Letter to the Editor: My Impending Departure

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Reader A writes:

Hi Rob,

I finished The Good Life for Wage Slaves last night and wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. It’s so full of good ideas, funny moments, and a thorough debunking of the idea that what you are is what you do for work. There were many parts and passages I enjoyed, and the afterword was a very nice touch.

Back in my 30s, I so disliked getting the question, “What do you do?” — especially when it was always the second or third question anyone ever asked — that I would usually make up responses. My favourite was always to say I was a fluffer in the porn industry. My second favourite was to answer “rocket scientist.” Both answers always stopped people in their tracks.

I’m not entirely sure that a wage slave can really have a good life, but a lot of the book’s value is just opening up people’s minds to the possibility that there’s a different (I’d say better) way. It seems hard for many people to do anything other than take incremental steps, especially when it comes to questioning the validity of their reality. And that’s what your book can do for people who haven’t already undertaken the path to saying no to a very dreary paradigm.

On a final note, I made my official announcement [at work] last week about my impending departure. I still have four and a half months of wage slavery ahead of me, but I’m determined to make it as rewarding as possible. And simply announcing my intentions was a pretty grand way to begin a new year.

Yours,

A

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Be like Reader A and quit while you’re ahead! New Escapologist Issue 17 will be reprinted if we can get enough orders. Issue 16 and many other items are still available in our online shop.

Letter to the Editor: We Make Choices

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Reader G writes:

Dear Robert,

I just wanted to write a quick missive to thank you for The Good Life for Wage Slaves. I had to ration myself reading time on it, as I have to with all your Escapological material! There were two stand-out things for me.

Firstly the use of Wikipedian cats as a pseudonymising tool. It just went to add that extra spoonful of ridiculousness which your situation (and had the bonus benefit of teaching me the glorious tale of Catmando – before I read his page I’d been pronouncing it like ‘commando’, which fitted the human boss persona perfectly).

Second was the idea of buying a violin with no plan/need to make what society so unreasonably deems a good noise. It reminded me that I want to take up the trumpet, having been so crap at it at school that I was moved over to the (what-the-hell-is-a) euphonium, which I hated. So I might just take the plunge. It also reminded me of my favourite Peter Cook/Dudley Moore sketch, so all the better:

My own Escapological path is long and rambling. It doesn’t even end with me quitting work altogether (yet!). But I’m now in a job that I enjoy (and has an excellent barrier between work and leisure), and which required an Escapological leap to reach. Nevertheless, your latest book will remain an essential guide to managing work to the betterment of leisure time. The journey continues!

Just before your book arrived, I was reading another one that might interest you: Affluence Without Abundance by James Suzman. I’ve long been both interested (from an idler’s point of view) and sceptical of the ‘original affluent society’ idea, but the author of this book is both insightful and balanced – he’s not trying to prove any ‘primitivist fantasy’.

The book’s portraits of different communities in an area of southern Africa contrast those who live the older hunter-gatherer lifestyle (without abundance) with those who strive as hard as possible, and are farmers (or unemployed). Apparently it was with the agricultural revolution that it all went wrong! It commits us to much more work than letting the food raise itself.

Still, Suzman shows that the difference between idling and striving can largely be one of attitude and/or choice. In the above book, people on both sides of the divide can live cheek-by-jowl. As Escapologists we know that we make choices and priorise in order to live the life we want. The book shows that, though there are pressures to earn, stash, or aspire, and there are temptations (the greatest to the subjects of the book seems to be alcohol), both lifestyles are there for the adopting, if you know how to choose.

Thanks again for publishing the manuals.

Best wishes,

G

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The Good Life for Wage Slaves is available from our online shop, along with Issue 16 and our print or digital subscription packages.

Letter to the Editor: Does the Answer Really Lie in More Work?

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Dear Rob,

During a recent delve into my journals, I was reminded that in 2010 we were engaged in some email correspondence about giving up shopping. I was in a wonderfully free period of life between graduating from University and starting anything else and was writing a blog about resisting consumerism.

Shortly after this I was offered a full time job [for a large charity]. Jobs in the charity sector, especially in campaigning organisations, are dangerous because they give the appearance of doing something worthwhile and politically radical while trapping you at a desk for 40 hours a week (or more, because when you’re making the world a better place it feels morally incorrect to stick to your contracted hours.)

Promotions and raises, instead of bringing forward my escape, enabled more tattoos, better coffee, tickets to see bands that other people had heard of too. I’ve always called myself an anti-capitalist but capitalism got its claws into me anyway. Punk is an aesthetic like any other, marketed to me on Instagram via adverts for purple hair dye and tattoo brightening cream.

