Why I Chose Freelance Writing
“A profession is the backbone of life.” —Friedrich Nietzsche., Human, All Too Human (Man Alone With Himself: Section 575)
For most of us in the United States, there is an inevitable truth that we must confront: we are going to spend the majority of our lives at work. All of the empirical evidence conducted on this topic can only lead to that conclusion. The rare exception —those on the polar ends of the bell-curve— are either those with great amounts of wealth (who also fail to squander such wealth) or those with almost no wealth, who cannot get whatever help they need —whether pragmatic or psychological— to move closer towards the middle of the bell curve.
Facing this reality is profoundly scary. And it is for reasons that most of us take for granted or are patently unwilling to admit. The fear of work rests in the fact that most work is pointless, banal, and unfulfilling — “pointless” and “banal” are not merely based on the subjective experience of workers (though they surely feel that way about it too) but rather the empirical facts surrounding the nature of work in America. That is, it is an objectively true statement to say that a great deal of work has little to no worth —outside of the paychecks which it generates for employees and employers alike. Most work does not take into consideration the fulfillment of anyone except for those paying money for services and goods: that is, the humanity of employees and employers, for the most part, do not matter in the work world in America. I, for one, believe that there will be a shift in this dynamic towards a system that is more accommodating to human needs, but for now, we need to face this reality as it currently stands.
I say none of this with any feelings of sanctimoniousness or condescension. I genuinely feel for those who are working life-draining jobs. When I began my career as a freelance writer, I did not feel this as acutely and chronically as I do now. That is almost certainly because my work life up until about a year ago was life-draining. My work prior to making writing my priority had a peculiar trajectory. When I was 17-years-old, I worked at a pizza shop and at a deli, and in both roles, I served as a clerk —I prepared the food and gave it to customers, while simultaneously fulfilling janitorial duties and the roles of a cashier. In both of these instances, I was not trained —neither formally, nor informally. And, for no explanation in both cases, I was swiftly fired —after one shift at the pizza parlor and after three at the deli.
These instances of getting fired were, at the time, devastating to me. It took me up until I was 20 in order to even put myself out there again for employment, let alone take up work.
Going to college, however, boosted my self-esteem considerably, which led to my determination that at that point in my life I wanted to become a writer. Everyone I knew who I spoke to about this aim more or less told me the same thing: “get an internship.” So I did. But these internships —for the better part of 2 and a half years— never amounted to any compensation and they all entailed grasping for sticks in thin air writing about topics that I had no interest in.
I never thought I would be where I am now in my freelance writing career. I thought —perhaps cynically— that it was a fool’s errand to think one could really make a living as a writer. That, I would be doomed to a 9-5 —or, that I would be doomed to the perils of an academic career, which would be a line of work that I love (i.e., philosophy) but under conditions that are arguably worse than the above-mentioned empirical realities on the nature of work in America. Either way, I was terrified at the prospects of my future, despite having had a great education.
Hence, to really pin-point my reasoning as to becoming a freelance writer as a career, I would like to, again, quote Nietzsche, “for he who does not have two-thirds of his day to himself is a slave.” (Human, All Too Human: Section 283) I by no means take Nietzsche’s sentiment —insofar as I myself am applying it— to be the case for everyone. For some, the conventional work-world is optimal. However, for myself —who I can only speak for here— if I were to not have at least 2/3rds of my time to myself —meaning, spent reading, writing, doing philosophy, exercising, and socializing— then I wouldn’t be capable of believing that being alive is worth it. And I hate to say this, but I can only imagine —from the empirical evidence and from endless anecdotes from my interpersonal life— that many others feel quite the same way about their work—a heartwrenching fact for sure.
I like to think of my relationship to work —or, the relationship that I gladly missed out on— as akin to Soren Kierkegaard’s to Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard proposed to Olsen and she accepted his proposal, only for Kierkegaard to break off the engagement shortly thereafter. Kierkegaard’s personal journals confirm that this decision was one of the worst of his whole life, more or less haunting him daily until he died. I feel as if I would have had a similar reaction if I denied my aspirations to become a writer. And that is truly what motivated me to become a freelance writer.
