They should’ve never let the shutdown last for more than 21 days. That’s just enough time for us to get into the habit of being our full selves. It’s selfish of me to wish that this lasted for just a bit longer. People need their paychecks, people need their government services to be reinstated. I feel guilty for even humoring the question of what people did with the wealth of time they were afforded, albeit in the absence of money. I certainly hope not all 800,000 of us were what was depicted in the news – starving, stressing, staring at CNN waiting for some breaking news. So many of us felt our holiday expenses collide with the emptiness of postponed paydays. But I hope that even those who needed to take cash advances, fill out unemployment forms, visit food banks – that at some point over the past month they were able to find moments to feel free.
It’s not that I don’t take pride in my work. I love my job. And even if I didn’t (like how I didn’t during the shutdown of 2014) I’m familiar with the stone that sits in your stomach when you’re broke. I know how debilitating it can be, and how it can color everything else that happens in the day. I recognize that for many people this wasn’t just a forced vacation with eventual backpay, and that people are hurting. But if all 800,000 of us are as proud, driven, ready to contribute to society as we believe we are, I can’t help but wonder what has been added to the world by almost a million people with nothing but free time on their hands. You can’t tell me none of that innate motivation saw the light of day.
The news has focused on how the shutdown will affect the economy. The companies that will report slower earnings, the rise in unemployment forms filled, the loss to small businesses because people didn’t spend. I get all that. But simultaneously. How many people picked up meditation in the mornings? And exercise regimens? Who strengthened their relationships by spending more time with family? And learned what they don’t actually need to buy in order to be happy? How many of us will come back to work ready to not take the shit they took before they were temporarily discarded?
The catch 22 when it comes to imagining a life beyond capitalism is that anti-capitalists are quick to remind you of everyone else who doesn’t have enough money to think that way. And it’s been at least five years since I crawled out of debt, three years since I’ve tasted the cottonmouth that comes with paying a penalty for having a negative balance. So it’s likely that my ramblings as an uppity furloughed curator are distinct from those of a struggling TSA agent. But nobody is a cog. Nobody is an empty vessel who experienced the shutdown as time frozen, like an extra from an episode of Out of This World when Evie touched her fingertips. I hope that especially those who only had the currency of time found a way to invest in themselves – not so that they could return to work as better employees, but because they can exist in this world as fuller selves. How would that be for a resolution?