Let’s just keep going down the list of things that feel more complicated for me than for most other humans, shall we? (See previously: holidays.)

Today (Black Friday) feels like a good time to look at capitalism.

I don’t think I really considered capitalism, or my own participation in it, for the first seven years of owning a business, and that’s either ignorant or miraculous. Mostly, that could be attributed to not realizing or owning that I had a choice in my participation. Because I spent a lot of that time following the path that was laid out for me by other people and the industries I participated in that created a need for what I was making, I didn’t have to do the hard work of convincing people to buy something on my own – the industry, and the partners, clients, and employers I worked with, did it for me.

Those were also the years where my participation in that system was necessary for survival – where I needed to work, hustle, and make a profit in order to meet my survival needs. Which actually raises an important point: the most vulnerable of us may not have the capacity to really consider how they participate in capitalism – or choose an alternative. Add to that, we are sold that working and contributing make us worthy and will be rewarded. I can’t even start here on the harm that the protestant work ethic took on my health and my body – we can unpack that in another post.

Because of luck and privilege (being married to a person who works in an industry that can now provide the means of survival for the two of us), I’m no longer in a place where my participation in capitalism is required. It is, however, useful for joy and pleasure, which I’d argue are more necessary than afterthought and require a lot of intention. Which leaves me with a lot of questions about how to swim in this water, now that I know there are other options and now that I am awake and able to have a choice.

These days, I sit at a cross roads where it is easy to get stuck in feeling the tension between “why bother to contribute?” and “the world needs what you have to offer.” My body recoils when I think about using my skills or talents to promote mindless overconsumption, and yet there is no NEED for most of the things I long to create. Having art on your walls is a luxury, even though my body wants to claim it as a basic need.

Or, maybe there is vital need, because the way that we’ve built things isn’t really looking sustainable from here. I long to use my skills to connect people and planet, to promote ways of creating and living that nourish humans and all other beings, to create containers of self-discovery and space for body autonomy. I am open to learning how to make business nutritive and allow humans to participate as their whole selves. I am committed to making things that are available to people of all levels of resources and abilities. I want to be able to be intentional about what I consume and what I make money from and for and to use it for care and support and reconnecting to the natural world, which includes reconnecting humans to their bodies.

What this looks like is an evolving process – creating practices over time that guide how I redistribute or donate portions of profits (when there are profits) or asking for your attention to people and places who are doing vital, supportive work. But to start, maybe we just carve out a little bit of time to sit with the questions together and do the very most anti-capitalist thing: carve out space to rest and to breathe.