As I enter the second half of my thirties, I find myself increasingly tired of it all. Working for a charity seems, at best, paternalistic — full of white middle-class people who think they know best about the lives of the less fortunate — and at worst complicit in a system of widening inequality and climate crisis by letting governments off the hook by providing services no longer sufficiently funded by the state.

Much better, I thought, to be fixing those inequalities at the root causes. So I ran as candidate in the [redacted] elections. The only party I could stomach joining was the Green Party, so I didn’t win, but I did well enough to be asked to stand as a local councilor. The amount of work that would entail makes my chest tighten in panic.

And I’m wondering, does the answer really lie in more work? Is the world going to be made better by all this hustle? By attending endless meetings in our spare time? By being so exhausted that we mindlessly consume terrible food and bad TV and the endless scroll of social media?

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of The Way Home by Mark Boyle in a charity shop. Reading this, alongside the return of New Escapologist (and especially the piece about Henry Gibbs) has me thinking of escape again.

I’ve already stood down from one of the trustee boards I’m on, and started ignoring calls for volunteers on Whatsapp groups. I’ve stopped posting on social media. I’m even thinking of moving out of London and planting a veg garden.

K

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In Issue 17, we’re running an excerpt from After Work by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek. They make a distinction between freedom through work and freedom from work, which is an important one.

Your point about punk being an saleable aesthetic is a good one. There’s a book about this called The Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath. When I interviewed him for Issue 9, he seemed to think this was all so obvious, that everyone can see through the claptrap. But is it? At that time I still believed in at least some of the punk aesthetic being symbollic of actual values, that someone with blue hair or some tats might be my tribe. Which is ironic really because in punk terms I look like a real square. But anyway, it’s a good point. Punk is for sale.

I hope you do what’s right for you, K. I won’t advise you to do anything because only you can know your full situation, but slowing down and operating far from the capital are things I’ve always put stock in and they seem to work for me. At least doing less (or just hanging out instead of working) doesn’t burn any fossil fuels. E.F. Schumacher wrote in Small is Beautiful (1973) that we should have done the work in the 1960s and 70s: used the finite “capital” or starter loan of fossil fuels to create sustainable alternatives. But we didn’t. Whatever happens now, I’m not sure that panicking about this failure is entirely productive.

Letter to the Editor: Stuff for Your Stuff

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Friend Paula writes:

Your mention of the egg poaching cups and of excess production reminded me of a thought I had recently: one signal that you are consuming too much is when you start buying stuff for your stuff.

A tea cozy for your kettle or socks for your golf clubs or a fluffy cover for your toilet lid (yes, these exist). Even buying storage stuff for your stuff can lead to realizing you have some space to fill and buying more stuff.

With our tiny house we have optimized space to the point that if we optimize or organize any further we will suddenly have storage space available. And nothing good ever happens in that situation.

In defence of our tiny house, we built it with the intention that it would outlive us and with the notion that we would be able to hold and protect the forest on our property (about five acres worth, plus a protected wetland) until we are gone. We took only as much clearing as we needed to build the house and are preserving the rest.

We do miss the access aspect of city living sometimes. But there are compensations in the form of endless forest baths and peace and quiet (of the forest variety, which is not really silent at all – at least not all the time.)

Cheers,
P

Letters to the Editor: Probably Too Unsafe

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The sleeping coffins thing seems to have captured people’s imaginations.

Reader X emails:

I think the mobile coffin/tent idea is probably too unsafe, but I’ve long thought that cities need ‘nap hotels’ that you can rent with a card swipe.

Japan obviously has capsule hotels that sort of check the checkbox, but imagine being in a city for a weekend and just needing a capsule for the night, or even a quick nap between outings. I would use that!

I travel a ton and often pay extra for late check-out just so I can explore in the morning, come back to the hotel for a quick nap, and then leave.

I could see this being an option in other places too – national parks where people do multi day hikes? Have a hostel-type building where people can shower and chill but also have individual sleeping pods?

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Reader Tom comments:

Genius! I can see Sleeping Coffins inc. needing zero marketing for the goth crowd. For the rest of the public…

While doing some research on bivy sacks, I found this gem of a tip from a manufacturer of such equipment: “Cinch the bivy’s hood down around your face, but avoid breathing inside the bivy which can create condensation.”

Not sure if they mean don’t breathe at all? Definitely a body bag in that case!

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Reader Russell comments:

When I visited the Greek island of Hydra (a wonderful town devoid of cars and full of cats) I almost slept under a tree near a monastery to avoid hotel fees.

In the end it rained, and I had an (unwarranted) feeling that I would be scolded by someone for slumming it, so I scampered back to civilization. Next time I’ll arm myself with a bivy sack and more courage!

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Hi everyone.

