by Crimethinc. Workers' Collective
Available in 284 free installments
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Living in a society in which the market determines most of what we do with our time, few of us have been equipped to apply ourselves without direction. Without school, work, or shopping to order our hours, we can easily slip into listless inertia. Often it's easier to identify the things you would love to be doing when you're too busy to do them than it is when you have no commitments at all. You only discover what interests you by engaging with the world, and in capitalist society, employment and consumption can seem like the only ways to engage. As you cut down on these, replace them immediately with new projects, with the things you dreamed of doing when you didn't have a moment free.
Perhaps you don't know what you'd like to be doing, you only know what you don't want to do. Don't panic if you search yourself for your heart's desires and come up empty-handed; these desires develop in action, not in rumination. Volunteer wifh community groups, or invent your own; teach classes, serve food, counsel survivors, plant gardens, baby-sit children, care for animals, build houses, organize festivals, gather berries and bake pies for unsung heroes and heroines, recruit fellow warriors for the anticapitalist struggle. Take on projects, both immediate and long-term?any of the practices described in this manual might be worth trying. Make a project out of enjoying yourself, too: develop your cooking skills, sneak into hot tubs and saunas, spend hours arranging elaborate games and scavenger hunts for your loved ones. Learn new subjects and skills and languages. Set out to explore areas?spatial, social, and intellectual?that you've never entered before. Follow through on every idea you have, even the most ridiculous ones. Stay busy, set deadlines, keep your time management skills honed so you don't slump into torpor. Undertake tasks, however challenging, that will give you a sense of accomplishment and build up your personal momentum; by the
same token, don't set yourself up for failure?start with goals within your grasp, and get more ambitious as you proceed.
Don't go it alone?make a point of being around people that keep you active. Just as it is far easier to meet your practical needs collectively, it is infinitely more rewarding to disport yourself outside the market with friends. In a best-case scenario, you vidll be part of an entire community of people liberating themselves from the work paradigm, all supporting each other's efforts. At the same time, don't abandon your old community for a more ostensibly radical one?figure out what you can do to help radicalize the community you come from. Set up structures that nurture activity: don't just try to educate yourself in isolation, establish a reading group so you'll have a reason to read and discuss a text every week.
Full-time unemployment is not for the faint of heart: according to the standards of this society, joblessness is equivalent to idleness, and both are maligned and reviled. Everywhere you go, everything you do, there will be implications that you are worth less than others because you don't make as much money or occupy a place in the hierarchy. But you're not the one polluting the water and air, exploiting the disadvantaged, or flaunting unjust privileges?in a world working its way toward annihilation, shiftlessness itself can be a service to humanity and all living things. Don't be ashamed of what you're doing with your life: proclaim it to the hills, urge people to join or support you in it, emphasize that gainful unemployment is one of the cutting edges of a new way of life. Make sure you're in constant contact with people who understand what you're doing and what is beautiful about it, and make a point of encouraging one another.
Seek out ways to stay connected to the rest of society, so you aren't isolated in a dropout ghetto. Don't let the ties you have to people still in the economy atrophy; you need them to give you perspective on what life is like for everybody else, and they need you
Life in Exile
You can keep warm in winter by lining the inside of your clothes with plastic; this will work best if you place the layer of plastic right next to your skin, although it will make you sweat a lot.
You can use a five-gallon bucket as a toilet; simply shovel sawdust, straw, or other organic matter in after each use.
Unemployment 583
If you can get a password from a. student,
you should be able to use the computers
at the local university for everything from
email to printing out fliers.
If you are traveling and need water, you
can open the outside spigots at most
gas stations and many other buildings
with a good wrench. These spigots
generally have one of two kinds of
