After a moment of risk-weighing, the sleepy side of the brain won with “it was probably just that one” and he closed his eyes. Just half a minute later though, there was another explosion and he thought “ok, I should probably move away from the windows and find shelter somewhere more central in the building.”

Despite Dnipro being a city of one million people, I felt very isolated there, mostly only socializing with my coworkers. It surprised me to hear this retelling of something I’d experienced coming from someone I didn’t know. And moreso, Yev was speaking in English, a language I rarely heard in public. I didn’t know that I needed to hear it, but his description of that attack acted as an affirmation of the trauma slowly building in my system.

Feeling like I was sending fan mail, I reached out to Yev on Patreon and asked if he’d like to meet in person. He introduced me to a coffee shop which I then became a regular at. As I came to find with many coffee shops in Ukraine, its interior could’ve been featured in a magazine. It had high ceilings, exposed brick, and huge windows with natural light. The hipness of its contemporary light fixtures and large indoor plants were only one-upped by the macrame hammock seat.

When I commented on the great vibe, Yev began to joke about how many foreigners have a misconception of Ukraine as being a poor country, stuck in the soviet era, when it is actually full of leading scientists and creatives in all art forms. Throughout our following conversations, Yev enlightened me on the immense cultural diversity of Ukraine and how it has been damaged by Russia’s influence before, during and after the USSR.

Historically, Dnipro has been a Russian-speaking city (look up “Russification” if you’re curious why). As a result, Yev grew up speaking Russian and learned Ukrainian in school. At the same time, he learned English through the media. He told me “it was the only way to learn more about queerness at that time. The only queer people we saw were in English speaking shows, movies and on youtube.” So, while he grew up in Ukraine, in many ways he also grew up in the same online spaces as a typical Western gen Z kid. As a millennial who’s spent a lot of time online myself, I think I can say that both of us felt the pain of the internet outages caused by Russia targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure. This disconnectedness affected our abilities to escape online and it certainly exacerbated my loneliness (not to mention my Duolingo streak). In January, when Yev managed to get a fiber optic internet connection (stable during outages), he told me, “I had it only for one day now but my mental health is already better.”

Still, where Yev might have found support among westerners online who claim to be anti-imperialist and pro-liberation, he instead felt abandonment. Especially from so-called “leftists” in the US. As a self-proclaimed leftist, I fought the urge to be on the defensive, and instead pushed myself to listen and understand. As a result, I was forced to think deeply about how my values are applied in the real world and diverge from what Yev calls a “fetishization” of the USSR-style communism that is common among leftists. While I’ve never called myself a full-fledged communist, my views on “communism” have certainly evolved since working in Ukraine and I’m now more of an “anti-communist communist” a la Margaret Killjoy’s blog.

After the attacks of October 7th and the horrific retaliation by Israel, I perceived some tension between Yev and I. Or maybe I just imagined it, as someone with a torn conscience might. As an American, I saw my country providing aid to Ukraine and turning around and committing genocide on Palestinians. Subsequently, I mostly only shared content online about Palestine, not Ukraine. When I saw Ukrainian friends view my Instagram stories, I imagined them judging me for my silence on Ukraine. I saw other friends and pages make comparisons between how Ukraine and Palestine are reported on in the news (see this Mondoweiss article). Whether or not it actually was, it began to feel like a competition. Complicating my feelings even more, I had the impression that Ukraine tended towards supporting Israel, or at least, “historic ties seem stronger than current disagreements”, as this article puts it. It makes sense that knowledge of ties between Hamas and Iran raised alarm bells among Ukrainians since it’s well-known that Iran supplies Russia with drones used in attacks on Ukrainian civilians. It wasn’t that I felt any less sympathy for either people group, but that it felt impossible to please any of my friends. I’m sure my brain is confusing solidarity with people-pleasing, but it’s hard for it to not be so personal when you have those kinds of relationships.

Feeling all this discomfort, I asked Yev what he thought about international solidarity, especially in the Ukraine and Palestine context. This is definitely a tough subject that I’m still unclear about myself. Considering Yev's calls for solidarity from the West, do you think solidarity should also be expected from oppressed nations themselves?

Yev’s insights bridge the gap between theory and reality, offering a much-needed perspective to the narratives that dominate leftist discourse. I hope that his experiences challenge you to rethink your approaches to solidarity, imperialism, and global justice, as they have for me. Finally, Yev’s call to action is this: to listen more carefully, engage more critically, and act more inclusively.

“Atomic War, Be it Damned” by Maria Prymachenko, 1978

Katy: Hi Yev, can you start us off by introducing yourself and giving us an idea of your personal political leanings?

Yev: Yeah, basically, I'm Yev. Politically, to go back to when I was a teenager, before the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, I would’ve considered myself an anarchist. Not like a punk one, more like an annoying one - in an “intellectual” kind of way.

I remember, in my last years of high school we actually had defense classes in Ukraine. I was so annoyed, I was like, “why would we ever need this in real life? No one would ever have a war with us. We’ve never done anything to anyone.” We had this belief that it's all in the past. Like, Russia is a problematic country, but war was like… I couldn't imagine it, right? Obviously I wasn’t paying enough attention because Russia already invaded Georgia in 2008. So the signs were there, but we believed it somehow changed, it’s not what it used to be.

And then I learned the lesson because, literally a year after I graduated, the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2014. So that was kind of the first point where I think my views have changed. I realized why people need an army, why people need to have a defense, why people need protection and a lot of other things. And I understood that anarchism as an idea would be great. But there is also reality.

And then the second point obviously was the full scale invasion. At that point, I still considered myself very left-wing. Because I spoke English, I was immersed into the English-speaking left-wing - like the Western kind of world. I watched all the YouTubers, read the same people on Twitter and et cetera, et cetera.

One of the first things I realized was that I couldn’t speak up. I saw so many leftists repeating Russian propaganda, and when I tried talking to anyone who would listen, I was accused of being a Nazi. That’s why I started being active on Twitter—sharing my personal and family stories, but also talking about Russian colonialism in general, like many Ukrainians who speak English.

I think many Western people don’t know that many English-speaking, non-first world people, still try to participate in the discourse.

I also taught Russian to foreigners and most of my students were Westerners from the U.S. I noticed they had absorbed so much Russian propaganda. It was shocking to meet Westerners who believed that so-called “Eastern Ukrainians” (Ukrainians like me who were Russified for centuries, therefore speakers of Russian language but still ethnically Ukrainians) were fighting for communism against Ukraine and that the Ukrainian state was somehow Nazi.

When the invasion happened, Russians were often invited to leftist panels to talk about Western imperialism, but Russian imperialism was rarely mentioned. Ukrainians were left out of discussions about Ukraine, like at Code Pink events.

I guess my political views are very complicated at the moment. I basically realized that no one would listen to us, to people from Eastern Europe, from Central Asia. And in those Western left-wing places, where they say that you should listen to the victims, and you should listen to the indigenous people or to the people from the region, - no one would ever listen to us.

Katy: Do you still consider yourself left-leaning at all or...?

