The absurd trajectory of my life
My summer, life updates, and my battle with internalized capitalism
(Ilya Kaminsky)
Sometimes I feel guilty about the fact that I promoted my newsletter as something I’d be doing often because at the time I did believe that I’d have the capacity to write and release more things. Still, life has its own way of numbing away at our dreams and passions and under capitalism, I rarely am gifted with enough free time to sit, read, and produce a recollection of my thoughts.
I usually consider each day I wake up to be precious, it's a chance for me to consume information and be “productive”. I have this thing where I set my alarm for 5:30 AM and wake up at 6 AM. My actual day doesn’t start that early of course, but I have a horrible scarcity mindset where I’d rather be overprepared than to ever choose my own comfort and possibly make a (redeemable) mistake such as oversleeping. I also have this other bad trait, internalized capitalism, where I consider every second of me not being “productive” as wasted time so I fill up my alleged free moments such as riding the bus or commuting with something I perceive as “useful” and this is either checking the news, doing readings, drafting emails, reading a book, or doing s o m e t h i n g just anything to feel remotely useful. I don’t know if overachievement is an eldest daughter thing or maybe if my familial dynamic has conditioned me to treat my life like I am merely a project on a to-do list, but it can be exhausting. Nafsitiii ta3bana نفسيتي تعبانة, like my Arabic teacher would say (quite literally means my soul is tired, but can also mean my morals are down). Being first-gen, in collusion with being working-class and a black woman has translated into me contributing more than anyone, but receiving less than everyone.
Walah, nafsitii ta3bana.
Two years ago I received two fellowships for language study, to study Arabic in Jordan. Two years ago the WHO also declared coronavirus a global pandemic— the point is I never went to Jordan. what this did mean though is that I had to complete my language study virtually, so this past semester I completed 2 months and a half of intensive Arabic courses in Modern Standard and Jordanian Colloquial Arabic. These courses would begin at 10 AM and end at 3 PM. Everyday. This drained me beyond measure, I mean like if I heard “shou ekhbarek ya iman؟” again I would lose it. But, to top it all off I was interning at an international refugee NGO doing some fatiguing data and grant work that felt like the real-life equivalent to melatonin. My last week was the worst of them all, the week that Kabul fell and every Afghan in the state was referred to our organization. Boundaries were eroded and overtime wasn’t a matter of fair compensation or worker rights anymore, everyone was in crisis mode — staff, interns, even volunteers. I was a recovering (and now relapsed) people-pleaser who operated with zero boundaries so all my professional encounters were very mentally taxing. It meant that I said “Sure!” when I really meant no. It meant that my Google Calendar looked like a rainbow and that meetings overlapped and I eventually came crashing down. My mom and brother, and I went to Turkey in the middle of all of this (my responsibilities traveled with me) to decompress and rid ourselves of our pandemic blues. They succeeded, I did not because the fear of being unproductive and the mere idea that I was enjoying my life as a task sit there waiting for me was too destabilizing for me to ever live in the moment.
(Sunset view from the Galata Tower)
The silly thing about life, the thing that I have an awareness of but will never seem to understand, is that these short moments we have with our loved ones can never be regained; they can never be compensated. Whereas that report, that demo, or that email can be replaced, it can be redeemed and probably doesn’t matter in the long run. I often fall victim to prioritizing matters of my outward livelihood than the very integral aspects of my life such as family, friendship, spirituality, even my own sanity— it all comes last when placed against how much I value my supposed “productivity”. It feels deceptive and even dishonest (to myself) to know that I have deeply internalized a form of oppression as detrimental as capitalism; why can’t I see past the harm I am exerting to myself first and those around me?
I am sure people-pleasing tendencies have direct correlations to internalized capitalism, in the sense that a lack of boundaries is the fuel to the fire that is the very internalized capitalism we struggle with. The same psychological damage that creates people-pleasing individuals is parallel to the exploitive framework that capitalism operates by; both convince the individual that self-worth is gained through the malnourishment of the individual’s needs, through the compromise of the individuals’ rights, through the violation of the individuals’ personhood. Capitalism convinces us that the only means by which we can ever gain social significance and status is by relinquishing our right to rest or develop any sense of self-led productivity— almost as if we exist only to operate in mechanical terms. Being first-gen can mean a lot of things and is a nuanced title that you should interrogate whenever people decide to label themselves as such because there are first-gens whose parents went to ivy leagues and are scientists and CEOs— or there are first-gens like me who are the first to go college in their family and watched their parents lose half of their lives to the working-class nightmare. Then, then you understand the pressure on so-called firs-gens to gain social significance and status. When comparing my current work-related afflictions to even a quarter of what my parents went through, I am naturally driven to continue this pattern of sacrificing. After a long period of internalizing this pattern, internalized capitalism becomes second nature. You’ll begin to view the world from the lens of someone who has stretched their capacity beyond the human standard. What makes things worse, especially as a young person, is that we live in a time where there is such thing as socio-professional competition on a massive scale through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
The issue with internalized capitalism or the overall concept of burnout and overwork is that— it can kill you. I can explicitly trace the decline of my health with the increase of my productivity or jobs I’ve taken on, both factors have a strong correlation and I know this is undeniable in most people. Overworking is so bad that the country of Japan is renowned for having high rates of death by “overwork,” so much so that they coined the term “karoshi” to describe overwork deaths (mostly suicide and heart failure). In Japan, workers often die from heart failures that stem from a lack of sleep or sleep deprivation. I often sleep at 12-1 AM and wake up at 6 AM, barely enough to nourish my body, let alone help me function throughout the day. I have migraines and have been experiencing hair loss that has to do with sleep deprivation. I also developed a gut disorder over the pandemic which is around the same time I began to take on a lot of remote work opportunities. I can feel the onset of karoshi-like symptoms in myself at age 20. I started working at age 17. Insufficient sleep is also “now one of the most significant lifestyle factors influencing whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease”, which I think is quite an oxymoron to life. You miss all this sleep to achieve material and worldly gains, with the hope that after retirement you’ll finally rest alongside your loved ones, but in the end, you just get Alzheimer’s and forget the very same loved ones you put on the back burner.
