I was reading Seth Godin's blog recently and a sentence leaped out at me: Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money.
Of course, everyone from Godin to Steve Jobs has said this and I'm not sure I agree entirely (there are people who are motivated by the search to find new and interesting things to do with money, although I don't know where that motivation falls in this classification system) but it made me think about what we can and cannot get for free, and what the relationship is between these things and "value."
I decided, therefore, to compile a list of the things I do for free (I realize, objectively, that there's a difference between doing something "for free" and "not doing it for the money." Call this an interpretation.) I'm defining "for free" as follows: no money changes hands between parties. Therefore, dancing at a club (that doesn't charge a cover!) all night with my friends counts; my dance class (which I pay for) doesn't.
Here we go.
1. Write this blog. Since I'm a journalist, I usually get paid for what I write. That is not the case with this blog. The great thing about writing that you don't get paid for is that you can write whatever the hell you please. This blog is disorganized, lacks a theme and doesn't even remotely help me "brand myself in the digital age." It's awesome, really.
2. Hang out. Not the new feature on Google Plus. It's taken me a really long time to learn how important it is to find, nurture and appreciate relationships with people who prioritize my happiness and encourage me to grow as a person, maybe because I grew up in such a warm and supportive family that I took that warmth and support for granted. It's only now that I'm living in India that I realize that without my friends, I would have almost no joy in life. And I say that as someone who really enjoys her job and learns a lot from it.
3. Run. I pay for the gym, not for the outdoors. Although to be fair, since I've joined my gym and thanks to Delhi's extreme heat, I've kinda given up on running outside. But back when I actually ran outdoors frequently (oh college days, how I mourn you) I got lots of fresh air and open track for free. (There's an enclosed point here about public spaces and their importance to national wellbeing, but anyway...)
4. Attend open mic nights. I've only done this a couple of times in Delhi, but I used to be a big fan of amateur artsy stuff of all types. I like open mic nights. I think the principle behind open mic nights is similar to the urge that has turned Kickstarter into a major grassroots contributor to arts funding in America, which is: creation is a collective experience as much as an individual one. (Alternatively, philosophically, how much of art's power derives from meeting some objective standard of quality? But anyway...)
5. Teach slum children. This is really fun and totally different from everything else I do in my life. It gives me a chance to interact with kids - which I love - and also forces me to learn new things (most recently, the geography of Africa) to teach them. Interestingly, I do this with a friend, and one of the great things about starting a "reach" project with someone you know is that you'll discover a new and interesting side of them that you didn't know before. Also, the nice thing about it being free is that you know from the start it's not about the time on the clock.
6. Learn things. A friend recently told me about Code Academy, the other day I read an awesome paper on eusociality through ScienceDaily, a few days before that I read six poems by Catullus in the original Latin with English translations (on Wikisource), and a few days before that I watched some Harvard lecture on building websites through Udemy. Obviously, I'm not going to get a PhD in any of these subjects - which is what makes them great! There will be no grades, there are no transcripts, there are no obsessive hours spent agonizing over loans or writing bitter blog posts about the "return on investment" I didn't get on my expensive education. Ahem.
7. Read. It totally counts as free if I'm reading ebooks I downloaded from Project Gutenberg!! This has probably been the single most rewarding experience of my entire life, and no one has ever paid me for it. (Considering that for much of my childhood, I checked out books from the library, I think even that counts as free.) Reading taught me how to write, it taught me how to think, it taught me about the world long before I had the means to see it. It taught me about history, about money, about ideas, really, about everything. I suppose reading for free means reading that isn't related to work or (formal) schooling, and there too the payoff is freedom to read whatever I like, however closely I prefer.
8. Work in amateur theatre. This is just turning into a list of my unpaid hobbies, at this point, so I'm going to skip additional details.
Grand point: a lot of the brave and beautiful things in my life are things I don't do for money. (I wrote about another such thing recently.) I think another theme that emerges - and this might be what Godin is hinting at - is that the absence of money sometimes also means the presence of freedom. Usually, money comes with strings attached: you need to have a plan for it in order to get it, or you have to do very specific things to earn it, etc. This is true even of applying for scientific grants or artistic funding, processes that theoretically reward "wild ideas." Being formulaic pays. In fact, as Godin says, having money discourages risk-taking. (Although having "nothing to lose" is an attitude as much as a state of being - it's the confidence that comes of knowing you can build yourself back up again, no matter what you lose.)
Also, to close my point, one of the most universal and valuable things a person can do is be a good parent. The different between being a bad parent and being a good one is nonexistent, since the job doesn't earn, but on a practical level, it makes all the difference in the world.