Yev: Definitely, I lean left politically. I take a lot of pride in being from a region of Ukraine that had one of the most famous anarchist mass movement that ever existed. This was a grassroots, bottom-up movement of horizontal assemblies that was started by actual peasants opposing Russian imperial policies. This form of self-governance differed from the Bolshevik movement which was centralized in Moscow and imposed here.

I’m not communist though. For Westerners, this word, communism, is very fetishized. There's something exotic about it and for them it has one meaning, but for us it’s very different. For Eastern Europeans and Central Asians, it is authoritarianism. It's the opposite of democracy, of self-determination, of national identity, of having any say over your land and resources. You cannot say “that was just Russian communism, and this time we can fix it”. You cannot go with the same ideology that killed at least 6 million Ukrainians by starvation and millions more by just occupying.

But I definitely have left-wing views, not right-wing for sure.

Katy: Yeah, but I know it's hard to keep that identity when you're seeing a lot of bullshit coming from it. Do you feel like you’re ever at odds with other Ukrainians for your views?

Yev: Well, it depends. What Americans think of as left-wing is not considered very left-wing here. On political issues the majority of Ukrainians have left views like supporting universal healthcare, child support, market control, etc.

I guess on social issues many Ukrainians are more conservative. We’ve seen very big progress since we got our independence though. For example, the Soviet Union had laws that forbid women from doing around 600 certain jobs. We got rid of that and other such examples of laws. Ukraine was one of the first former USSR countries to decriminalize homosexuality. We've seen a lot of obstacles and reactionary movements, the same as everywhere else, but compared to Russia, that kind of progress is huge.

As far as governance, the choice right now is this authoritarian dictatorship conservative insane racist… or a very imperfect very young European style democracy. There aren’t many alternatives at the moment, so our brain doesn’t even go there. It's more like, the system is very imperfect and it should be changed, but we still need to preserve the democracy we have now.

Also, it's very common for Ukrainians to criticize the government. So it's very easy to find common language with the majority of Ukrainians. As a result, the society is not as polarized as American society and I don’t feel like I’m put at odds with others that much.

Katy: I want to ask you about some of the things that I often hear about Ukraine, here in the US. What do you make of the people that say the invasion was provoked by NATO expansion and that NATO should have been disbanded in the 90s when they had the chance, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

Yev: How come they had a chance in 90’s? Russia bombed Chechnya to the ground from 1994 to 1996 and occupied parts of Moldova. With such crimes being committed by Russia, why would anyone think NATO had a chance to be disbanded?

What do I think about NATO expansion provoking the war? Imagine if somebody tells you they will steal your land. You join an alliance to protect yourself and they say it provoked them to invade another country that did not join the alliance. That’s Russian justification that people in the West repeat because they believe Eastern Europeans can’t have a say in their own security.

it's like an abuser who says “well you provoked me to abuse you because you sought help from abuse, I had no choice but to abuse you again”. Eastern Europeans spent decades, and in some cases centuries, under Russian colonial rule so when they had a moment to seek protection in the 90s they did.

Just because Russia lost control over some of its colonies in the 90s, when the USSR collapsed, that doesn't mean Russia somehow changed. It became a smaller empire, but not less of an empire.

It's also a part of the crime, and Russian tactic in any war, to say "I am the victim, so I have the right to abuse you." It’s a very efficient tactic that can lead to becoming the biggest country on the planet by saying “you savages, I am afraid of you, so I will conquer everything from east of Germany and west of Japan to ‘feel safe’.”

Katy: Yeah, what you’re saying makes sense. NATO is definitely one of the areas I need to understand better!

Another message that I hear a lot is that we need to support our own people before we fund wars abroad. In principle, I agree with that, but I also understand, history makes it a lot more complicated. So I was wondering if you could explain how that is in the context of Ukraine, and how you would respond to that?

Yev: Well, I mean, the first thing is that, isn't it ridiculous that left-wing messaging is the same as right-wing messaging right now? It is in America at least, but also everywhere in Europe, too.

So, the question here is about funding the war, but in this case it’s also about funding the defense of the nation that was invaded. It's not the same as funding the war, because helping people to defend themselves might actually stop the war if they are funded efficiently.

There’s a really misleading narrative about aid to Ukraine. They talk about billions of dollars in aid, but in reality, that figure reflects the price of very old equipment donated to Ukraine. Much of this equipment is 50 years old or more and would have either been scrapped or would have cost the U.S. money to maintain anyway. By donating it to Ukraine, you would save money on maintaining it. But, they do this misleading thing where they name those prices in billions, but in reality, it is actually equipment that already exists and is being unused.

There is also money that never goes directly to Ukraine. A lot of that money stays in the United States, funding different types of jobs for aid to happen. For example, with the production of shells, you need a factory, you need to hire people. And this war is the most intensive war since, like, the World War II by the amount of shells used.

Lots of that money even goes to Moldova or to neighboring countries for humanitarian reasons and et cetera. But they just call it Ukraine aid overall.

Another thing is that you can do both, take care of your own people and help those in need abroad, even Ukraine did it during the war. The government still funds healthcare, education as much as possible and sends humanitarian aid abroad to places like Africa and the Middle East.

I’d also say it’s true that you should spend more money in the US, but that's a different dimension. That's a political dimension - are American politicians ready to spend money on social issues? That's more complicated.

Katy: In what ways do you think there is a lack of information in the US about Russia and the region?

Yev: Russia is the largest country in the world. It's actually a country that hides inside itself around 200 nations of different indigenous people. But that is really unknown for many people - even for many left-wing people who call themselves anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist.

Russia in the current form, right now, is the same country, the same system, that it was in the 19th century. Moscow steals their resources like gas from Bashkortostan and calls it “Russian gas”. Russia was doing to Ukraine centuries ago and is doing it now in Russian-occupied Ukraine, stealing grain and resources and shipping it around the world just like the 19th century.

Recently, there is more talk about the French colonization of America, British colonization, even Spanish colonization of America, but no one ever talks about Russian colonization of the region and also America. There are monuments to Russian colonialists standing in Alaska right now that indigenous people want to remove or have already removed. But that is never a topic in mainstream left-wing anti-imperial, anti-colonial conversations, even in America.

As a Ukrainian, I feel responsible to highlight Central Asia. We’re in the spotlight for a terrible reason—dying daily—but they could face the same tomorrow. Many now know about the Holodomor, but Russia caused a similar genocide by starvation in Qazaqstan against the Qazaq people.

No guarantee Russia stops if Ukraine gives in. Georgia lost 20% to Russia in 2008; it’s still occupied, with borders creeping yearly. Qazaqstan could be next.

If we look at Western academia, it barely covers Central Asia. Russia benefits from this ignorance—it could invade Qazaqstan tomorrow, call it Russia, and many wouldn’t notice.

So I feel the need to talk about not only Eastern Europe but Central Asia too. That was a big focus for us when we were writing “Matryoshka of Lies”. We didn't just mention it, but we also invited speakers from the region to talk about their experiences and expertise.

There is also the idea that old Western empires believe that Russia is a “superpower”. Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko calls this “Imperialist Solidarity”. You can just listen to what Russia has to say because as a “superpower” it has its “area of influence”. It’s what some call “Russia’s backyard.”

