Karoshi

there’s one uniquely Japanese term you don’t want to relate to: karoshi, which translates as “death by overwork”.

Thanks to friend Drew for alerting us to this article about the history and medical theory of Karoshi.

Intriguingly, karoshi might not be caused by stress or a lack of sleep, but time spent in the office. By analysing the habits and health records of more than 600,000 people, last year researchers found that those who worked a 55-hour week were a third more likely to suffer a stroke than those working fewer than 40 hours. Its not known why, but the authors speculated it might simply be the result long periods sat at a desk.

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Large-scale Historical Forces

So I just turned the last page of Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Cafe. A superb book. I marked far too many pages with little sticky notes.

One such sticky note marks a single sentence on p124:

In coming years [Sartre] would become ever more interested in the way human beings can be swept up by large-scale historical forces, while still each remaining free and individual.

It caught my attention because I recalled Bakewell saying something similar about Montaigne in her previous book How To Live. I’d considered this quote for an epigram to Escape Everything! (ultimately deciding against it since Bakewell’s work is a bit too new to quote from so liberally and prominently, and also because it detracted from the centrality of the Houdini motif) so I have it to hand:

Ordinary people’s lives are sacrifices to the obsessions of fanatics … The question of any person of integrity becomes not so much ‘How do I survive?’ as ‘How do I remain free? How do I preserve my true self? How do I keep my soul?

It’s a recurring theme in Sarah Bakewell’s books. In the Existentialist book she brings in Heidegger and Husserl’s thinking around historical place, and Bouvoir’s acknowledgement of gender and race as defining situations. In the Montaigne book, she discusses the memoirs of Holocaust survivors and how they maintained a sense of self while cast asunder by these “large-scale historical forces” and “obsessions of fanatics”.

The idea originally caught my attention because it’s something I think of a lot too and it’s central to Escapology:

At this point in history–the time of neoliberalism and a time in which the institutions of employment (“what do you do?”) and consumerism are super-normalised–how do we stay true to ourselves? What happens to our perception of freedom? How do we maintain a sense of integrity and self?

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Issue 13 Teaser

Here’s a sneak-peek. The contents of the magazine’s thirteenth issue look something (if not precisely) like this.

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Chief O’Brien at Work

I’ve been meaning to mention Chief O’Brien At Work (“for fans of crappy jobs, space travel and ennui”) for ages but keep forgetting. Finally, on Star Trek‘s 50th Anniversary, here it is. Beats Dilbert.

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Marginal Dreams

the movement in the waving tentacles and lively variety of patterns suggest this person is also restless and finding work dull, so is putting out feelers and considering options. The horn shape rising to the edge of the page shows ambition and desire to move on

From a puff piece about work doodles and what they “say about” their artists.

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Then Sartre Escaped

This is from Sarah Bakewell’s superb new book At the Existentialist Cafe.

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Mis Au Placard

We salute Frédéric Desnard who is suing his employer for boring him into stupor.

A Frenchman who claims he was given so little to do at work he suffered “bore out” is taking his case to an employment tribunal on Monday.

Frédéric Desnard says his managerial job at the perfume company, which made him redundant 18 months ago, was so tedious he became exhausted and literally bored out of his mind.

The 44-year-old said his “descent into hell” was similar to a burnout, but less interesting.

A great precedent and, if nothing else, the case has taught us the term mis au placard, meaning “put in the cupboard” or given only menial tasks to do.

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Thumbnails

All of our artists work differently. Some read the article and draw whatever they feel like. Some ask us for quite specific ideas or instructions. Tristan Tolhurst, a friend from Montreal, usually sends a selection of thumbnails from which we choose a favourite.

When you’re useless at drawing like I am, even these doodles are deeply impressive and it feels a shame not to share them any further than Tristan’s bottom drawer. So here are his latest ones.

For the forthcoming Issue 13, Tristan is illustrating Matt Caulfield’s article about Ryōkan, the party monk. You can click to embiggen.

While we’re at it, here are some old ones from Issue 8 (the Luke Rhinehart interview):

And from Issue 5 (my piece about living in a loft):

★ Buy the brand-new Issue 12 of New Escapologist at the shop; buy our popular digital bundle; join the mailing list for occasional newsletters and free gifts; or get the Escape Everything! book.

That Old Chestnut

The Chestnut Prospector is the most celebrated canoe in literature, and I have my eye on a blue beauty for sale online. For the past few months I’ve been reading everything I can about canoes. Recently, my search has become more urgent: I turn 40 in a month.

It’s not a midlife crisis – I am not shopping for a sports car or getting a tattoo (yet). My quest for a canoe is more an exploration of what I want the next chapter of my life to be, in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau as he famously set out into the woods to “live deliberately.” Thoreau was 40 when he embarked on the classic trip that inspired his book Canoeing in the Wilderness. He was known to paddle a Chestnut canoe, and once said: “Everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.”

I was googling Thoreau in lazy preparation for our upcoming “Outliers” issue, Thoreau being a great figurehead of outlying in more ways than one, and this news story from Toronto popped up. I read and enjoyed it. Yes, acquiring a canoe is the Canadian answer for everything, but sometimes it really makes sense!

You can of course read Thoreau’s Canoeing in the Wilderness online for free.

I used to be adventurous, always hiking, camping and enjoying nature. Now I work in an office tower, and in my rare free time I write. Both are sedentary and rather solitary pastimes. I crave movement. In my mind, a canoe is a transcendental vessel offering the desired mix of tranquility and adventure.

★ Buy the brand-new Issue 12 of New Escapologist at the shop; buy our popular digital bundle; join the mailing list for occasional newsletters and free gifts; or get the Escape Everything! book.

Title Teaser

★ On August 1st, we’ll give away a FREE PDF of Issue 3 (featuring Tom Hodgkinson) to everyone on the mailing list. Don’t miss out. Join now.