The pursuit of the proverbial “work-life balance” has been a feature of the human condition since the advent of organised work. The human being figured out pretty early on that systematic organisation of work and the use of tools could amplify productive capacity exponentially.
At first, we worked solely to meet basic physical needs such as food. As we iterated on our methods, tinkering here and there with technologies, benevolent mother nature updated our firmware and endowed the neocortex which extended our linguistic faculties, neuronal computations of attention and our capacity for thought. With the new brain, humans invented agriculture, religion, social class and slavery. Agriculture turned us from being nomadic to sedentary; religion masqueraded as teaching morality when it was really teaching blind obedience; social class arbitrarily assigned nobility to divide labour and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, hello slaves.
Slaves had no work-life balance, they only had work. The concept of unpaid labour was a hit (did you get… never mind); by the bare hands of enslaved labourers, cities literally emerged from the forest. Slaves had really, really short careers, estimated to max out at around seven years. Extreme physical demands and equally extreme instruments of torture to ensure compliance can take a toll. This was a huge bottleneck for the institution of slavery. Around the 18th century, philosophers and intellectuals expressed more and more their doubts on the moral merit of denying political and economic rights to certain segments of society. The bottleneck and the mounting pressure authored by the social enlightenment era combined to usher in new slaves: the machines!
Machine-assisted work created surplus beyond our ancestors’ wildest dreams. We transcended the need to work to meet physical needs to something more sophisticated. Today we work to post about it on LinkedIn. In the last 150 years, the planet’s wealthiest nations observe that working hours have declined both in terms of working days in the year and working hours within the day. European countries report that in 1870 people worked over 3000 hours for 50 weeks and work less than 1500 hours today. An 1870 employee accumulated present day annual work hours by July. It probably does not always feel like you were born into the best work environment human beings have ever conjured but you have been, and it’s set up to improve further. Some countries have already started experimenting with a 4-day work week.
People want to find better ways to split time between the job and leisure. The time spent at the job is spent on tasks assigned by an entity alien to the individual. Often one has to deal with difficult co-workers - the type that you wish to pack into a shelf and store away - but how else would the bills get paid? Don’t say sugar daddy! Time spent outside work is more unilaterally directed and more likely spent on activities chosen of the individual’s own volition. This establishes a dichotomy where on one side you have work, which is “hard”, aka sucks; on the other hand is life. Life’s good, aka LG. I’ve found that people don’t really want a “balance.” They would prefer to work much less and live more.
I understand it. I understand it very well. I am often accused of being lazy in the domestic setting. That is, I don’t work or do errands very diligently according to some observers. They call it laziness. However, academically and professionally, I have never been called anything even close to lazy. It’s often quite the opposite. There is a point to this. I’ve never subscribed to the conventional work-life balance conversation that pits work and life against each other. As if one is pulling one way while the other is pulling with equivalent force in exactly the opposite direction. It’s especially strange when I hear it from younger humans. How can you be 20 years old and speak about work-life balance?
The early decades are when you’re most energetic. The neural flexibility and plasticity of younger people is tantamount to a super power. Those younger ones absorb information like imperial England absorbed territories. Being young is a good hand to play. Why would you not lean in on your malleability and do some work as often as necessary. You could carve yourself into any shape you can imagine. Even after you have pushed yourself to the brink of your limits, your young muscles recover in hours. The older guys need days to recover from one late dinner. It’s like nature is begging you to find out how much you’re capable of. Take the hint. Do some effin work!
Twenty-twenty-three
What have you made of the two thousand and twenty third year of the common era? Are you particularly encouraged? Are you more optimistic or less so? Or you haven’t really had the opportunity to reflect as it is a full time job just keeping up with how quickly time is flying. Every year flies by faster than the last. You’re not imagining that. It’s true-ish. When you were younger, say five years old. A one-year period was the equivalent of 20% of your life. At fifty, that same 12-months counts for just 2% of your life. This ratio is what is responsible for that feeling that a year is not as long as it used to be. Loosely, for the 50 year old, time is passing by 10 times faster than for the pre-schooler.
And of course we can speak about time with authority at SirLushaba. We seem to have redefined the meaning of “weekly blog.” We are loathe to explain ourselves but cheers for clicking on this link again. You’re the real MVP. Take my hand. Let’s reacquaint after such a long sabbatical. Let’s rendezvous at the… economy.
The global economy somehow shook off the flu a year or so ago but we are yet to get a clean bill of health. Economic vitals still read like a Stephen King horror epic. The economic doctors made prognoses that are proving to have been too optimistic. They promised high food prices would be a thing of the past by now. Reality suggests that Russia still has not received this memo. In fact, while we are all obsessing and pointing fingers over the energy crisis, other industries are showing symptoms similar to those you would observe in a spouse that is suffering from emotional neglect. They are throwing tantrums and crumbling just so that we notice them.
