In the Interstices
Harry Eyres files the last two installments of his “Slow Lane” column in the Financial Times. In one he writes:
Over-strenuous efforts to get away from it all tend to defeat their object: you encounter the same problems on arrival. The point is to find and enjoy the oases of peace that are freely — and I mean often freely — available in the interstices of the daily round: those easily forgotten or ignored oases, the familiar painting (which you could make a date to spend an hour with) or the poem you half-remember (which you could learn by heart), the pair of bustling blue-tits in the garden laburnum you have hardly noticed for years, the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the night sky, a mode of transport which facilitates richness of experience rather than bullet-like translation from A to B.
And in the other:
My ambition has been to set out a workable alternative to the romantic escapism of Yeats’s Lake Isle of Innisfree. We can enrich our necessarily limited time by learning a short poem by heart, or even writing one; by returning to those viola or clarinet studies we gave up as teenagers, and finding that we can engage with the music in a deeper way and make it our own; by popping in to a museum or gallery to see not a vast, intimidating blockbuster exhibition but just one dearly loved painting; or by playing, at whatever level and with whatever physical limitations, a sport you love rather than watching overpaid narcissists on TV.
I’ve enjoyed his column. Cultural references, being in the FT, were sometimes a little highbrow for my immediate understanding but the ethic behind the column was always extremely sound. Certainly worth a leisurely stroll through the archives.
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Saving and Spending Are the Same Thing
Here’s another nugget from my book to whet your appetite:
As a point of lurid interest, refusing to buy anything may be anti-materialist but it is not anti-capitalist even if that’s your intention.
When you stop buying things but continue to earn money through work, your earnings continue to serve the capitalist machine. The bank in which you store your wealth “spends” your savings when they invest it. (That’s why the bank pays you interest: as a reward for letting them play with your money.) Perversely, saving and spending actually amount to the same thing so far as the economy is concerned.
But when you reduce your income as well as your spending, it actually does hurt the capitalist machine! If your motivation to engage in minimalism is to smash the system, you must remember to reduce your income as well as your spending. Thus, only Escapological minimalism, since it aims to reduce work as well as consumption, will genuinely throw a spanner in the works of capitalism.
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The 80-Day Measure of Habit-Setting
I’m still editing the book, which is why the blog’s been a bit quiet of late.
I just came across a part that made me laugh:
Habits are cumulative. Write a thousand words per day and you’ll have an 80,000-word book in the time it took Phileas Fogg to circle the Earth. Eat a pound of lard every morning and be medically corpulent in the same time.
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Choosing Not to Have a Career
Few would argue that trying to have a career (and get paid) is an easy ride. And yet choosing not to have a career seems to be the new social taboo.
Reader JR Lewis directs our attention to an interesting article, written from the perspective of a 29-year-old woman, about the realisation that “having it all” might not be worth having, especially when it’s such a bloody struggle.
Life doesn’t suddenly stop when you decide to leave a job, or change tack and do something completely different for a bit. You don’t become a different, lesser person overnight. Admitting that the coveted position you’ve spent years of student debt, overdraft fees, and shittily-paid junior roles grafting your way toward doesn’t make you happy isn’t giving up. If you have learned skills, you can go back to them.
★ Buy the lastest issue of New Escapologist at the shop or pre-order the book.
Letters to the Editor: Leaving NATO
Hi Rob,
You might not remember me because last time we exchanged emails was three years ago, but I thought an update was in order.
Three years ago, I told you how I discovered New Escapologist whilst working as a naval officer in NATO. I have now said “Goodbye to all that” and I’m working on the production of a documentary on radical life changes, travelling six months around the world with my best friend to film people who have been through this process of change.
If you’re interested, here’s the blog where we’re posting videos, written pieces and photographs. I recommend Episode Zero: the adventure begins and Episode One: Meeting John Whelan.
I can’t stress enough how instrumental discovering your blog has been in making this decision. Thank you!
Gwenn.
Hello Gwenn! This is wonderful news and of course I remember you. It was 2011 when we last spoke, but I don’t get email from NATO very often. Thank you for the update. It’s always interesting to hear about readers’ escape plans and extremely gratifying when they come to fruition as yours has. We can tell the readers about your project and blog through Letters to the Editor. But now: have a marvelous adventure. RW.
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Letters to the Editor: Catch 22
The first “Letter” proved popular enough, so here’s another. If you’d like to be featured, simply write in.
Hi Rob,
I have enjoyed reading your blog (discovered via Mr Money Moustache) greatly since forming my own escape plan. I liked the poster of Rita Hayworth from The Shawshank Redemption and have been thinking of ways to leave a copy at work to be found when I’m gone.
It also got me thinking about Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 which is another amazing escape story. The ending is so powerful as Yossarian paddles off in his dinghy not knowing if he will live or die but with his dignity intact. Also, the character of Orr must be the ultimate role model for Escapologists everywhere. He was regarded as insane/idiotic for continually crashing his plane into the sea but was all the while formulating and practicing the perfect escape plan.
I don’t recall you ever featuring Catch 22 but it does have so many parallels and themes to many of your messages.
