productivity in the age of empire
Jan. 4th, 2026 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taotieWhat does productivity mean as a citizen living in the heart of an ailing Leviathan, whose violent death throes threaten the livelihoods of everyone else on the planet? What do personal accomplishments mean in the seventh year of a worldwide, disabling pandemic?
I can’t help but be cynical about everyone’s year-end round-ups on Substack, especially as fellow beneficiaries of Western imperialism. I find it hard to celebrate my own life, as many victories as I’ve had, when the Earth continues to die around us. Of course, I wish to be — to feel — joyous, and I wish for others to be, to feel so too. But there is something pernicious here, the idea that personal betterment, that progressive career advancement, that fashioning oneself into a happier, more productive member of one's society, is a necessary feature of one's life. That it is something that supersedes the betterment of society itself. A friend of mine during high school was a Radiohead fan, and she hung a poster in her room that read, "FITTER, HAPPIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE." At the time, as a supremely depressed teenager, it felt like a cruel inside joke, a kind of cosmic sarcasm known between only me and Radiohead, whom I'm never listened to. I still think about that poster to this day, when people urge me to think practically about my life, to fashion myself into someone fitter, happier, more productive.
Is it worth the cost? (And I mean the lives at stake here.) Is it a measure of health to be sane in a sick society?
I can’t help but be cynical about everyone’s year-end round-ups on Substack, especially as fellow beneficiaries of Western imperialism. I find it hard to celebrate my own life, as many victories as I’ve had, when the Earth continues to die around us. Of course, I wish to be — to feel — joyous, and I wish for others to be, to feel so too. But there is something pernicious here, the idea that personal betterment, that progressive career advancement, that fashioning oneself into a happier, more productive member of one's society, is a necessary feature of one's life. That it is something that supersedes the betterment of society itself. A friend of mine during high school was a Radiohead fan, and she hung a poster in her room that read, "FITTER, HAPPIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE." At the time, as a supremely depressed teenager, it felt like a cruel inside joke, a kind of cosmic sarcasm known between only me and Radiohead, whom I'm never listened to. I still think about that poster to this day, when people urge me to think practically about my life, to fashion myself into someone fitter, happier, more productive.
Is it worth the cost? (And I mean the lives at stake here.) Is it a measure of health to be sane in a sick society?