How it All Comes Apart My Evolving Relationship to Capital

When I immigrated to Canada from Serbia in the early 1990s I was disillusioned by the jaded attitude everyone around me had towards public institutions and companies. Adults around me talked about people only being in it for themselves, only looking to make themselves look good and cover their ass. So when my new country was introduced to me as a meritocracy where anyone can advance based on their intelligence and hard work, I thought I’d have it made. I knew myself to be smart and hardworking, I shouldn’t have any problems.

Things somehow didn’t entirely work out that way. I learned I didn’t fit in with the cool, popular kids because I am who I am – quirky, intense, ahead of my time. One time, in Business Studies class which I took instead of typing class, we were investigating investments and when I said “What if we looked at investing in people?” there was that range of reactions that I’ve learned to associate with me thinking outside of the box in which everyone else is comfortable to hang out and they don’t necessarily understand why I would bother looking outside. One classmate laughed at me and bitchily said, “Hey Jasna, I gave a homeless person 10 cents, was I investing in them?”

I was curious about the effects that social services and training programs would have on people’s ability to better their lives but I didn’t have the vocabulary at 15 to say that.

As I met people who were kind to me and willing to help, I thought I would keep meeting people who’d be willing to help me figure out how the world of work functions, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I didn’t meet people who shared knowledge about how they found work, how they worked the system.

Then, when I finally found work in teaching, I thought that I would be recognized for being an awesome teacher if I worked hard. I thought I would be seen as a person of worth by parents with whom I tried to collaborate on their children’s education. I got some thank you cards from kids, but I mainly remembered my mistakes and shortcomings; I kept feeling like an impostor, like someone was going to end up yelling at me for not knowing what I was doing.

Over the years I grew more and more disillusioned with the public education system where we are supposed to care not only about the children’s learning but also their socio emotional wellbeing with fewer and fewer resources. Wear more and more hats, compete for the students attention with everything else that is around them, teach with technology while it is a source of distraction.

The crux came last October when, still disoriented after just having returned to work, I asked a colleague if the upcoming workshop on mental health and suicide prevention supports was for us or for the students. He laughed somewhat bitterly and said, “The Board doesn’t care about our mental health, it’s for the kids.” It dawned on me, of course they don’t. We’re not truly real to our employer-the-system.

Having just gone through several very difficult years struggling with my own mental health, I realized I won’t be able to continue in a context where I could be falling apart at the seams and my employer-the-system wouldn’t care, as long as I was behaving appropriately at work and as long as I submitted supply teaching plans on time and my yard duties were covered.

The Board does provide health benefits, and there is an Employee Assistance Plan but it’s a joke for anything more complicated than a temporary problem with a colleague or something similar. Teachers are like lightbulbs, if one of them burns out, you just screw it out and screw in a new one. Problem fixed.

Well, except for the lightbulb.

See, I thought that I would be free of the capitalist model of exploitation of workers if I didn’t work for a for-profit company, if I was in an union but what I didn’t realize is that there’s only the occasional oasis in a capitalist world system. Everyone, including the public institutions that are meant to provide public goods like care, education, safety, everyone is going to behave with profit and cost in mind because their funding depends on a government that is part of a capitalist system.

That, now, leaves me conflicted. Where am I going to find meaning, how am I going to trade my labour for survival if I’m rubbed raw by the friction between my own ideals and the reality?

Can’t do it for internet points any longer, I’ve tried that and it was wholly unfulfilling. Can’t stomach just yet doing it for money because the need to be seen and recognized is so raw I fear I will trade my sanity for it.

I think I need to write a manifesto that will call people back to forming face to face communities, nothing has been so supportive in my struggles as my partner, therapist and Buddhist discussion group, all people I see face to face.