Okay ke SVB. This is… er… was the largest bank you had never heard of. They were a popular financier for start-ups and tech companies in the US. They had sizeable operations in Europe also. They had to be shutdown by regulators after their customers were spooked over losses on their securities portfolio. These were only paper losses due to the interest rate cycle we’re in. When interest rates rise, bond prices decrease. If you hold the bond to maturity though, you should realise the full face value of the bond and not suffer the theoretical losses suggested by the market value. The bank’s customers didn’t particularly care for a lecture on security pricing and demanded their money en masse forcing the bank to turn a paper loss into a real loss via fire sale of the assets at the worst possible time. There’s further nuance like the fact that they were facing a possible credit rating downgrade at the time. They wanted to calm the market by issuing new stock but this move did the exact opposite. It triggered a panic that caused the second largest bank collapse in US history. When there is a closure this significance, it’s never the only one. Over a few weeks, other less significant banks were also closed and seized by US regulators.
Credit Suisse across the pond had to face fate as well but for totally different reasons. They were run like a Spaza shop. They were, shall we say, too friendly with money launderers and corrupt governments. Their reputation suffered. In finance, once your reputation goes, soon after goes your business. In this case, the once mighty behemoth was acquired by another bank. I’ve lost count of all the bank failures since. One thing is for sure, this spouse is neglected no more!
Drama in Finance didn’t end with the banks. Crypto also took to the stage. Bona. Faith in crypto assets is akin to supporting Arsenal football club - it is embarrassingly unrewarding! All the value that it flaunts is make-believe. FTX was the second largest crypto exchange before they caught the attention of law enforcement. If you are not familiar with the meaning of crypto exchange, it means exactly this: mumbo jumbo. They filed for bankruptcy late last year. Their founder, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) amassed a lot of support from the biggest names in entertainment and sport. The home of the Miami Heat once brandished this guy’s company for a name.
It turns out that this was just a shady operation run by romantically involved kids who were making money via exploiting arbitrage opportunities between the US and Japanese markets rather than creating any real value. There’s more. SBF started another firm. This time, a crypto hedge fund (translation: mumbo jumbo) promising a 15% return to customers. This hedge fund ran using money from FTX that belonged to customers without their knowledge. This is a blatant breach of fiduciary duty. These kids made billions gambling other people’s money. A mumbo jumbo crypto bank called Celsius and a mumbo jumbo coin called Terra all imploded along one hundred other companies that were linked to FTX and crypto assets in just the last year.
Since we’re speaking about fiascos, let’s catch up with Turkey. Global inflation is at a 10-year high forcing those responsible for monetary policy to assume a hawkish stance the world over with one exception! Erdogan is cutting interest rates while everybody else is raising them. His unorthodox economics has shaken the country more than the earthquake that hit the region in February. Inflation cheapens money. Interest rates are the price you pay for money. If you decrease the price of money to respond to a decrease in the price of money you’re doubling down and it’s a race to the bottom from there. Needless to say, the Lira has lost 80% of its value in the last five years and they re-elected this comedian last month. He vowed to maintain the vibes.
What I’m Reading
1. I was reading Franz Kafka’s The Trial. It’s a story about about a man who randomly gets arrested one morning. The arresting officers offer no explanation as to his charges. His trial is held at a random couple’s flat. I would have been so distracted. What is this bed doing in the courtroom? Josef K. has more discipline than me and just wants to know what he is on Trial for. No answer is offered. Court is adjourned and he finds himself looking for a defence lawyer for a crime that has not been described to him.
On his quest for vindication, he encounters sketchy characters who inform him that trials in the jurisdiction can run for years without a charge ever being pronounced. I know what you’re thinking, “That is absurd”. And you’re right. Kafka writes weird stuff. His protagonists are miserable from the first page to the last. In one of his stories, a man wakes up one day a giant insect with no explanation.
Kafka is celebrated in literary circles notwithstanding. Scholars will tell you that the man in the book that is arrested with no context, who labours to clear his name the entire book symbolises life itself. He is in limbo because life itself is a trial that has no context. You just come into this world without being consulted and you find yourself having to prove that you’re useful to the society lest you forfeit preferential treatment. I don’t know, some people find that deep. It’s totally lost on me. I just think it’s unfinished work. And if you think it can ever be finished, you’re fresh out of luck because in The Trial, the defendant mysteriously dies on the street as suddenly as he was arrested. Who killed him? Kafka does not have time for such follies.
It is well documented that while he lived, Kafka that is, his relationship with his father was tenuous. He would write vividly about gruesome nightmares; all of which he would later disclose to be about the man who sired him. There you go. Should you read The Trial? No. I read it so that you do not have to. Go watch Black Mirror S06 instead.
2. The title I am currently reading is one thick babe spanning over 1000 pages. It’s a book by the popular science writer Steven Pinker called The Better Angels of Our Nature. After Kafka’s absurdity, I sought after a science-oriented mind to cleanse the palate. The book is about the evolution of violence in society. Pinker presents evidence that the trend in violence is a downward trend no matter what CNN may be telling you. The risk of death at the hands of another human was way higher in hunter-gatherer as well as horticulturalists-sedentary societies compared to the modern Nation-state society. We have no anxiety of a neighbouring tribe raiding our village and killing all the men to keep the women as sex slaves. We enjoy the protection of law and order. Pinker covers all forms of violence, starting from the household treatment of children all the way to war. All forms of violence have declined precipitously. I’m only 10% into this one and it is already a knockout. I recommend it with chest.
Till next Sunday 👋🏾.
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