ms. sad moon's work philosophy

work is good when it is constructive, i.e. an expression of the whitepill. woodworking tables is literally working on something that will be enabling, and the act of building is a means of generating your own affordances. you will now carry the skill of building tables (and perhaps a clue for how to build other things) for your whole life. crafts are enriching in interdisciplinary ways and mastering them helps de-load a dependence on a theoretically-instantiated identity and instead bolsters a sense of self, security, and confidence that is instantiated in concrete and tangible evidence. the dopamine-hit in showcasing (to others) a great photograph, a nice piece of writing, or a watercolor painting when finished is immensely rewarding (not to mention, engaging and sometimes even unintentionally collaborative.)

i deeply value self sufficiency and am otherwise intrigued by systems thinking, because i like to explicate and be able to critically examine dependencies between individuals. i think that tackling complex problems through systems thinking is stimulating, because not only are you solving the object level problem, you also gain insight into the nature and possibilities of systems themselves, which are abundant.

it is important for me to have creative and entrepreneurial projects, like a podcast project or a small pet care business, where i have complete creative control. i otherwise enjoy mobilizing people. i tend to act in a producer capacity, whether by founding a pop science blog amongst others, a poetry blog, a podcast, or by launching a new annual event.

i am motivated by possibility and by being directly responsible for gathering sufficient feedback to silo out the possibility-space and give me direction, thereby helping a pursuit evolve into something bigger than the parts by which it started. some part of me would be happy to be a form of a creative housewife or patreon creator, free to pursue projects which may not even be related to one another, and then giving them the chance to generate capital on their own, authentic, and emergent means.

do i care about people? yes. but i personally best relate to people (specifically in the context of "work") from a position of leadership. i am not exactly a teacher, yet i am comfortable with the idea of serving as a consultant, guide, or mentor to someone in an individual capacity. i enjoy updating priors from feedback, thereby being challenged, and having a compelling invitation to, and reward structure for, research.

an individual should work in order to have a dynamic, and therefore, compelling and engaged relationship to life. the existential questions of life can be draining and burdensome, but to find a way to leverage them into constructive and entertaining challenges greatly alleviates this distress. it eventually helps one leave life with some sense of near-political pride for having lived their values and set some, even if hypothetical, example.

of course we all benefit from the work of others, whether it is service, government, intellectual, etc. fortunately there is some sort of economic incentive to interstitch labor, despite whether the current solution (capitalism) is in itself good. but i best benefit from intellectual, conceptual, emotional, aesthetic, and emotional assistance from others. i am also happy that there is some free market for people to go into small business and share the benefits of their unique taste and vision with others, and that more personable spaces and businesses can have unique relationships with local communities of people. i am even OK with recent technological progress affording a modular approach to tool-sharing, where companies focus on solving very specific problems for one another, as opposed to turning into gigantic think-tanks at large, despite being aware that sometimes things which are more totalizing in their approach are more aesthetically and systematically integrated.

the political questions of needing large organizations and institutions, like armies, government agencies, healthcare, etc., do bother me. the subsumption of power to solve problems which are treated on a 'global' level feels like it could be irresponsible, too quickly. how can you aspire to solve problems on a macro scale if you cannot necessarily even solve, and then optimize for them, on the micro? of course i understand why things ended up like this, etc., but i don't want to be involved in all that myself.

what defines good or worthwhile work? answering hard questions, improving peoples lives, providing aesthetic enhancement to their lives. otherwise doing those things for yourself, first.

insofar as money, i wish anyone with any dumb easy job could have at least a minimally viable good life. but i would like to be rewarded for entrepreneurial or creative merit. i wish i could have environmental freedom while working. being constrained by exact space and time for no good reason feels completely undignified. i want to be responsible for my own work, not have it dictated by 9 to 5 bullshit. i want to get paid at least what i think is up to par with the amount of work and time that goes into something. i think current minimum wages are typically too low and unfair for most contexts. i'd like to have the opportunity to earn more money through merit and work when i want, so some sort of opportunity would be great at least as an add on to a guaranteed stable income.