A Voices from the FOLD: Year 7 original essay.
CAPITALISM OF SELF BY NADINE NAKAGAWA
Lately, when people ask what I’m up to I tell them
climate change, the housing crisis, and food security
that I’m spending a lot of time looking at moss and
all at. I truly felt that I should be working constantly
mushrooms. That I’m learning to cook for myself and
and that my personal value was attached to my pro-
for loved ones.
ductivity. I call this capitalism of the self.
When I tell people this, I’m sometimes confront-
I wasn’t particularly attached to profit—except
ed by confused looks. Some smile at the whimsy. Peo-
that I live in an expensive community and need to
ple have told me that it’s a charming or sweet idea.
be able to pay rent and buy kitty litter and have
I don’t mean it to be charming or sweet. I do
shampoo and to be able to go out to the nice vegan
mean for it to be whimsical because all things in my
restaurants—but I was tying my value to produc-
life should be filled with whimsy. I also mean for it
tion. Even though that production was in the form of
to be radical. I quit my job so I can wander around
social service work and activism, it felt never-ending
looking at the small delights of the natural world. So
and demoralizing.
I can nourish myself with food that is substantial and delicious, and that I ripped and tossed and seasoned
In conversations I fought against the need to apologize for not doing enough.
with my own hands. If this doesn’t sound radical, let me outline my previous state of being. Picture this: Two jobs totaling around fifty-five hours per week, eight hours commuting, plus a bunch of side projects. On any given day, I would get home at 9:15 p.m. and make a quick dinner of frozen, bagged vegetables with rice and salty sauce from a bottle. I’d eat it, sitting in bed and feeling guilty that I wasn’t working on my community projects or responding to email. I felt bad if I didn’t go to all the events, run a million side projects, and try to tackle everything from
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When are we going to admit that this isn’t sustainable, that we aren’t meant to live like this? And that this pace of life contributes to further unhealthy practices for ourselves, our communities and our planet?