Also, earlier this year the WHO released a study that found that over 745,000 people die annually from overwork. Capitalism kills.
The only alter universe where I imagine myself experiencing genuine relaxation and rest is if governments changed regulations around work hours, it’s not totally unimaginable (has happened in Nova Scotia). Still, time and time again corporations, governments, and almost every establishment we provide our labor to have shown us that they value our ability to provide functionality over our wellbeing. The neglect of worker rights is embedded in the very structure of capitalist institutions; it is the first ingredient. It might be important to mention that capitalism and the very notion of internalized capitalism has its roots in Calvinist/protestant/puritan work ethic (Max Weber) which asserts that one’s self-value is actualized through one’s ability to contribute to industry or achieving “success” was the way that one was able to gain glory from God. In an article by Chron, Frank Elwell says of the rhetoric spread by Protestant reformations in the post-reformation era that “Wealth was taken as a sign (by you and your neighbors) that you were one of the God's elect, thereby providing encouragement for people to acquire wealth.” This is the same ideological era that ushered Europe from feudalism to capitalism; it’s really a form of wide-scale coercion that occurred where a religious leader (more like a zealot in my opinion) convinced the masses that self-detrimental productivity is the only path to salvation. This is essentially what John Calvin contended with this prosperity gospel idea of his. The article further states that “People don't have to be Protestants to work hard—It's become so ingrained in our culture that it influences everybody." The protestant reformers aimed to divert Christian society from the Catholic tradition of retreating from daily life to a place of spiritual seclusion such as a monastery, in their efforts to shift the theological linings of Protestaninism away from the Catholic focus on otherworldliness.
This reminds me of the current Islamic month of Muharram because for Sunnis and Shias alike; the month has such drastic spiritual implications that require us to partake in a total intermission from worldly affairs, thereby entering Muslims in an “otherwordly” spiritual realm where we engage in Godly remembrance, mourning processions for our Beloved figures (this ritual of mourning also reflects the communal traditions present in Islam), and fasting which is a multidimensional form of disconnecting from the world. Either way, these are traditions I am glad I get to experience as a Muslim, but living and operating in a country where a Calvinist understanding of productivity is the sole criterion for work, I feel my spirituality is drained, my creativity is stunted, and my body is always too tired to ever put into action all the love I carry in my heart. Under capitalism, my heart remains backlogged with years worth of unspoken revelations. Under capitalism, I’m granted neither the time nor energy to visit my grandparents, to write a friend a letter, to buy flowers for my neighbor; a lot of love goes wasted under a social condition that is made to dismantle your selfhood.
Now, I have started my second year of graduate school; I TA three courses and take four entire courses while being an intern at a policy center, and I work as a caseworker on the weekends. To top it off I am the eldest daughter— and now I worry if I’ll have the ability to keep in touch with my loved ones, to text my parents I love them, to spend time with friends, to serve my community, and most importantly to extend to myself the care and patience that I deserve.
I’ll end with this quote by Stephen Vincent Benet, “Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the small, uncaring ways.”
Afghanistan, Mazar Sharif. White doves, who are supposed to bring in good fortune, are fed by pilgrims in front of the shrine of Imam Ali 1986, A. Abbas.
Some things I’ve been reading on Afghanistan and the world:
Leaked report accuses Canada of covering for mining companies in war-torn Ethiopia Canada is using the humanitarian crisis in the Horn to advance its corporate imperialist missions in Africa. The report reveals a lot of sinister and troubling facts.
I cry all the time: the plight of Afghan refugees in Calais. This is a chilling article I read the other day, and it’s a personal account of the psychological trauma Afghan refugees en route to seeking refuge in Europe.
This is What the Afghan evacuation Looks Like on the Inside; I resonated with this opinion piece from NYT since I witnessed the first wave of Afghans trying to evacuate their families last week at the NGO I worked at. After the release of this piece, it was found that planes scheduled to evacuate Afghans took off—empty. With the US Embassy shut down, the Taliban blocking roads to the airport, the backlog in issuing SIV’s, the accessibility obstacles attached to filing Humanitarian Parole, and now the Kabul airport attacks by ISIS — Afghans worldwide are strained with taking on the role of coordinating resettlements and evacuations for their people. The application fee for humanitarian parole is $575 so if you see any fundraising for HP cases, take the chance to help. Most urban cities with large Afghan communities already have programs in place for incoming refugees, volunteer, contribute, support your local Afghan communities.
This website called AfghanEvac is a great resource for people trying to provide options to Afghans that range from US Department of State sources, Evacuation sources, and then an organization list where you could direct people who are seeking help.
Remember that jarring video of Afghan bodies falling from the airplane? One of those people was the young Zaki Anwari, a young footballer who played on the young national Afghanistan football team.
In Kashmir’s large city of Srinagar, Indian police forces attacked Shia worshippers who were carrying out Muharram processions— they also blinded a young man with metal pellets on one of the holiest times of the year.
A recent study found that American Muslims are two times more likely to have attempted suicide than any other religious group in the US.
The absurd trajectory of my life
The silly thing about life, the thing that I have an awareness of but will never seem to understand, is that these short moments we have with our loved ones can never be regained; they can never be compensated. Whereas that report, that demo, or that email can be replaced, it can be redeemed and probably doesn’t matter in the long run.
Good one
It is not absurd but beautifull