Eid Mubarak: Learn a skill, quit your job, and sacrifice for humanity.
Disclaimer: this is not financial or career advice. The views in this article are held by the author only.
Salaam everyone, Eid Mubarak from the United States of America. Today many of us will be celebrating Eid and indulging in the relief of not having to fast anymore. But very few of us will reflect and take time out of our day to consider the oppressed who do not get to celebrate this holiday, as our tax dollars fund their demise and displacement.
After 17 months of genocide against the people of Palestine and 23 months of war in Sudan, the organizing power in the United States is still only at the building block stage. Little material change has been made in progress of ending our countries participation and complicity in these egregious events.
For months now, people have been saying that we need to escalate for Palestine (and I will personally include Sudan in this messaging). Yet, we haven’t, and that’s due to two main reasons; people do not know what to do and they are not prepared for what they will lose in said sacrifice. Understandable, simple, and selfish.
The majority of Americans these days are working for large corporations. And the abundance of small business is now a thing of the past. Our education system has turned most of the population into task-based workers. Meaning that most of us do not have skills (IE: trades, the development of a skill), we only know how to complete tasks to fulfill our roles in huge corporations. Therefore, most people are reliant on corporations to sustain their lives and wellbeing’s.
For those who don’t know me well, at the age of 19 I taught myself the art of photography and used my talent to develop a decade long career as a freelance photographer and creative consultant. This allowed me to work on my own accord, and for better or worse, abide by my own value system; saying and doing pretty much whatever I wanted to. Yes- because of my politics and being outspoken about them, there were certainly opportunities and relationships that did not come to me, but I considered that a minimal sacrifice for the abundant freedom I had in life.
This skill is something they cannot take from me. And if need be, I can go anywhere and use this skill to create a life for myself.
I know good and well that there are more people that care about making the world a better place, but they don’t find it feasible to actively participate. They can’t stomach the loss, the sacrifice. Brothers and sisters, this is why now more than ever, it has become imperative that we all learn a skill that we can do as a job in order to participate in the movement for collective liberation.
The world runs on our labor. The banking industry, the tech industry, the weapons manufacturers, and all the companies that have 2nd and 3rd level relationships to those sectors need our labor to make this big thing we call capitalism run. Without our labor, the machine dies.
I say this with the utmost respect and empathy, brothers and sisters, you do not have skills. You are knowledgeable about tasks that can fulfill a specific role in the machine. Thus, needing the machine more than it needs you.
Time is not on our side, nor the side of our oppressed comrades around the world, at this point. However, we must race to acquire skills that can liberate us from the work force and contribute to the movement for collective liberation. Some of you, thanks to your degrees or job training, are already significantly close to attaining such skills. Keep building.
We must fully divest from the workforce via our labor and willful participation. I encourage you all to spend the next 6-24 months identifying, exploring, developing, and implementing a skill that can be used to generate the sustenance needed to live without dependence on the workforce. These skills can be things such as full stack website development, photography/videography, plumbing, HVAC, vehicle repair, commercial/housing electrical, cosmology/barbering, graphic design, drone operation, and more!
It will take time. It will take effort. It will be difficult. But what you will gain on the other side will help you liberate yourself and others from the machine of capitalism that is oppressing 99% of us in some way, shape or form.
Finally, after you acquire this skill and generate sustenance from it, leave your job. If you work in a sector that is truly of no value to humanity or is directly complicit in the oppression of your human peers, whether near or far, LEAVE. It will feel daunting yet rewarding. And you will finally find yourself with the courage, fortitude, and acumen to join the movement for collective liberation.
