culture

on Writing

COVID-19 Diary: Not Working





This edition of my COVID-19 Diaries features a two-part

anecdotal poem on ‘not working’, combining fragments of conversations and dialogues collected over the past three weeks.




 


1st July 2020 – PART ONE




“I hate work.”


“I love working.”


“I love work but it’s killing me.”


“I hate work but it’s saving me.”


My friend is 30 and being awarded her ‘Ten Years of Servitude’ new year from the bread company she works for. “I don’t know what it means”, she said.


servitude /ˈsəːvɪtjuːd/ Learn to pronounce 


noun

noun: servitude


1. the state of being a slave or completely subject to someone more powerful.

“you’ve got thousands of years of peasant servitude to make up for”


The Freelancer is receiving ‘Ten Years of Serfdom!’ from Fiverr. A special badge, shaped like a gold star and bursting with shards, that they can put on their platform portfolio to make it “really stand out”. For ten days it will appear as the top search result. After that, it’s back to the whim of the algorithm.


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				 on Writing			
		        
COVID-19 Diary: All Roads Lead To Lofi

        
        	

        		
			

			
	     
    

	


		
In this edition of my COVID-19 Diaries I try to cyberflâneur, only to end up at lofi beats. Again, and again, and again.




 


5th April 2020:


“Our very existence has turned into a question mark.”

–Nishitani


“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” 

― John Cage


 The future is cancelled. We know this by now. It’s not ‘postponed’, that sweet word being politely touted in exchange for the hard truth. Here in Zurich, posters remain in loom for a festival put on by a youth theatre that was to run from January until June – ‘The Future is Cancelled’ they jest in their title. These word still hang on the empty streets. When they were designed last year they would have appeared rebelliously tongue-in-cheek. Those who concepted the title may have felt antagonistic and playful. Running on the funny provocations that ‘youth’ knows it is allowed. Imagine that? What we thought was our future has been broken into fragments of oblivion. Eaten away until it doesn’t even matter. No need to ponder too hard on it. It’s gone. The slow cancellation of the future was not slow at all. … →