A new month. Again. Already. Why did no one tell me that time flies when you get older? Or is it just me? I’ve once again made the vague resolution to be more present. On here with posting a bit more, even if it’s not elaborate deep pondering on the state of the world (are my posts ever?). But also be more present in my life in general. Let’s how it goes.
The new conservative chancellor thinks and states that we Germans need to work more. His party and his conservative part of the government agree. “We” need to be more productive, create more wealth or as he puts it do it to “maintain the current state of wealth”. He only ever mentions the term “work – life – balance” in a derogative way and turns it into something silly and “woke” and wonders why we all don’t just consider our work our life. I know I paraphrase and simplify here. But this whole idea that we all can and need and should want to spend more hours working reeks of such a typical old white male privileged view of the world. It equally drives me mad and makes me despair. There are more eloquent pieces out there disproving his “facts” and masterfully arguing that our society would collapse if we all spend more hours at work and less with activities which benefit our society as a whole, but not contribute to the gross national product. Unpaid care work. All the volunteers running so many corners of our lives (more on that later) without getting paid for it.
I recently spoke to a guy who’s running his own construction company with a dozen or so employees. He’s doing it successfully and I’m happy for him. He then mentioned the 60-70 hours of work he puts in each week. It wasn’t necessarily meant as an accolade, but it was implied that it’s normal for that kind of job. He’s married with two children in their teens. Of course he can put in 60-70 hours of work each week, because he’s got a wife at home taking care of everything else. We don’t know each other well enough for me to comment on any of that, but of course I thought it.
Our new government also wants to loosen up on maximum hours of work per day / week. Which might be an ok idea for people who want to work more hours each day or each week. Though most of those I’d assume are already on contracts where they can be flexible with their hours and where they get paid for any overtime. They can work more hours already. But what about all those jobs where your boss decides your hours and then all of a sudden you’re on for 4 x 12 hours shifts and then get a day off. But your a single mum and day care doesn’t cover 12 hours shifts. What do you then? Not to mention all the physically taxing jobs, which already with the mere regular working hours ruin your health before you reach retiring age. Argh!
And no, of course nobody considers maybe taxing the uber rich in Germany a tiny bit more to provide the cash influx our nation obviously needs to pay for social security, infrastructure and all the rest.
Do I sound jaded? Damn right I am. Jaded and frustrated and tired of it all.
Feeling jaded and frustrated and tired is also the reason why I’m phasing out of my involvement with politics on a local level by the end of the summer. I’ve been actively engaged with it for over 20 years now. Not quite half my life but not that far off either. I enjoyed doing it for most of the time and thought my contribution (time and mental energy) to the cause was a worthy one. And it still might be or rather I know it would be, but I’m at a point where I just can’t bring myself to care. For a variety of reasons: systematic ones and interpersonal ones and of course personal ones. I felt like that for a while but just this year I’ve finally reached the state of mind where I need to put my own mental well being first. These activities drain my mental energy more than they replenish it so it’s actually a quite simple decision.
Or it should have been, had not my inherent (personal? educated as a woman?) need to not let other people down and to take care of stuff, because others won’t and someone has to, kept me bound to it as long as it has. I still feel a tiny bit guilty about stepping down and not being as engaged any more, but I’ll get over it. I hope.
Politics on a local level rely on people being willing to volunteer their time and energy. Just as so many other community services do. Health support groups, churches, help for refugees, the local art scene, libraries, every single sports club offering activities for all ages. I witnessed that yesterday when I visited a U 17 tournament about 30 minutes drive away, because a relative I haven’t seen in decades is coaching a participating team. Taking this youth tournament as example: it needs parents or just regular people interested in that sport, who are willing to give up their time to
- coach
- drive / chaperone
- do all the necessary admin
- take care of the catering for teams and visitors
- referee or judge
The list goes on and on. Who is going to do all that when we are forced to work 50 hour weeks to create more wealth. Wealth of what kind? And for whom?
Thursday was a public holiday here and I had the day off work on Friday as well, so I decided to do something to replenish my mental energy. I took the train to Düsseldorf to visit a museum with two exhibitions which interested me; one of which is closing today. I brought my camera and took lots of photos in the museum and during the stroll towards the very posh city centre as well. I had been aiming for street art, but in the end focused on decals / stickers. They are everywhere on lampposts, traffic lights, hand rails and it was an interesting experience to walk through a city with my eyes sometimes focused on those. There will be tons of photos of the exhibitions and the decals, but I need to sort through them first.
But here is one from the pitch I visited yesterday: “Form Gangs”, it says. Which is always a good idea in my mind. Find your people. Band together. Support each other.