“The Threat of War”, Maria Prymachenko, 1986

Katy: Thanks for sharing those examples of regional solidarity. My next and last question is also on the theme of solidarity. I kind of hesitated to ask this one but I knew you would have a really good response and you said you were up for discussing it more.

So, I met some Ukrainians at the Democratic National Convention protest in support of Palestine. And I said, “Hi, it's really good to see you here. I also want to let you know, I understand that you guys feel abandoned by the left. And I just want you to know, I'm thinking about you guys.” And they thanked me, but they also said something that surprised me. And they said, “Well, solidarity goes both ways. How many other Ukrainians do you see here?” And I don't really know how to feel about that because like, it's true that we see there's a lot of solidarity with Palestine between the Black folks and Indigenous movements in the US. But also like, I don't want to place any expectations for certain behaviors on people that are under attack, you know. So, how do you feel about Ukrainian-Palestinian solidarity?

There’s so much here to unpack to address what might seem like a simple question.

First, we should be clear that Ukraine as a state has officially recognized Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation. There is a Palestinian embassy in Kyiv, next door to the Portuguese embassy and Moroccan embassy, that were damaged in a recent Russian strike. And like, the Ukrainian government and its voting in the UN was so controversial that the Israeli ambassador called Ukraine an anti-Israel country because Ukraine voted against Israel in the UN quite a few times.

Ukraine has also donated a few tons of grain to Gaza. I understand that might sound kind of awkward, donating grain, but for Ukrainians, it's very symbolic. For Ukraine, it's food, it's bread. For people who survived genocide by starvation, bread represents a lot of things.

Secondly, and more in line with this question, I think Ukrainian leftists are increasingly understanding how solidarity with Palestinians is important for Western leftists. Even though we’ve often shared the same online spaces, our physical realities have been very different. Over the past few years, solidarity with Palestine grew in the West, while people in the East were preoccupied with the Russian threat. While the West focused on the occupation of Palestine, we were consumed with the occupations of Georgia and Crimea.

After 2022, when we posted in English about missiles hitting our hometowns, some of the first replies were things like, “Now post about Palestine like you post about Ukraine.” It was confusing, sad, and infuriating. These replies didn’t come from Palestinians but from people like a “Joe”, sitting in his house on stolen land in the States. This lack of self-awareness is maddening. This turned many Ukrainians against not just Western leftists but the Palestinian cause. Self-righteous, smug replies did more harm than propaganda ever could.

Over time, as Ukrainians adapted to full-scale war—living under missile attacks, blackouts, and water shortages—many of us began learning about Palestine and Israel. You could say that when October 7 happened, for many of us, Gaza appeared on the map the same way Ukraine did for many westerners in February 2022.

Understanding and forming our own views takes time—time Western Left’s self-righteousness doesn’t seem to allow us. We’re expected to immediately take sides, to perform “perfect victimhood,” or risk losing solidarity and aid while facing the threat of ethnic cleansing under Russian occupation. Some Ukrainian leftists now post performative solidarity online—adding “correct” flags, removing “incorrect” ones—just to be heard. “If that’s what it takes,” they say, “then why not?”

But real solidarity can’t be forced. It grows from genuine engagement and the discovery of what truly resonates with people. For Ukrainians like me, living through this war, solidarity is immediate. It’s with the barista acquaintance making coffee who was cleaning shattered glass just a week ago after a missile strike. It’s with a friend working as a nurse whose hospital was damaged in the same attack. It’s with the neighbor who lost a loved one, or the ex-classmate whose family lives under occupation. Our solidarity is with those we might not see tomorrow because our lives aren’t movies—and many won’t have a happy ending.

It’s easy to blame Ukrainians for not showing up at the DNC rallies in solidarity with Palestine. But maybe they’d show more solidarity if they weren’t so deep in this nightmare.

Katy: It must feel like a lot to have that criticism leveraged at you in the midst of an ongoing invasion. I guess you’d say that just adds to the abandonment that you already felt from the Western left?

I feel abandoned by some people I thought had ideas that should help us. But I don't feel like I need solidarity from all people groups. Take Black Americans for example. Even though we share a lot of similar history, if they think there’s something that matters more to them, I think that’s fine. I also understand that American politics and views on colonialism are very racialized. As white people, we are usually seen as those who perpetrated colonialism, not as people who suffered or continue to suffer from it. This perception is understandable, given how colonialism looked in the Americas. (Sidenote: look up Taras Shevchenko and Ira Aldridge for a beautiful example of historic solidarity between Ukrainians and Black Americans).

On the other hand, there are people who have also historically suffered—and still suffer—from Russia. Naturally, I feel understood when I’m around them. Eastern Europeans, Central Asians—they obviously pay more attention to Ukraine too because, geographically and historically, they relate to us more. And I think that’s fine when people do that. It feels like deep, real solidarity—not just virtue signaling, you know?

I just really despise when people start comparing the oppressed, like, doing this genocidal Olympics - who suffered more, who did what, and etc. It feels like it’s becoming fandom-y, where people are like, “I like Katy Perry, no, Lady Gaga is better”, but it's applied to war and genocide. There are people who act like that, and that is a terrible thing to do, for both sides, for everyone.

We are in this kind of super awkward position, because Palestinians and Ukrainians are both in the spotlight. And when two are in the spotlight, people are like, “okay, what's the comparison?”

And obviously, that’s why authoritarians around the world keep winning. While leftists fight over which cause is more important, authoritarians unite and cooperate, and corrupt politicians play virtue signaling on Twitter.

More about Yev:

As a content creator, Yev has produced his own content on youtube and in collaboration with others. He has also worked as a researcher and writer for the podcast Matryoshka of Lies.

Additional Resources:

• Ukrainer.net/en - for learning about Ukraine’s geographical and cultural diversity

• Ukrainian Spaces - podcast amplifying diverse Ukrainian voices and decolonizing Ukraine conversations.

• 20 Days in Mariupol - A team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion - available on Netflix in some countries, Youtube or PBS

• Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom - A powerful documentary chronicling the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, where citizens united in a fight for democracy and human rights against government oppression - available on Netflix

Please note that I will be deleting comments that are flagrantly pro-Russian. I will allow those that ask genuine questions and open discussion.

When I began this phase, I didn’t have an exact plan. I thought about setting a routine or deliverables …

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“The future will only contain what we put into it today”, linocut print by myself

In the 222 days since I worked a full-time job, I've been able to fit in a lot of reading. I like listening to audiobooks while driving and hiking and I finally gave in and let my parents buy me an e-reader after years of swearing by paper. A few months ago I told you about some of the non-fiction that I was reading. Now, it's time for fiction to have its turn.

I’ve been especially enjoying the genres of futurist, utopian, solarpunk and anti-capitalist fiction. Instead of completely escaping from reality, these books offer an alternative future with imaginative solutions to current problems.

In Practicing New Worlds, Andrea Ritchie calls this type of writing “Visionary Fiction” and identifies it as “one tool for sparking, reinvigorating, and exercising our imaginations to the fullest extent possible in the face of claims that the abolit­ionist futures we seek to manifest are impossible.”

“Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” Art by Ashley Lukashevsky, quote by Ruha Benjamin

Quoting Walidah Imarisha, Practicing New Worlds goes on to explain:

All real substantive social change has been considered unrealistic at the time people fought for it—until those people changed the world to make it happen. With visionary fiction, we start with the question “What is the world we want?” rather than “What is a win that is possible and realistic?” . . . This is why visionary fiction and other imaginative spaces are key to true liberatory change—because we must be able to imagine something different before we can build it, and we have lived all of our lives within systems that tell us radical change is an impossibility.

This is something that I think is missing from most leftist spaces. For the longest time, I never internalized that being an abolitionist means creating the world that makes prisons obsolete, not just being against the institution. I knew that I supported abolition in theory, but it wasn’t until this clicked that I felt like it was a viable strategy that I could get behind. So I wonder, how many folks are our movements missing out on because we’re not platforming alternatives? While it’s easy to say you’re against something, the work of envisioning and building the future is something that we all need to be part - and stoking our imaginations with fiction is one way to get started.

All of the books I’m including here are unique in their styles - some encompassing all of these visionary genres, and some just a few of them. Here’s a little glossary I came up with:

• futurist 🔮 - taking place in the future

• utopian 🌈 - taking place in an idealistic society where everything is designed to be harmonious, just, and fulfilling for all people

• solarpunk ☀️ - a sub-genre of utopian literature, solarpunk fiction takes place in a sustainable, eco-friendly future where humanity lives harmoniously with nature, often featuring renewable energy, green cities, and with a focus on social equity

• anti-capitalist 🌹 - the characters and plot tell a story that illustrates the pitfalls of capitalism and shows resistance and possible alternatives

Some quick advice: For a long time, I’d avoided most “science fiction” that wasn’t Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park…) because descriptions of imaginary technology often feel too complex and confusing. I want to note that I still struggle with this sometimes. My strategy for times I feel bogged down is just to keep going. It usually doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the story if you let your eyes skim a few bits until you feel engaged again.

“We invent the future together”, linocut by myself

The Monk and Robot series (book #1, book #2), by Becky Chambers 🔮☀️🌈🌹

If you’re looking for cozy descriptions of slow-living in eco-cities and a house-wagon pulled by a solar bike then look no further. These books take place in a world where humans have retreated from half of the planet (see also half-earth concept), leaving the other portion to nature and self-aware robots. At the beginning of this book, a human monk and a robot meet for the first time in centuries. As they go on a journey across the wilderness, the reader sees them grow to understand each other and the nature of being human. This book reminded me that even if we solve all of our climate and equity issues, we will still have questions about who we are as people. Instead of these “unsolvable questions” leaving me with anxiety, the book expanded my understanding of utopia as more of a process and less of a destination. These short and sweet books make for easy reading and are perfect as someone’s first foray into solar punk literature.

The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson 🔮☀️

It’s the year 2025 and we’re seeing catastrophic effects of climate change - from heat waves that wipe out whole cities, to refugee crises that are bigger than we’ve ever seen. “The Ministry for the Future” is established as a UN body to investigate a variety of climate solutions. This book is a bit long, but I found that I could skip chapters on topics that didn’t interest me as much. I appreciated the diversity of solutions that were offered and the development of the characters as they wrestled with ethical questions. I also found the trajectories of the different countries around the world to be very believable, making the whole timeline feel plausible and giving me hope for a similar outcome in my lifetime. While I wouldn't say the book is explicitly anti-capitalist, the solutions offered definitely wrestle with the capitalist imperative of resource extraction.

Everything for Everyone, by Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O’Brien 🔮🌈 🌹

As someone who considers themself a social scientist, I loved the oral history format of this book which brought the characters and complexity of the story to life. These interviews take place in the 2060s, following a global insurrection that has redefined society all the way from work to family, gender, healing, justice and more. This book reminds me that the work we’re doing now paves the way for a better world in the future. Through history we’ve seen that change often happens slowly for a while, and then all at once. Bonus, the format of this book also makes it easy to read or listen to in segments - imagine savoring it as you would an investigative podcast. Of all the books I’ve mentioned here, this one felt the most realistic - possibly because of its proximity to our current year and specificity to the US.

Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow 🔮☀️🌹

Imagine walking away from society as we know it. Now imagine a whole subculture of people doing this. Imagine that in a high-tech future of dystopian surveillance. While my current unemployment experiment feels like a rejection of social and economic norms, it's nothing compared to what the “walkaways” give up in this book - and having that tiny comparison of my own has made it all the more fascinating.

To be honest, I’m still only halfway through this one, but my imagination has been captured by the non-hierarchical ways the walkaway society is structured, the changing understandings of the individual, and the ethical-philosophical questions that arise. If you’re into coding you’ll probably especially enjoy reading about the innovative ways their programs are coded to avoid competition between contributors.

“Activism is my rent for living on this planet”, linocut print by myself

Bonus:

The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern 🌹🔮 *

This one doesn’t quite fit the theme, but I wanted to include more than four books in this post and this is a good one! The * is because this story actually takes place in 2020, but it’s in an alternate timeline where Al Gore won the 2000 presidency and climate change has been "solved". But it actually hasn’t been solved, because capitalism took its inequitable course and marginalized people have been predictably excluded from the profits. This book tells the tale of an inner-city solidarity occupation that is so realistic in its depictions of leftist subculture that I believe it can teach us a thing or two about how we understand and organize our movements. While it’s not the same flavor of hopeful as the above books (I really cried at the end), maybe it fits in the theme as a reminder of how our future needs to be inclusive of everyone - and until then, the struggle isn’t over.

What other books should be on this list? Up next for me are:

• Three Californias Trilogy (Kim Stanley Robinson),

• Parable of the Sower (Octavia E Butler)

• The Dispossessed (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Getting ahold of these books

I added affiliate links to all the books I mentioned above because that’s what bloggers do. In the off-chance that you decide to purchase one of these books and use a link above I’ll receive a handful change as commission. I used bookshop.org because this is a more ethical alternative to Amazon.

Borrowing these titles from your local library (or library-linked app like Libby or Hoopla) is also a great option. The more we use our libraries, the better-placed they are to advocate for funding to expand important services to our communities.

Maybe it was before a US presidential election or maybe it was after Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022… a lot of us have searched “how to move to Canada from the US” or something of that nature. How to get out. There’s even a subreddit, r/IWantOut waiting for you to make a post listing your skillset, circumstances, relevant heritage and dreams, and in return get advice on expatriating. (Whilst researching, I also came across r/AmerExit)

As we approach the announcement of our next president, I think this is a good time to explore the impulse to flee. I’m going to use my own experience as an example. 

First, let me be clear: I think that migration is natural and borders are an unjust Western invention. Still, I don’t think we should all just get up and move when the conditions of our geographical region do not work in our favor.

Here’s a semi-relevant linocut that I made - proof that I’m not anti-immigration!

Unfortunately, these abstractly drawn borders do exist and are navigated differently depending on privilege, whether that’s nationality, income level, or political/administrative connections. For those of us that want to dismantle unjust systems, we need to think critically about whether we leave or stay. With that in mind, I hope we can also have empathy for those who decide emigration is the right choice. 