Of course, everyone from Godin to Steve Jobs has said this and I'm not sure I agree entirely (there are people who are motivated by the search to find new and interesting things to do with money, although I don't know where that motivation falls in this classification system) but it made me think about what we can and cannot get for free, and what the relationship is between these things and "value."
I decided, therefore, to compile a list of the things I do for free (I realize, objectively, that there's a difference between doing something "for free" and "not doing it for the money." Call this an interpretation.) I'm defining "for free" as follows: no money changes hands between parties. Therefore, dancing at a club (that doesn't charge a cover!) all night with my friends counts; my dance class (which I pay for) doesn't.
Here we go.
1. Write this blog. Since I'm a journalist, I usually get paid for what I write. That is not the case with this blog. The great thing about writing that you don't get paid for is that you can write whatever the hell you please. This blog is disorganized, lacks a theme and doesn't even remotely help me "brand myself in the digital age." It's awesome, really.
2. Hang out. Not the new feature on Google Plus. It's taken me a really long time to learn how important it is to find, nurture and appreciate relationships with people who prioritize my happiness and encourage me to grow as a person, maybe because I grew up in such a warm and supportive family that I took that warmth and support for granted. It's only now that I'm living in India that I realize that without my friends, I would have almost no joy in life. And I say that as someone who really enjoys her job and learns a lot from it.
3. Run. I pay for the gym, not for the outdoors. Although to be fair, since I've joined my gym and thanks to Delhi's extreme heat, I've kinda given up on running outside. But back when I actually ran outdoors frequently (oh college days, how I mourn you) I got lots of fresh air and open track for free. (There's an enclosed point here about public spaces and their importance to national wellbeing, but anyway...)
4. Attend open mic nights. I've only done this a couple of times in Delhi, but I used to be a big fan of amateur artsy stuff of all types. I like open mic nights. I think the principle behind open mic nights is similar to the urge that has turned Kickstarter into a major grassroots contributor to arts funding in America, which is: creation is a collective experience as much as an individual one. (Alternatively, philosophically, how much of art's power derives from meeting some objective standard of quality? But anyway...)
5. Teach slum children. This is really fun and totally different from everything else I do in my life. It gives me a chance to interact with kids - which I love - and also forces me to learn new things (most recently, the geography of Africa) to teach them. Interestingly, I do this with a friend, and one of the great things about starting a "reach" project with someone you know is that you'll discover a new and interesting side of them that you didn't know before. Also, the nice thing about it being free is that you know from the start it's not about the time on the clock.
6. Learn things. A friend recently told me about Code Academy, the other day I read an awesome paper on eusociality through ScienceDaily, a few days before that I read six poems by Catullus in the original Latin with English translations (on Wikisource), and a few days before that I watched some Harvard lecture on building websites through Udemy. Obviously, I'm not going to get a PhD in any of these subjects - which is what makes them great! There will be no grades, there are no transcripts, there are no obsessive hours spent agonizing over loans or writing bitter blog posts about the "return on investment" I didn't get on my expensive education. Ahem.
7. Read. It totally counts as free if I'm reading ebooks I downloaded from Project Gutenberg!! This has probably been the single most rewarding experience of my entire life, and no one has ever paid me for it. (Considering that for much of my childhood, I checked out books from the library, I think even that counts as free.) Reading taught me how to write, it taught me how to think, it taught me about the world long before I had the means to see it. It taught me about history, about money, about ideas, really, about everything. I suppose reading for free means reading that isn't related to work or (formal) schooling, and there too the payoff is freedom to read whatever I like, however closely I prefer.
8. Work in amateur theatre. This is just turning into a list of my unpaid hobbies, at this point, so I'm going to skip additional details.
Grand point: a lot of the brave and beautiful things in my life are things I don't do for money. (I wrote about another such thing recently.) I think another theme that emerges - and this might be what Godin is hinting at - is that the absence of money sometimes also means the presence of freedom. Usually, money comes with strings attached: you need to have a plan for it in order to get it, or you have to do very specific things to earn it, etc. This is true even of applying for scientific grants or artistic funding, processes that theoretically reward "wild ideas." Being formulaic pays. In fact, as Godin says, having money discourages risk-taking. (Although having "nothing to lose" is an attitude as much as a state of being - it's the confidence that comes of knowing you can build yourself back up again, no matter what you lose.)
Also, to close my point, one of the most universal and valuable things a person can do is be a good parent. The different between being a bad parent and being a good one is nonexistent, since the job doesn't earn, but on a practical level, it makes all the difference in the world.
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