You May Be Severely Injured and Anemic but Don’t You Dare Skip Gym Day.

I’m 38 and I Can’t Support Myself Anymore The ideal person under capitalism is tireless, independent, resilient, endlessly capable of overriding their own limits in service of output. You may be severely injured and anemic but don’t you dare skip gym day. When you become chronically ill or disabled, you begin to understand how deeply this ideology has embedded itself into the psyche. The shame of no longer being able to work consistently feels personal. As though my body’s inability to keep pace with capitalism says something fundamental about who I am. It’s there every time you meet someone new and one of their first questions is, “What do you do?” They’re not asking about your passions, your hobbies, or the mundane human tasks that take up most of your time. They’re asking how you make money. How you turn yourself into income. In this way, illness strips people not only of income but of social legitimacy. I didn’t just lose the ability to work consistently. I lost the cultural…