Sometimes I Forget to Smile: a short art zine that I wrote when I started to noticed a trend with what was triggering the longer bouts of low days. It acknowledges the beautiful life that I have, and the guilt that I often feel for living this life while so many others suffer. What ultimately releases me is the knowledge that I can't control these things, only hold space for them.

11 pages in total, available for $3 at subsomatic.com (link in bio) or happy to trade.
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#zine #zines #artzine #zineinspiration #zinetrades #zinemaking #penandink #handmade #handdrawn #selfpublished #mentalhealth #depression #maker #makersgonnamake

Why the Gift Economy is Hard (and trying to find some solutions)
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I have always had a strange relationship with money. I have never wanted money, lived most of my life with financial security but also understood what it means to not have enough money, and now I believe that money should really be abolished. It is just a made up social construct after all.

When I first learned about the gift economy, I fell in love. It felt like a relationship-focused approach to security that could either replace or work along side other economic systems. In fact, it already does exist alongside capitalism, so it seemed like a natural place to put my time in energy in the search of building out something new and less oppressive than capitalist economy.

I’ve been experimenting with the gift economy in different ways for a number of years now but have always come up against the same problems. It’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable for people to accept gifts without reciprocating or choose what to pay in a pay-what-you-want model. We’ve all been heavily indoctrinated into paying people “an hourly wage” for their time and labour. Even Marx believed that an hour of time held specific value and he’s considered the father of the communist movement.

The truth is that hourly wages don’t always work, especially when the work you’re doing is outside of an industrial system. Community based, small scale, hand made, etc: this work is not prized because of it’s efficiency. There’s usually cheaper, faster ways to accomplish tasks. The value is found in other ways: the artistry of handmade items, the craftmanship of using local resources, the ability to serve under-valued or at-risk community members, the regenerative practices of growing high nutrient foods. The potter, the artist, the ecological farmer: few of these workers make an hourly wage.

Alas, when I ask people to pick the value of a handmade rug, they choke. They panic. They assume that the inherent value is more than what they can afford. But in reality, there is no inherent value. I have no overhead and I’m self taught. For me, it’s based completely on how the item will be used, cared for, consumed, or loved. You can walk into Ikea and buy a rag rug for $10. You can walk into a boutique store and pay $150. The rug itself isn’t much different. The value difference has been place on it by the seller, based on what they think the buyer will pay. But the rug itself is essentially the same.

When I worked for an employer, my hourly wage value was determined by someone else. As an independent freelancer, my hourly wage was determined by the market and what other professionals could squeeze out of their clients. When I was doing freelance work, I chose a different path and decided to keep my wages intentionally low in order to attract the type of work that I found personally rewarding.

Now, I’m kind of floating out there in the ether with anything that might be considered “work”. I mean, I have a job with my family business. I don’t keep track of my hourly wage, I just do the work that needs to be done and hope we make enough money to pay the bank. The rest of my time is spent doing unpaid labour, some of it homeschooling or caretaking, some of it being a creative, some of it mutual aid in my community, some of it learning and writing about things that I’m interested in and believe are important. Sometimes it’s sharing memes on the internet. My favourite hashtag comes from Jen at @thebonusroom : #wholesomehardworkinganticapitalist (https://www.redbubble.com/people/BonusRoomJen/shop?asc=u)

Can this work be valued by an hourly wage?

Do I even want it to be?

I think the answer to both of these questions is no, but I’m also a human being that exists in such circumstances that ascribed value provides a reference for me that I’m doing something WORTH DOING. This value might be monetary, it might be social media cred, it might be subscribers to a newsletter. But this value is helpful to let me know which work is important to others.

This long winded rant has two purposes.

One: to say that operating outside capitalism is hard and when you see others doing this work, please don’t be intimidated. Take some time and accept that these things that seem different are hard but not impossible and maybe even acknowledge to them that you appreciate their efforts. It goes a long way.

Two: I recognize that accepting money for work that has no inherent value is okay in this crumbling economic nightmare in which we exist and, as such, I’m going to open up a paid version of my newsletter for those who are interested in supporting me financially.

The pitch: in addition to the weekly-ish email rant, paid subscribers will automatically receive quarterly snail mail care packages (zines, tea, weaving, sewing, art, etc.) as well as a weekly update about our unschooling activities. Part of the reason for putting the additional email behind a paywall is that not everyone here are unschoolers and genuinely don’t care about these updates. The other part is because being accountable to paid subscribers will keep me honest and also show me that this work is in fact meaningful to folks.

Paid subscriptions will cost $5/month, $30/year (the minimum I can set) or $50/year (for those with financial security). If these costs are a barrier and you would like to receive the unschooling updates, let me know and I’m happy to gift you a subscription. Care packages will also be available individually from my website as they are now. (https://www.subsomatic.com/care-packages/)

For those that might be new around here and interested in learning more about our unschooling practice, you can read my essay about Intersectional Unschooling (https://www.subsomatic.com/intersectional-unschooling/) : the anti-oppressive approach that we take to home education and relationships in our immediate family. It’s also available as a zine (https://www.subsomatic.com/product/intersectional-unschooling/). In the weekly updates, I’ll talk about our approach to learning, wins and challenges that we face, thoughts about traditional and alternative education models, approaches to consent, managing anxiety and neurodivergence, using games as a core part of our unschooling practice, autonomy and independence, and really whatever else comes up.

