Is There A Way To Justify Burnout?
Tags: Capitalism, Art, Burnout

Anne Hathaway sung I Dreamed A Dream for 8 hours straight. 8 hours of crying and hitting I think a C5? note and just kind of going for it for them to use the fourth take she’d done after 20 minutes. On the same movie Les Mis, Hugh Jackman dehydrated himself to get buff, and they had to put a piano in a bulletproof case in order to sing live. Completely irrelevant? Yes and no.

Just thought it was interesting. And it also proves a weird point.

Hathaway got an Oscar for Les Mis while Russel Crowe got slaughtered. Some critics loved the live singing, others genuinely couldn’t handle it. Jackman’s acting was praised while his singing was often described as out of time and off key. So was it worth it? Is any risk to the self worth it for a job?

Under capitalism: yes. There are so many videos from BuzzFeed employees who have left the company about how they worked ridiculous hours and put themselves under mental strain just to please ‘the higher ups’. The fact that teachers are expected to put not only their mental capacity, but also financial, into their work by buying supplies the school doesn’t have the budget for. Athletes, who live for their sport, are willing to decimate their bodies in the long run just to make it to that top league team. Method actors who force themselves into the deepest, darkest corners of mental health just to pull a legendary performace — and sometimes can’t get out again. Even the truth that a full-time job isn’t enough to live off anymore, so guess what? If you’re minimum wage get ready to work 2 full-time jobs, like a cool new 200% of your life job. Hey, if you eat, sleep, and commute for 12 hours a day and you work 2 full time jobs, you get a whole 8 hours of leisure time per week! Isn’t that ideal. People burnout at all levels of society, and not just for money.

If risking your health (whether that be physical or mental) seems in writing so stupid, then why does it work? Why do those actors hit such career peaks? Why are those athletes immortalised? Why do we write heartwarming stories of kids who run lemonade stands to pay for their parents surgeries? We praise someone going above and beyond because…

Idk, we’re conditioned or something.

It’s complex. We are conditioned, we love stories of self sacrifice in the ‘developed’ OECD world. War heroes who die in battle for others, service dogs who run into fires for their owners, scientists who devote their life to finding a cure for a disease we didn’t even know existed. If we believe that individuals who give themselves fully to the world change said world fully, we’re a hell of a lot easier to control. Take Bioshock’s Rapture. People who have no need to look out for others don’t work well together and subsequently all dope up, wear creepy masks and start killing. Maybe that’s over the top but the philosophy stands — total selfishness is not condusive to living in a society. At some level or another we have to cooperate. Seems pretty straightforward, but this is where it gets rough. As much as we’re told to fuel society, we’re also individualists. It’s a “dog eat dog” world. As much as we love the stories of the selfless hero, we’re drawn to the impossibly wealthy, isolated dude as well. Despite the fact that the existence of billionaires hurts anyone who isn’t a billionaire, there are legions of Bezos fans who claime he earned his fortune. And therein lies the point: If someone else can do it, so can I.

If I was in war, I’d die for my fellow man.

If I was a tech genius, I’d be a billionare.

If I were on a film set, I’d sing for hours until it was perfect.

We justify burnout because we only see it as existing in desirable situations. For a dancer to die for the perfect performance (Black Swan) is the pinnacle of artistry. For a mathematician to devote their life to solving a Millenium Prize Problem is surely the height of intelligence. It seems like total, uncompromising dedication is meaningful. Damn, maybe that’s why we justify burnout. It’s just another maybe answer to the meaning of life.

M