S
Dear S. You *should* leave a Rita Hayworth poster at your office! The clever kids will get the reference. Those who don’t will see the movie eventually and it will finally occur to them what happened. Alternatively, you could print off a copy of this symbol and leave it pinned to a notice board somewhere. Nobody will understand it but it’ll draw less attention than Rita and you’ll be more likely to get away with it. I’m certain I’ve mentioned Catch 22 in the blog or the magazine somewhere, but perhaps I haven’t. I’m fond of that novel too though, especially Orr. I also like the poor soul who screams all night: he represents “the others”. Rob
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“It is Perfectly Normal to Find Banking Boring.”
A letter to the advice column in the Financial Times:
I work in financial services. My hours are reasonable — 8.30am to 6.30pm — the stress is manageable, my colleagues are all likeable, and I am paid extremely well to do a job I think has no meaning and makes me feel extremely bored at best. Am I just another entitled idiot for thinking I am wasting my youth? I want to quit, but I am scared I will end up just as bored, and working with more annoying people while earning three times less.
The answer from the FT is interesting. It acknowledges that working in a bank is boring (“It is also perfectly normal to find it devoid of meaning.”), goes on to suggest some survival strategies, and then suggests canvassing friends for the low-downs on non-financial jobs.
None of this suggests total rat race escape but you wouldn’t expect that from FT of all creatures. That’s what New Escapologist is here for. But it does provide a linear thought process that comes after the initial boredom diagnosis:
1. Make a competitive game of your career, doing well and trying to get promoted. If that doesn’t work then:
2. Lower your career expectations and embrace the boredom like a Zen Master. If that doesn’t work then:
3. Buttonhole others to learn about non-boring jobs with an eye to applying for one. If you’re still bored in your new job (the FT does not suggest this):
4. Come up with an escape plan.
Or, y’know, just come up with an escape plan anyway. It’s probably not the nature of the job that’s grinding you down but the whole idea of a job. But it might be wise to make sure that’s the case.
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British Heart Foundation says: “Work Sucks”
This comes from a news item about work being bad for our health.
Stress in the workplace could be shortening your life, a survey has found. Job pressures lead people to smoke more, drink more, eat unhealthily and exercise less than they should, posing serious health problems that contribute to heart disease.
British workers were also found in the survey to regularly work unpaid overtime, with almost one-fifth working more than five hours overtime a week.
The survey, carried out by the British Heart Foundation, found that two in five British workers said they feel their job has had a negative impact on their health in the last five years.
A third of workers also said they had put on weight because of their job, mainly through diet and lifestyle.
A stressful day often makes people want to get a takeaway or pick up a ready meal. Almost half of the workers surveyed said their work led them to eat more unhealthily.
There’s even a quote from yours truly:
Comedian Robert Wringham edits a magazine called New Escapologist, which advocates escape from the “everyday grind.” Speaking to RT he says: “When we’re not actually working (which is bad enough itself) we’re commuting to or from work, preparing for work, or recovering from work. We even dream about work because our jobs are so repetitive, anxiety-producing and dull. We wake from those dreams and think ‘I won’t even get paid for that shift!’ “
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Say no to safety. Say yes to adventure. We’ll all be dead soon. It’ll be fine.
Is there a future in writing? Or in publishing at all? I’m in my early 30s, and find myself kind of unexpectedly at a career/life crossroads. For the past many years, I’ve been more or less happily living some milquetoast version of a professional double life. My main employment has been in communications: publicity, branding, social media, blah blah. It’s not at all terrible work, but it sure can be!
New Escapologist‘s happiness editor, Neil, draws our attention to an interesting letter to someone called The Concessionist about the practicalities and anxieties involved in choosing between a marketing job and going it alone as a writer.
The reply is refreshing and similar to something we’d write in New Escapologist (though I wouldn’t suggest going into debt–don’t do that):
You have time and room for some really bad choices still. WE ALL DO. BELIEVE IT. But you have time to make bad choices and recover from them even! You have time to start smoking, quit smoking and have a baby or two! You have time to go into six-figure debt to the IRS and pay your way out later! (Trust me, it’s easy!)
Say no to safety. Say yes to adventure. We’ll all be dead soon. It’ll be fine.
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Meanwhile, on Twitter
Most of you know I’m not fond of social networks, but I’ve been unusually active on Twitter lately and it might be worth your following for a while.
Only do this if you’re on Twitter already though! Don’t join for God’s sake. Twitter is, generally speaking, crap.
But here’s what’s happening at the NE feed of late:
1. I’m trawling the New Escapologist blog archives for quotations, surveys and news items worth referring to in the book. When I come across an entry that’s aged particularly well, I share it under the hashtag #OldEscapologist. There’s been some interesting old stuff cropping up.
2. Citizen’s Income is getting so much media attention lately, that it’s not practical or desirable to post it all to the blog. So I’m tweeting about it instead since it’s of interest to some Escapologists.
3. I’m also lending my feed somewhat to the Green Party electoral campaigns in the UK, so expect a bit of noise about that for a while. If you’re not into party politics, I apologise. But the Greens are great and have many Escapologist-friendly policies and attitudes, so I’m doing my bit to rock the boat while there’s an historic chance of actually tipping it.
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