If you're interested in subscribing, you can do so here: https://swimupstream.substack.com/

Thanks for coming along on this ride, and reading if you’ve made it this far in the post. I really appreciate your consideration to help place a financial value on this work that I’ve been doing. <3

Originally post at https://swimupstream.substack.com/p/why-the-gift-economy-is-hard-and

#gifteconomy #unschooling #intersectionalunschooling #alternativeeconomy #value #anticapitalist #anticapitalism #wholesomehardworkinganticapitalist

Over Consumption is the Biggest Elephant

I was listening to a program on the CBC this afternoon talking about de-carbonizing the shipping industry. The person being interviewed was part of an alliance of professionals in British Columbia taking on the challenges and problems of getting cargo ships and the whole industry to net zero. It’s apparently estimated that the conversion to a net zero system will cost between 1.0 - 1.4 trillion US dollars.

The story sounds similar in most other industries. As we try and get our carbon emissions down, the cost to transition to renewable sources of energy feels almost insurmountable. But the experts tell us that this is what must be done to stop runaway climate change, as if it’s not already here.

It is remarkable that these incredibly important environmental conversations are so single focused, as if shifting to net zero is somehow going to solve all our problems. I mean, it’s start, but even I can see the long terms problems that are already starting to present themselves in greenifying a capitalist industrial economy.

And I’m no environmental expert.

We live on a planet with finite resources but every attempt to save our consumption-based economic systems seems to drive another nail into the coffin. Not only are we not considering the potential long term problems of de-carbonizing our industrial complexes to allow them to continue operating business as usual, but the solutions that are being developed aren’t even looking beyond energy consumption. What about resource depletion? What about garbage? What about plastic? What about wealth inequality? What about workers’ rights and cost of living and endless pollution? The shipping industry touches all of these issues but there was no mention of them. I have to imagine that some expert at some table somewhere is considering all of these issues when working on this “de-carboning the cargo ships” idea but I’m not hearing anything about it.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that we can’t keep consuming at our current rate for a myriad of reasons: we’ll run out of resources, the economy demands cheap goods and labour to continue output which causes dangerous and unfair working environments, the devastation to natural ecosystems is often irreparable, we’re experiencing a mass extinction because of habitat loss. I could go on.

It feels like part of the reason no one wants to talk about our culture of over consumption because, of course, it’s not equal across the board. Those with the ability to consume, aka. people with money, consume in vast quantities compared to people without money. So when we point fingers at each other, the blame cannot be places equally and that makes it hard. But hard or not, it doesn’t mean we should avoid the conversation.

I also feel that these large industry-wide planning initiatives are the best time to talk about strategies to shift to an economic system that doesn’t rely on consumption. All the big brains in one place talking about huge systemic change: it seems like the perfect time to address this enormous culture-shifting problem. Even coming out of summits like COP which are strategically focused on climate change, all the focus is on greenhouse gas emissions when there’s a huge opportunity to talk with industry and government leaders about this vast intersectional issue that covers a huge landscape of social, political, and economic challenges.

But it’s like crickets. More empty policies with little tangible action and all of it targeted specifically at reducing carbon emissions, even if that reduction never happens.

Why are we so scared to talk about shifting away from a consumptive-based economic system? Is it really all capitalist lobbyists buying out the decision makers? Like I said, I’m just a random person with no background in economics, politics, or ecology, and the problem seems really clear to me: as long as we continue to operate under a economic system that requires ongoing consumption while we live on a planet with finite resources, we are just going to create new problems in trying to solve the old ones. In other words, de-carbonizing is going to come at the expense of somethings else, likely resource depletion.

When we fail to have these conversations at the forty thousand foot view we place the responsibility squarely on the individual. People like you and I can clearly see that lowering our own personal consumption is an important step on the path forward, but then the issue becomes “individualized” rather than the systemic. We get this weird egoism that plays into the dilemma: “I’m doing my part by only buying fair trade! What are you doing to save the world??” (while of course continuing to support dozens of other unethical industries because there’s no other options). And, as mentioned, all consumerism is not created equal. Asking people struggling to make ends meet to spend all their money on ethically produced clothing is ridiculous when billionaires buy yachts.

I don’t want to appear reductionist: I know these problems are huge and complex and it’s likely that resource depletion and over consumption are being talked about behind more than one door. I know that there is no simple solution, but I’d really appreciate hearing more in the news and media about what it might look like to transition to an economy that isn’t just post-carbon, but post-over-consumption. I believe this conversation is integral, requires collective visioning, and must be part of the conversations around mitigating the effects of climate change as well as our current economic collapse.