As of 2023, I had lived in the US, Jordan, the UK, Iraq and Ukraine, among a few other places. I’d committed most of my life to understanding and addressing social justice issues at home and abroad, and it was wearing on me. I witnessed apartheid and heard stories about the Nakba in Palestine. I met Syrian refugees in Jordan. I listened to It Could Happen Here (first nine podcasts specifically) and watched The Handmaid’s Tale.. #WorldWarThree began trending in January 2020 after Trump assassinated Qassem Soleimani. While living in Detroit, I was illegally kicked off of Medicaid during the covid emergency. In Ukraine, colleagues told me how they never imagined their country would be attacked. My team underwent nuclear fallout training as we waited to see if Russia would bomb the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. I began to realize that full-time employment is not healthy for me at this point in my life, which could make healthcare unaffordable in the US. 

Maybe you can see why I was steadily growing more nervous about my future as an American?

I believe change is possible and I know that it takes time, but I was growing impatient. Sure, I wanted to be part of building that utopia that I still believe is possible. But more to the point, I wanted to have a safe place to live and call home, from where I could continue to do the work of extending safety to everyone.

So, after I finished my work in Ukraine, I moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in April 2023. Here are my takeaways from this experience:

There are no utopias

In the Māori language, Aotearoa means “land of the long white cloud”. This refers to the cloud formations that helped the early Polynesian explorers navigate to the country. Unlike those who first saw the land of the long white cloud between 1200 and 1300 AD, I was not arriving on an unsettled land, untouched by empire and capital. 

Since the arrival of whalers, traders, and European settlers, economic and legal structures have been developed which systematically discriminate against the original caretakers of the land – the indigenous Māori people. New Zealand is incredibly progressive in many ways, but it still has to reckon with its colonial past. As a non-Māori person, I had to be mindful of my role in this process.

With a genuine interest in indigenous rights and justice, I tried to be the most respectful and responsible settler I could be. Within a year, I had learned to recite my mihi mihi, I took a course on understanding and applying Te Tiriti - the document signed between the Māori people and the British government, and I attended Māori-led demonstrations. 

While I was there legitimately according to the settler government, it’s hard to say whether my presence was beneficial or even desired by the indigenous treaty partners, who have very little say on immigration policies.

Regardless of what country you move to, your presence won't be without effect.

Expat influxes contribute to inequalities such as gentrification, notably in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. When Russian men fleeing conscription moved in droves to Georgia and Armenia , gentrification accelerated and tensions rose. In Georgia, some locals likened this to an occupation reminiscent of Russia’s 2008 invasion. It’s easy to imagine similar apprehension from residents of countries that US policies have negatively affected.

You will be leaving many people behind

Leaving is not a protest. Sometimes quitting is necessary for self-preservation, but let's not get it confused with creating any kind of positive difference on the place you’re leaving. 

Departing creates a void that will eagerly be filled by those who aim to advance fascism and oppression. With fewer people engaging locally, certain voices will grow louder. Even if you plan to stay engaged and vote from abroad, you will never be as involved as you can be while living there. In my years of being abroad, I’ve followed US news closely, voted, signed petitions, and shared on social media, but  I’ve found that the lack of proximity keeps me from doing much more than that.

Leaving might improve life for you, but what about those who don’t have the option to go? Many countries have immigration requirements regarding income and education levels - excluding those with less access to these resources.. Many countries have health requirements for gaining residence - excluding people with disabilities or chronic conditions.

Have you considered people who came to the US as refugees from places US foreign policy has rendered unsafe? If you’re exploring your heritage through emigration, do you also consider those whose heritage was stripped away by the slave trade? Do you consider those whose heritage is tied to land that was stolen through coercion and broken treaties? Without the support of those who walked away, these people will be left to confront the fascist agenda alone. 

While I struggled with my decision to stay or to leave, a friend of mine patiently reminded me how much privilege I benefit from in the US. While I will struggle, being an educated, able-bodied, cis, white person with a large social network means that I will almost always have access to a myriad of resources. How much would the policies I fear actually impact me, compared to those who can't leave?

You will STRUGGLE with bureaucracy

I arrived in New Zealand on a temporary 1-year work visa, and planned to use this as a trial period and stepping stone to gaining residence. When I first arrived, I had enough “points” to apply for residency, but I didn’t see any hurry. A few months later, this opportunity had closed and a new system came into effect. I now needed further in-country work experience which required a regular work visa, which required a job offer from an “Accredited Employer”. With a newly elected, more conservative government, funding for government and other public service-type jobs such as public health (my field of work) was undergoing heavy cuts. It was highly unlikely that I would be chosen for a job over the thousands of citizens and residents who had recently faced layoffs. I explored other options such as doing a PhD there or changing professions to one that was more in-demand, but ultimately I decided against these. I was devastated to have my opportunity taken away. 

Please, do not underestimate the stress of the immigration process. The uncertainty can stretch on for months, sometimes years, while you work to build a life and connections in a place that might not allow you to stay. If you’ve ever dealt with job or housing insecurity, you’ll recognize this feeling—in this case it encompasses nearly everything in your life. The possibility of being asked to leave will weigh heavily on your well-being as you wait for the process to be carried out.

New Zealand is considered one of the more accessible countries for Americans with no heritage-based citizenship options, but that doesn't make the process easy. Some highly skilled roles can improve your chances and ease the paperwork, but for most countries, the path is much harder than what I described.

Flying out of New Zealand with my embarassingly huge amount of luggage - I’d accumulated things because I thought I’d be staying longer!

Immigration is lonely 

If you studied abroad in college you might have great memories of making friends and exploring the country together. Now in my early 30s, I found that most folks my age had already solidified their friend groups, paired off, sunk into routines or even started families. If you move with a partner, this may be easier, but it could also have the opposite effect - putting a strain on the relationship. 

Even as someone who spent most of the last ten years living abroad, I often face insecurities about my cross-cultural friendships. Americans are known for being overly-enthusiastic and outgoing. As much as I try to distance myself from American stereotypes, I realize now how I’ve internalized that behavior as a baseline. The New Zealanders I met were, in general, more reserved when it came to making friends and deepening those friendships. Wherever you go, chances are your ideas about socialization and friendship will not align with local norms. Over time you can likely adapt, but be prepared to feel isolated until that happens.

While I met incredible people in New Zealand, I struggled to find my niche.I loved the nature, I loved the work-life balance, I loved the walkability of my city and I loved the gas-station pies… But in the end I felt like I loved a country that didn’t love me back. 

Me, in love with New Zealand

Since coming back to the US, I’ve been reminded that this is indeed where I come from. I struggle to feel like I fit in anywhere, but it's undeniable that I was socialized and am adapted to American ways of communicating. 

Finding community here in the US

I’m coming up on five months back in the US and for the first time since I can remember, I’m looking forward to building a life here. I haven’t even chosen the city that I’ll put down roots in, but I already feel so much more connected and useful. Through an in-person gathering, I met a group of activists that I’ve been organizing with nation-wide. I’ve met marginalized people in my community who I’ve been able to support through difficult times. While dating in New Zealand was a boon, I’ve already found a wonderful partner and I feel more secure in my relationships here than I did in New Zealand. 

Building the future is a communal endeavor. For those who are on the fence about leaving, I wonder if finding people who are doing solidarity organizing in your local community would make you feel more secure? Look especially for those who can’t leave as they will be the ones committed to making our communities livable, as their only option. Maybe you will realize that what you need can be found around you if you do a bit of digging. Or maybe it will become more clear that you need to leave.