Incidentally, I stayed in a capsule pod in London recently. It’s in a hostel I’ve started using on trips to the capital. To rent a dorm bunk at this hostel costs about £23, which is incredible by London standards, but they also offer a pod for about £50. I decided to try a pod this time, but there’s really no advantage over a curtained bunk. You have control of your own ambient lighting but I’m not really sure there’s any point to that when (and this is the way I sleep but others may have a different approach) your eyes are closed.

Letter to the Editor: Right Where I Itch

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Reader U writes:

I’m a new subscriber and after reading Issue 16 I have to say this Henry Gibbs fella is scratching me right where I itch. How can I read more of his notes?

He reminds me of Mark Boyle, whose The Way Home: A Life Without Technology is certainly worth a read.

Kind regards,

U

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Thanks!

He’s the real deal, our Henry. His column appears in Issues 14, 15, 16 and (this coming December) 17.

At the shop:

14 is available only in digital;
15 is available in digital, but if you wait there will be some shop returns;
16 is still available in print;
17 will be available to pre-order next month.

We like Mark Boyle here at the magazine too, and I happen to know that The Way Home is one of the few books Henry himself owns a copy of.

RW

Letter to the Editor: We Don’t Need Amplification

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Friend R writes:

Hi Rob,

I thought you might be interested in what I’ve seen happening to abandoned offices in the last couple of years. Loads of them in Glasgow city centre are being used for the arts, which is great but it feels and looks very strange!

The brass band I’m in rehearses on the second floor of an office. We don’t need amplification, just space and nobody to complain about the noise, so it works really well for us. The same office hosts loads of other bands, some pottery people, some actual artists with clay and oils etc, crafty types and there’s something to do with protesting and foodbanks as we can see their tinned goods and flags neatly organised into piles in their bit.

It’s a weird atmosphere though, as we still have the strip lighting, the lanyard-operated entry gates, the grubby turquoise carpets, the unopenable windows with cream-coloured blinds and piles of adjustable office chairs and bits of desk stacked up in every corner.

Anyway, [the newsletter was a] great read as always, and hopefully catch up soon!

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New Escapologist Issue 16 is now available in our online shop, in print and digital formats.

Letter to the Editor: Sabbatical

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Reader A writes:

Hi Robert,

Thought I’d share that I’ve finally managed to commence a controlled escape from wage slavery in the form of a 12-month sabbatical starting in October, from which I may or may not return. An ideal option for a ‘feartie’ like myself. 

Both of your books have played no small part in different ways with the first opening my mind up to escaping as a realistic possibility that should be planned for, the second helping to devise tactics to endure my own Concrete Island whilst putting the plan into action. A massive thanks!

Love the new issues. [After reading the books,] there’s some added bonus in receiving the latest copies in the post to then take on the train for the dreary commute!

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Feartie nothing. A sabbatical is an excellent and time-honoured escape route. There must be something in the water, actually. Another reader wrote to tell me about a 6-month sabbatical they’re taking, and a hard-working friend of mine in Leicester is taking a year off too. Long may it continue.

Maybe your sabbatical will contain the seed of a longer-term escape. Maybe, on a quiet night at the movies or under the stars, you’ll have the epiphany required to extend the break — either for a while or indefinitely. But it doesn’t have to be a gateway to greater things if you don’t want it to be or if that’s impractical. Let your sabbatical be its own adventure. Twelve months is a phenomenal result. Nice one.

Letter to the Editor: Chilling Stuff

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Reader C writes:

Dear Robert

Thanks for the recommendation of The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walters, which I got from the library. Chilling stuff, especially this sentence:

We had some normal debt: normal credit cards, normal furniture layaways, normal car payments, some uncovered medical bills, Teddy’s normal braces and Franklin’s normal speech therapy…

Have you seen the new Wim Wenders film Perfect Days? It’s about a solitary, but not lonely, Japanese man who lives a simple life in Tokyo. It’s beautifully made and very well acted. It has some pro-work tropes (romanticising repetitive work and the dignity of a job done well) but I think its main message is Escapological.

He works in order to pursue his loves of reading second-hand books, listening to cassettes, and taking photos of trees. He only displays anger when his boss asks him to work a double shift, and he’s clearly inspiring his wealthy niece to escape from the capitalist rat race.

Doing all of this in the shadow of the hyperconsumerism of Tokyo is particularly powerful. He’s certainly a more inspiring hero than Jess Walters’ Matt.

Yours in glorious slowness,
C

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Hello C.

Yes indeed! Perfect Days is a wonderful film and I second your recommendation of it for the benefit of our readers.

In fact, I have reviewed the film along with a similarly-but-differently Escapological new film called The Delinquents in the forthcoming Issue 16.

Letter to the Editor: Barbados

Thank you, Reader B, for a lovely handwritten letter.

Here follows a handwritten list of Escapological book recommendations from, of all the places I could hope to find a readership, Barbados.