#overconsumption #consumerism #consumption #ecocide #anticapitalism #climatechange #climatecollapse #consuming #resourcedepletion #greenhousegasemissions #swimmingupstream #anticapitalist

Originally posted at https://swimupstream.substack.com/p/over-consumption-is-the-biggest-elephant

// Culture and Connection to Place //

I don’t feel like I have a strong connection to place or culture. This isn’t a oh-poor-me statement, it’s just a point of fact. I am a 40 something adoptee that doesn’t really feel attached to roots, family, or home. When people talk about their ancestors, I kind of feel like I just don’t have any. I’m not sure if this is because I’ve never met my blood relatives, that I wasn’t close with grandparents, or if it’s more just a sign of being of mixed European descent: a colonizer in a post-colonial society who’s culture is has largely been defined by capitalist traditions over ancestral ones.

Beyond those reasons, though, lie some deeper ones: because I don’t feel that connection to place or ancestry, I’m missing the link which helps to define one’s culture.

Before wide spread globalisation, people used what resources they had available to them including building and clothing materials, food, tools, and more. The harvesting, building, preparing, and utilization of these resources built localised knowledge, was used in local traditions and rituals, and in doing so, defined the culture that developed specific to place.

With globalisation, we are now presented with food, resources, and materials from across the planet and are totally disconnected with how those items are grown, harvested, processed, and used in the creation of things that we consume. The choice of resource is rarely made based on proximity. It’s usually how cheap the material is to acquire, or how well it has been marketed. Often the growing and harvesting process is intentionally hidden from the end consumer when the process is unethical, either from a human rights or environmental stand point.

It feels to me that this neo-globalised western culture is almost entirely focused on consumer holidays and capitalist life events that are largely universal in the global north. Even in referring to it as “western culture” feels alienating, a term which really comprises a physical span of half the planet. There is almost no passing of knowledge from generation to generation. TBH, I have a hard time accepting the knowledge that *is* passed to me from previous generations because that knowledge has grown from a culture built on colonial ideology; one that I’m not interested in adopting or perpetuating to future generations.

Last winter I made a pledge to myself to become better connected to the place where I live, and I’m happy to report that I have taken some steps to learn more about the native plants and animals with whom I share my home. I learned to make maple syrup. I look a workshop in identifying wild edible plants. I have become well acquainted with maybe a dozen different medicinal plants and use them daily for my own health. I have learned about the soil and what it needs to be healthy. Emotionally I have embraced seasonal changes that are specific to the place where I live.

But when I think about the knowledge that native tribes had of the land around them, I recognize that I have barely scratched the surface. I still have so far to go. And the knowledge that I have gained barely counts as anything that would amount to culture. And, of course, you can’t build culture all on your own. There’s seismic shifts that need to happen, not just a building of personal knowledge.

I recently was referred to the online version of David Fleming’s Lean Logic (https://leanlogic.online) after my last post about relocalisation and I found a great quote regarding what transportation might look like in a post-capitalist economy:

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The unanswerable question at the heart of transport is the one asked by the farm labourer standing bemused one day in the mid-eighteenth century at the side of the Liverpool-Manchester turnpike, crowded with urgently-speeding coaches: “Who would ever have thought that there were so many people in the wrong place?” (https://leanlogic.online/glossary/lean-transport/)
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This upside-down perspective is such a great take. It begs the question: “do we really NEED to transport all these goods and people away from their homes?”

I’ve often dreamed about what a world without cars might looks like and it usually boils down to a few key changes: subsistence rather than excess, working together more closely with highly localised communities, and building location-specific knowledge from the ground up. If we can’t import food, what grows here already? If we can’t just drive to the store or the processing plant, can we get the resources we need from what’s available right here? What labour is available if we need to produce things within our community? If we can’t send our kids to school on the bus, can we create a healthy space for them within walking distance? What would trade look like? Communication? Recreation? With these images in mind, you can start to see how localised community is at the heart of it all, and how culture is birthed out of these patterns and relations.

This type of culture is so different from what we have right now. It feels so dreamy but also hazy. Capitalism is so self-perpetuating and all-consuming; it’s hard to know how to build something different. But I know there are others out there who share this dream. Maybe their version doesn’t look exactly like mine: maybe they’re just interested in local food systems or alternative education or ancestral knowledge or solarpunk technologies. Maybe they’re focused in their own niche and I think that’s perfect. I’m here for it all. I dream of a day when we can put it all together to build something new that feels connected and cohesive and rooted firmly to a sense of belonging to place.

Originally posted at https://swimupstream.substack.com

#culture #localisation #relocalisation #connection #connectiontoplace #anticapitalism #postcapitalism

Sometimes I just put things and love and myself out into the world and never really know what will come of it. I never expect reciprocation but man, is it ever a beautiful feeling when receiving gifts in return.

I wasn't expecting anything in the mail and it was such a surprise opening these amazing handmade and locally sourced thoughtful gifts this afternoon.

So much love Katy and the rest of this community that is spread by distance but feels so close 💞
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#gifteconomy #gift #giftradically #sharingeconomy #leaneconomy