Back home in Michigan this past summer with some of my family members

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A few months later, I asked Lagata if she could help me with data entry for a project and I would pay her. I assumed that since she didn’t work full-time she would be happy to have some income. After a few weeks, she told me that she wanted to cut down on her hours because the work “doesn’t make me happy”. That’s when I knew I needed to hear more about her outlook on life. 

Self-portrait by Lagata

Katy: First of all, can you introduce yourself, tell us how you spend your time, and how this lifestyle came about for you? 

Lagata: I'm Lagata. I'm 39 years old, and I have been an IT person since 2009. For a long time, I would get a lot of anxiety and stress and frustration while working as an IT. Even though I like it, it takes a toll on my mental health. In 2021, I was working in IT here in Wellington and I developed this stress. I went on medication to manage the anxiety, and then I just simply decided to quit and focus on my health instead.

And my goal was to actually get better, and then come back to either that job or another IT job. But, while I was in therapy, I started doing art therapy and found out that that was actually something that I needed in my life and that I wanted to explore further.

So I started to go to art studios such as Vincents and then Pablo's. And suddenly, I figured out that it was really easy to do whatever I wanted, Like, the helmet project, for example, it was just an idea. Whatever idea I got, they just backed me up and then I just do it, and done! And not many people do that. So I thought that I should take advantage of that.

In August of 2023, Lagata organized artist volunteers to paint bike helmets that were donated to EkeRua - an organization that fixes up bikes and distributes them to people who need them. 

What I really need is to be healthy, and that makes me happy. And to contribute to society in a way that I find that is more important, such as volunteering in Everybody Eats or The Free Store or with these projects like the mural. 

That fills my heart a lot more than when I'm working for a company as an IT. Doesn't matter what the IT project is. Even though the project could be, like, really interesting and for a good cause, the toll that takes on my mental health, it might not be worth it for me, at least for me. Some other people can manage it a lot better, and I have learned to accept that I'm just not one of those people. I only use my IT skills for very little things, as long as it's not going to interfere with my mental health improvement. 

The more I learn about art or things that the community needs. It's not necessary that I actually have a full time job. I can just contribute as much as I want. And sometimes I get income out of it. Sometimes I don't get money out of it, but I do get connections and I do get help. For example, my neighbor has asked me to work with him in the food truck a couple of times, and he gives me a lot of food, and good food, and then I keep it in my fridge and I eat for, like, 2 weeks. They wanted to get rid of, like, a TV because they got another one, and now I have this giant, 55 inch TV in my living room.

I have people that will back me up, that I can count on, or that I will have support from. And that's a lot more valuable than having a full-time job. I don't see myself working in an IT environment from, like, 9 to 4 and then to volunteer for, like, 3 hours at the Everybody Eats restaurant, for example. I don't think I could have that energy. And if I have to choose 1 or the other, I will prefer doing volunteer work. 

Portraits of fellow studio members

Katy: Do you feel judged or pressured by society to work a full time job? And how do you feel when people ask you what you do for work?

Lagata: Yes, I do feel pressured by society, especially when people don't get it - that money is not the purpose of living. A lot of people ask me, “how are you gonna get a car or a house? Like, how do you save up for the big things? And I'm like, but this is the big thing for me.

Like, I picture myself living exactly the way that I am right now, like, having, like, 90, and I'm happy with that thought. I don't need a big house. I don't need those things. I feel like that's the carrot that they put in front of everyone, that they have to follow through, and they never get it. You know? 

But, it's not easy for most people to understand this mindset. And it's not easy for me to tolerate that kind of person. So, usually, I just avoid having these conversations because it's like, they don't want to understand.

‘Year of the Rabbit’ pieces made for Vincent’s annual Newtown festival fundraiser

So the way that I avoid this, I tell them that I'm studying, which is true. I am studying art and I am studying psychology. Like, things that are what I do, but I do it in a practical way. I study how to improve my life and to make it sustainable over time… like, forever.

And they also find a bit of comfort when I say, well, I can do a piece of art and I can sell it if I want to.

My goal is just to find a sustainable way of living that will not, like, make my mental health bad again. And, actually, to keep improving it. Which is quite abstract. It's not like a career. They don't teach this. It's something that you experience and you just live through it. Not many people do it.

Katy: So, as you say, most people don't understand it. But if we imagine that they could, how do you think the world would be different if everyone had this ability to work less? 

Lagata: I don't know. I think the way I think because I'm me through my experience in life. But it's because I have issues with money. I mean, I can manage it. I have it, and it's fine. But I come from a background of people that money is everything to them. So that's why I'm like, I don't wanna be like these people, and I wanna show myself that I don't need to be like these people. And that's how this has started.

And this started when I was very, very young. Like, maybe 16 years old. I don't know that anyone is just born with this idea. I think it comes from trauma. So in a world, if we didn't have trauma, I don't know if they would still choose that…

But if they did, and if it came from a healthy root, let's say... I think it's possible, especially now with artificial intelligence, to delegate things to machines that we have to do under a lot of stress. And we can do the things that are important that machines cannot do. Like, raise kids in a healthy way, take care of the planet, make healthy decisions. And that's what I kinda hope for, that technology will advance in a way.

Now, different discussions are coming up. I have heard kids that are, like, 10 years old saying it's more important for them to eat a fruit than an ice cream. Or like, don't don't litter. Like, they are constantly worried about the whole climate change situation more than we do, more than I am.

So that gives me hope because if they're already thinking about that, and it's important for them, that's going to go on until they're adults and they can actually make decisions. And I hope that those decisions are to save the planet and to, like, not give money that much importance, and to give their life importance and their health and mental health. It will be wonderful. I don't think it's impossible. 

Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

By Patty Krawec

I first listened to this as an audiobook when I was doing my good-bye road trip around New Zealand. I felt so inspired by what I was hearing that I asked my friend to switch to driving so I could write down some thoughts on my phone. Whereas Braiding Sweetgrass delves into the Native American perspective on ecology, Becoming Kin discusses ancestral relationships. In this way, it felt like a mandatory companion to that well-known book. 

Krawec uses stories from her own ancestry and lived experience, keeping me engaged the whole time and making me reflect on my own family’s story. Although it might not interest everyone, I appreciated her nuanced discussion of the legacy of Christianity in the settling of the country. She also tells the stories of her non-indigenous ancestors, suggesting compassionate ways of understanding their journeys and thinking about how to move forward in relations with land, original people and our own identities today.

Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion

By Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz 

I picked this book up after seeing it referenced in Becoming Kin. A la “A People’s History”, Dunbar-Ortiz re-tells US history from a lesser-heard perspective. She points out how the “Nation of Immigrants” catch-phrase erases the indigenous people and those brought to the US under slavery. She also contextualizes the adoption of this byline, which came about during a time when the state was resisting the Civil Rights movement and opposing anticolonial movements abroad. Multitudes of examples show how the US has brought in foreigners as slave and cheap labor, discriminated against and criminalized for decades, all whilst waging war against Native Americans.  The author brings us up to the current-day with ongoing examples of systematic exploitation and discrimination. In conclusion, our representatives have no right to use “Nation of Immigrants” as a catchphrase while failing to address racist histories and current structures of discrimination. 

