Today is the first day in 5 years and 4 months that I don’t have an employer.
I’ve been thinking about a Nassim Taleb quote: “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates and a monthly salary.” I don’t intend to try heroin (except maybe on my deathbed or in the event of the apocalypse), and I generally try to keep my carb intake somewhat low. But I’ve been getting a monthly salary for 64 months in a row, and I have to admit that it’s definitely had an effect on me. There’s definitely a numbing, dulling effect of sorts. Or to put it the other way – knowing that I’m not going to receive a paycheck for the coming month has a sobering, sharpening effect.
I realise that’s also true for food. I experimented with fasting about once a week for a few weeks at the end of last year, and one of the most interesting things about that experience was the mental clarity I would wake up with the next morning.
3 meals a day, a salary every month, a daily 9-5 for 5 days at a time. All of these are… stabilizing? Predictable stimuli has a numbing effect, for sure. Routine is numbing.
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It’s day two. I’ve definitely noticed that my range of emotional experience has expanded. I have more time and space now to be sensitive to everything that’s going on. As a working adult with an employer, I think I found myself often looking through everything with the lens of “what are the implications for my work?”
“Looking through the lens” isn’t exactly the best metaphor here. It’s a little bit more subtle than that. It’s more like… being a salaried employee was a weight on my back that kept me from being as nimble and alert as I can be now. Which isn’t to say that people with jobs can’t be nimble and alert, of course. But it was definitely something that weighed on me. Particularly I think because my job was more than a simple 9-5 gig – it was something that took up a lot of my headspace, a lot of my energy.
And that’s the work itself. There are also all the general concerns about peopling with colleagues, having deadlines, showing up on time, being presentable, all sorts of subtle things like that which really add up. “Psychic weight” is probably a better metaphor.
I still have psychic weight on my back from having to worry about how I’m going to be paying the bills in the long run. I have some cash saved up that will last me a decent amount of time if I’m disciplined about my expenses. But I don’t want to burn through all of my savings. Right now I feel very liberated and open and free, but with each passing month I anticipate that I’m going to get progressively more worried about having new sources of income. I’m going to be a writer-for-hire, do some consulting and strategy work for startups looking to build their content teams & processes, and I’m going to work on expanding Statement (my t-shirt business) to do more things.
There’s a lot that’s coming to me – rushing to fill in the new vacuum that work has created. I’m thinking about my own brain, my habits of thinking, my assumptions, my motivations, my interests. I’ve been walking around my house with new eyes, looking at my walls, looking at my books. Everything that seemed blurry and vague, like it was the background noise and clutter of my life, is now coming into sharper relief. Without the weight of employment on my back, I get to look at almost everything with fresher, clearer eyes. (I’ve also been getting more and better sleep, so that’s definitely a huge part of it.)
An interesting challenge for me is figuring out a new identity for myself. I used to lean hard on the fact that I was a marketing guy at a tech startup. I’m not one anymore. So what am I? I’m a business owner. I’m a writer. I’m a strategist and consultant.
I don’t think I’m imagining it when I say that there’s something vaguely low-status about words like “unemployed” and “freelancer”. I like the phrase “free agent”, since it implies instead that people who aren’t free agents are… not free. Because that’s the truth, man. That’s what I was last month. But is that the only phrase that’s available to me? Business owner is also pretty decent but I think it can give off “etsy shop artisan” connotations, which is a whole ‘nother ball of worms that’s gendered and dismissive.
I enjoyed being described as “a digital dumpster diving savant” (Venkat), who did “riffs on society, culture and cognition” (Julia). “Wholesome but cynical, interesting thoughts, good aesthetics” (Sonya). “Random, strange, finds art in everything, curious and fairly enlightened, questions human interactions” (Johnny). “Observational stuff on pop culture and history” (@verbaldetonator).
I feel a little bit of guilt and worry at not having already written more, and I feel a little bit overwhelmed with options and possibilities and that’s been keeping me from putting out more stuff. It’s funny and humbling how eternal this feeling is, it was the reason I started this word vomit project in the first place. Now that I’m a free agent, I can turn on the firehouse to full blast again. This vomit is an instance of it sputtering as the buildup of gunk is getting blasted out. But in a matter of days, I’m going to be in the zone – just a constant stream of output, covering many more bases all at once. I have confidence and faith in myself that this will happen. Everything is already there inside my head, and now that the restraints have been removed, I just need to get the blood flowing again. I’m excited. What am I excited about? What do I expect to write about? I suppose that would make a good candidate for the vomit right after this one!
I can’t wait. And for the first time in years – I don’t have to.