Empress Justine

I’ve learned that, as long as you have adequate personal resources and some sort of plan, it’s absolutely OK to be messy for a while. The modern world heavily emphasizes individual productivity to a ludicrous extent. We’ve gone from philosophers openly admitting that a “good life” requires a certain amount of leisure, and that the necessary work of life should be handled as quickly as possible, then pushed aside from properly living life, to all Protestant Work Ethic all the time.

Now the Protestant Work Ethic has gone wild, post Industrial Revolution.

Historically, I’ve only had two periods of unemployment after 2011. They both only lasted around three months. I used this time period to pull myself together. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a period of decompression after losing a job. The real issue is that the US does not have comprehensive safety nets, including unemployment safety nets. While it can be demonstrated that short term losses can lead to long term success or gains, the US forces people into maintaining an endless series of short term gains. It doesn’t matter if research shows that long periods of unemployment can lead to better long term outcomes. What matters is constant constant demonstrable production, which is deeply unwise.

Anyone with vague knowledge regarding planning and warfare knows that there is a distinction between tactics and strategy. Tactics win the immediate battle or situation, and strategy wins the war while meeting the overall goal, while also allowing for a few immediate losses. Productive unemployment can be an effective strategic maneuver, but the future potential success cannot be immediately observed or measured, so it is not given adequate recognition. Tactics for constant short term success are forced into dominating genuine long term strategy.

This period of unemployment and partial employment has been a boon, for me. I finally obtained my first vehicle, created my first blog, drove for several hours to other locations, gained some detailed cooking experience outside of my original cooking comfort zone, attempted my first gigs, set up profiles on remote work gig platforms, etc.

If I was immediately forced into accepting the first possible full-time job after my separation from the US Navy, I wouldn’t have been able to reliably accomplish any of this, particularly when my 2e/3e profile is taken into consideration. I wouldn’t have been able to attend the C&P assessments, for future VA coverage, which required two hours of travel to reach.

After all of this, and a maintenance gig for income-based apartment skyscrapers that didn’t quite work out, I need time to decompress. My brain is incredibly unfocused. I can’t bring myself to do much other than lay down on a washable incontinence pad in my room, wear a diaper, and just let my body sort herself out. It does involve a lot of naps in used diapers, but that’s just embracing some indulgence as a Little.

I can be silly and messy for a bit, before I start adulting again.