If you’re new to this perspective on American history, I recommend starting with “Becoming Kin”, which the average reader will find more engaging with the vignettes from the author's life. History nerds and the more curious will definitely want to dig into this one next for a thesis’ worth of citations and depth. 

Let this Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

By Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

In 2015 I was back in the Chicagoland and looking for some activism to get involved in. Someone suggested that I join some of the projects that Kelly Hayes, the co-author of this book, was working on. Over the years I’ve continued to follow her on social media and have really valued her insight through posts and blogs. 

In this book, Kelly, and fellow abolitionist Mariame Kaba, use examples from their work in Chicago to share wisdom around community organizing. Alongside the inspiring examples, important topics they discuss are digital security, engaging with theory, and avoiding burnout. Through the publication of this book, we can all be more prepared to collectively care for each other as the current and coming ecological and economic crises deepen. 

I recommend this book to anyone that’s interested in working with the people around them to improve their communities, no matter how big or small. Although I listened to this as an audiobook on Hoopla, I’m planning to buy my own copy to keep. 

Anti-Capitalist Economy in Rojava: The Contradictions of Revolution in the Kurdish Struggles

By Azize Aslan

After hearing about Rojava for years, I joined the Institute for Social Ecology’s reading group for this book. This book is very dense and is not easy-reading by any means. Still, the structures/institutions of Rojava have not yet been deeply-documented or disseminated, making this a very important work. Fortunately, the reading group held me accountable and provided ripe discussions each week. 

This book describes the history of the Kurdish population in the region, the development of the Kurdish cultural and political movements, and the structures of the autonomous society that has been built around the principles of democracy, women’s equality and environmentalism. The heart of the book looks at how the movement has attempted to develop an anti-capitalist economy within a world that it’s built on the framework of capitalism. The author describes both the failures and successes of the village communes, assemblies and cooperatives.

By understanding the structural and philosophical challenges that others have met with, we can better shape our own projects for success, no matter how big or how small. Some of the strategies I’m taking away from this book are around prioritization of minorities in decision-making and having a process for self-criticism (tekmil) in our projects and movement. 

The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More

By Annie Raser-Rowland with Adam Grubb

All of us have developed our own strategies for spending less, to varying degrees of success. While most of the tips shared in this book won’t necessarily feel new, I liked this book because of how whimsical and  fun it made frugality seem. 

A chapter that struck me encourages the reader to romanticize past eras. We already do this when we say “things were simpler back then”, so why don’t we actually try to live out some of that simplicity in our purchasing? 

Despite the name, this book doesn’t focus only on individual enjoyment, but also on the ways that buying less of certain things is better for our communities and the planet. For example, eating healthier (sometimes more expensive) food can prevent disease and medical bills, but if that food is organic then it’s also better for our ecosystems, saving money for future generations! 

Getting ahold of these books

I added affiliate links to all the books I mentioned above because that’s what bloggers do. In the off-chance that you decide to purchase one of these books and use a link above I’ll receive a handful change as commission. I used bookshop.org because this is a more ethical alternative to Amazon. 

Borrowing these titles from your local library (or library-linked app like Libby or Hoopla) is also a great option. The more we use our libraries, the better-placed they are to advocate for funding to expand important services to our communities. 

Photo credit: oilandwaterdontmix.org

The last weekend of August, I went up north in Michigan for a weekend of activities related to the water. In the Great Lakes, water protectors are campaigning to decommission the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline which passes through the straits of Mackinac. The saga is long and complicated so instead of summarizing it myself, I’m going to share what’s already been written:

In the 1950s, without tribal consultation nor seeking public input, the State of Michigan granted Enbridge a lease and permission to build the original Line 5 dual pipeline in spite of the risk of oil spills in the Great Lakes. In 2021, Enbridge seeks to build a tunnel to house a new segment of the Line 5 oil pipeline to continue transporting non-consumer oil and gas products from one part of Canada to another with little financial benefit to local residents. Meanwhile, Enbridge is ignoring that Governor Whitmer terminated the easement that permits the dual pipeline to cross the Straits of Mackinac. Enbridge is now trespassing as it continues to operate Line 5 in violation of the termination notice.

• Native American Rights Fund 

The future of the pipeline has gone back and forth between the courts and planning commissions in Michigan. The Nessel v. Enbridge decision currently awaits hearing in Michigan’s 30th Circuit Court.  Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently closed submissions of written comments regarding Enbridge’s Line 5 Wisconsin Segment Relocation project. 

Activists are currently in a stage of building community and raising awareness in preparation for more intense times of resistance, should the future require it. 

We started the weekend with a Friday evening potluck at the campground. Before we ate, we were cleansed with bashkodejiibik (sage) and nibi (water) from several origins was passed to us from a copper vessel. Water protector Jannan Cornstalk led us in a prayer to the four directions. 

The next day we crossed over the Mackinac Bridge to St. Ignace to participate in the “Pipe Out Paddle Up Flotilla to Shut Down Line 5” on Lake Huron.

The gathering started with a ceremony of thanksgiving to the water. In addition to the bashkodejiibik and nibi rituals from the night before, we all gave offerings of asemaa (tobacco) to the water. I also touched my pounamu to the water, offering its strength and protection from Aotearoa. 

As the paddlers climbed into their kayaks, canoes and the jiimaan (see my drawing below), six men of all ages sat in a circle around a large drum and sang traditional songs. Because of my shoulder injury, I wasn’t able to paddle out, but I enjoyed the energy from the shore and drew this of the jiimaan - a large voyager canoe. 

After the paddle out, we drove to Petoskey where the annual Water is Life festival was taking place all afternoon. Looking over Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan, we communed with other water, wildlife and native representatives and a lineup of talented musicians.

After this big day of public events, the water protectors used Sunday to recover and get to know each other more. It was on Sunday that I got a chance to talk to Tera about the significance of this weekend. (Note: This interview was edited for clarity and length.)

Katy: Can you start out by telling us a bit about yourself and passions?

Tera: Aanii boozhoo. Hi hello.

Tera John nindizhinikaaz… Maadweyaashiikwe nindizhinikaaz. My government name is Tera John, but I’m also known as the woman that speaks the language of the wind. 

Makwa nindoodem. I’m bear clan. In old-school ways we didn’t have family names, you were born into a clan system as your family. You learn by going to work and being at the elbows of your aunties and uncles and making mistakes and getting corrected. You learn how to serve your people, what you want to do, what your gift utility was to a community.

Kchi Wiikwedong nindoonjibaa. I’m from what we call present-day Grand Traverse area. We call it “Around the big bay” because we name all our places after the way the water moves around it. It serves two purposes. First, it gives you directions… if you know the interstate, intersections of where you are, you’re not going to get lost. 

And two, in the very language of speaking of your home, it reminds you of what needs to be maintained to be safe and happy, thriving. 

I work in Indigenous Land Management techniques, all over Turtle Island. I’m very happy to be able to come home to my own tribe and be able to work on my own treaty territories where I can work on our places that still hold the names in my language of the original place and still be able to speak it and understand. 

