I really enjoy Byung Chul-Han have recād it somewhere on here before - I would start with The Burnout Society or Psychopolitics. He writes a lot about labor and mental health and data. some of the big ideas heās proposed - data and neoliberal economics/governments have transformed and expanded the effects and our understanding of capital and labor
- the fast paced, tech driven society we live in creates a landscape of psychiatric disorders. they arenāt caused by a deficit in our bodies and minds but an excess of positivity. the demand to succeed and fight failure and work efficiently might be burning us out or making us sick
- we are becoming self exploiters and class struggle is beginning to include the struggle against oneself to achieve and reinvent oneself
you can either read The Burnout Society or watch a video on it, i personally recommend the Philosophize This! podcast episodes about Byung Chul Han and his work. essentially, he makes the argument that a society driven by achievement is a society that is widely burnt out and depressed. not to make this an anti-capitalism post but itās important to mentionā capitalism demands that we optimize as individuals in order to produce more capital and then frames the optimization as the reward for the individual rather than the capital being the reward for the optimizing of the individual. but aside from capitalism, he argues that joy cannot be found in solely being good at somethingā lasting joy comes from the journey towards becoming good at something. i think in a world where identity is hastily acquired through consumerism, we must re-orient ourselves to the fact that true identity, built through skills and interests and community, takes time, a lifetime even. so, how to stop being a workaholic and start becoming good at sketchingā appreciate and honor the journey you are on towards being good at the things you want to be good at. i believe in you!
Hanās work resonates with me deeply. He writes short, but dense books articulating and diagnosing the modern condition. This book or Psychopolitics is a great place to start if you are unfamiliar.Ā