It’s a very privileged place to be from because I realize that not all indigenous people have that or have the comfort to be able to learn it. 

I also am working on tribal food sovereignty. This is the idea that you cannot truly be free and make your own choices about your movements and lives until you can feed yourself. 

I am about saving the world because I’m in a unique position where I’ve traveled around and offered my asemaa (tobacco) to elders and academics and people in these spaces to learn what it was like before and to understand how things were different and how we managed these spaces and are protective of abundance.

This land loved us just as much as we loved her.  This is our home and we were intended to be here. 

Myself and Tera, photo by Bahaar

Our stories, even in English, can’t be translated almost into real, tangible, even English, definitions. Like, we have a word for DNA which is “blood memory”. We talk about that mishipeshu and that thunderbird, even in our art, all the way back, they were never separated because that’s a science teaching. That’s that water spirit and that atmosphere. They can’t exist apart from each other. That’s a closed system. That depicts that relationship of that world from the very beginning. That balance that needs to exist for us to even think about being here. That relationship is always in adjustment with those storms and those air pressures and those clouds - that we can breath and live here.  And it’s billions of years and still adjusting to take care of us. 

We also have teachings about the water in Michigan. It’s that membrane around that Turtle’s heart. Just like yours is. It protects us. It insulates us from climate change even. That’s that protective water around the heart, that Mshiikenh - It means turtle. It still holds the names.

We talk about water holding a memory and being medicine. You are seventy to eighty percent water. If you take in tainted water that’s going to become part of you. We talk about how it’s a DNA exchange when you are touching water. 

I’m working with a grant right now with our natural resources to do eDNA testing with river silt. If done correctly, we can tell the populations that had interactions in that water for 2 million years. Science is now coming around to realize that those things that we’ve talked about are true.

There is a Western view of commodification, exploitation and exit. And that applies for our water too. 

We talk about things like harvesting a basket made from reeds. When someone asks “Oh, how long did it take you to make that basket?”, it might’ve taken me so many hours to weave that basket. But it also took hours to pound it down and harvest the tree and all the labor to split them. But it also took me hours to learn how to weave like that. And it took my teacher all the hours to learn the experience to teach and then it took that tree a hundred years to grow. So that basket is two hundred years of effort. 

We are all built on the backs of the meekest of us. We think of the trophic cascade as from the smallest. From that muskrat that had that earth in his hand. He was the weak little guy. But we are built on the sacrifices of the least of us. And until we remember that, we can’t move forward.

But we still have the relationship with these spaces. That, if respected, and truly allowed to tell our own stories, we are in a unique position to be able to save this before the end. The good thing is that the indigenous populations of this planet know how to do that. We have 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Every food system, except for the transport of it, has come from indigenous hands and teachings and knowledge.

Katy: Wow, you’ve already answered like the first three questions, and I love that, because I asked you to introduce yourself but in your answer you demonstrated the Earth is part of you. My next questions were going to be “What is your relationship to water?” and “Why should the general public be concerned and take a role in water management?” You told us how everything is so connected, so it’s like - where would you stop? 

Tera: You are 70% water, it’s like “DUH!”. Of course you should care.

There are working models. It’s just that people don’t stop to think about the effort before it gets to them and all of the energies. When we talk about the energy of that tree growing into that basket. That’s the work of that land and that tree to grow and the sun that it used for food, and the air. All the nutrients make those tree leaves different and the tree rings different. The weather went into that. Those rings have different densities in those trees. 

We’re joining something already in motion. We are not the top of the pyramid. We are the very last one’s here. We need to adjust to merging in traffic. You might be like “Oh, I got this”, but if you don’t adjust for the other energies going in, you’re going to fail … bad. 

Katy: That makes so much sense. Next, can I ask you: What did we do this weekend and why was it significant?

Tera: There is a lot of Western society and Western culture that we have been sold on that’s competitive. That teaches you to be the best at one thing or to think about things as a right way and …. that’s not how you build community. 

Our teachings are very much “you can’t do it alone” I can’t… push and pull at the same time. I can’t tap trees on my own. These are things that are integral to who we are and interacting with this land. But you can't do it alone. You are not by yourself.

Things like this build community because we come together and in that circle teaching we all have a different perspective of that middle focus. But we all have a front-row seat and we are all just as important because each view needs to be contributed to see a whole. 

That's what we are doing here. We are project bonding. We are building things together. Because when you can look across you can traumatize communities who don't do therapy well, who don't do talk therapy. We can come together in places and build together, make things together. And that heals generations. Especially when it's on the land and in relation like that. It is coming back to this place that we call home - but together. Because you can look across and understand that you've made it through something. You've created this. You might not always get along. But you understand  and build out from there.

We don't have disposable communities. We don't have the resources to get up and move away. If we do someone wrong or if we don't act right, we have to be held accountable because we only have each other. 

We're saving the world! That's what we're doing!

Katy: What gives you hope in this struggle?

Tera: The same thing that gives me my voice. I can look and see that we have a generation of children that has these stories and this knowledge and doesn't have to go seek it. We've done the work. My son has these stories. He knows these things. He has this land. He's the first generation that does this. 

We're the first generation that has our babies. That's wild. And now we're in a place where we can tell our own stories that are being observed or talked about in an anthropological sense. If we are allowed to do so, I guarantee it will change things. Let me show you how to love this. It's way more beautiful than you even know.

Katy: What advice do you have to people that are concerned about our planet but don't quite know where to begin?

Tera: Don't give up. There are places and there are times that doing this work feels lonely because you are up against an entire society that tells you it needs to be a different way or that doesn't value what you are doing or doesn't see the work and the effort and the wearing down because your values aren't respected - the things that you hold dear aren't loved. That's a hard world to be in. 

I'm thinking about my babies.... That's what gives me hope. Thinking about my babies and seeing them being able to move without the baggage that they didn't have to pick up. 

Katy: Those are all of the questions I prepared, but I have another one I’d like to ask for myself. Before we started recording, you mentioned some things about the meaning of “work” and how skewed it is in today’s society. I was wondering if you have some advice for me as I try to navigate this concept going forward. 

Tera: This capitalistic, these western society things - the systems that we've been sold on are not serving us. But the good news is that we don't have to keep investing in them. We don't have to double down. There is another way. You can do what I did, which is learn those things that you want to learn and find where they fit. Find a way and your people will find you. Be so unapologetically standing as a beacon that it will work. When you know you're right. You're right. 

During the interview, Tera’s friend Bahaar braided her hair. In Anishinaabe culture, braiding is a very intimate act as hair connects one to their ancestors and heritage. It also felt highly symbolic that Tera’s hair was being braided as she told me how we are connected to the earth and its systems, and about the importance of gathering. I took a photo of the braids and, after returning from the gathering, turned it into the following watercolor. 

While my group took down camp and headed out on Sunday, I should note that many water protectors carried the weekend through to Labor Day Monday. Every year, roughly 30,000 people walk across the 5-mile Mackinac bridge, which is otherwise closed to pedestrians. The remaining dedicated water protectors set up a booth near the entrance to the bridge and raised awareness with the walkers with a variety of activities such as a photo booth and a map for people to indicate their “Water Address”.

Except where otherwise noted, all photos and art are my own.

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