Coffee and Esoteric Entrepreneurship
How to make money in 2021
You can't get a cup of coffee these days without engaging with the coffee industry culture. The barista has become a symbol of minimum wage workers trying to get rid of the blue-collar stench. Do you really need 10 years of experience to make me a double espresso?
This isn't about coffee though. Have you noticed that there are no plain jobs anymore? There are industries and cultures and paraphernalia surrounding them. That's because the value of labour is chronically declining so we have to make that other stuff up in order to inflate said value and save our wages.
We're so desensitized to the infinite supply of consumer goods that we can't accept that it's too much. Yes, it's too much!
I believe that at one point, the market egregores realized they can't continue providing the same offers over and over again and expect growth to be exponential. But unfortunately, capitalism means that if you don't grow, you rot. There's no fluctuating stasis, there's only moving forward.
They decided - or is it a naturally occurring phenomenon? - to create an abstract layer of value on top of physical products. Extra fodder for the ever-burning furnaces of profit.
So, coffee became a double-spice, cinnamon, half-fat whipped, iced latte sold for $7, made by a guy who studied this academically.
This is obviously a bubble. The current economic biotope can support the outrageous, yet fictional, consumer demands. But how much time do we have until the "Useless Seminar for Simple Job" convention becomes obsolete and the motivational speakers are ousted from public forums with tar and feathers? My bet is until we escape the current paradigm of entrepreneurhip.
Esoteric Entrepreneurship
Back in 2009, there's a spike in Google Trends for the term "entrepreneurship".
Coincidentally, around the same time our Lord and Savior Tim Ferris has a similar uptick in interest.
"The Entrepreneur" species were attracted by the piano rag tune playing in the background of the economic collapse, chasing the track serving ice cream and shaved ice. It's a proper American export, a product of the bootstrapping, self-made, Ayn Rand, free markets assembly line that the older generation happily oiled for decades - ignoring the pool of industrial waste at the end of it.
What was supposed to be an ephemeral, reactionary coping mechanism for the troubles of the middle class, became a cultural phenomenon 12 years later. The internet helped push the idea that everyone can make it. Everyone is still trying.
In the meantime, the businessman eclipsed because to be a businessman, you need profit. To be an entrepreneur, you need vision. And visions are free and plentiful! So, because running a business and being a true innovator are actually hard things to do, most simply adopted the persona associated with the latter.
Empty carcasses of wannabes and wannados are retching the streets with their overinflated self-worth and egregious demands.
The trickle-down effect has been massive, in my estimation. We now expect the 20-year-old kid behind the counter, drowning in debt, living in a 2x2 box to be happy and upbeat, self-motivated and determined, a perfect worker, with a smile on his face serving you your stupid fucking coffee.
Because esoteric entrepreneurship demands you to be this person. Even without doing what this kind of person is supposed to be doing or receiving the benefits of it. Esoteric entrepreneurship promises you that an internal transformation precedes money and success.
You can't simply BE these days. You need to have thousands of things going on for you. Construction worker moonlighting as a SaaS start-up CEO, school teacher peddling writing courses online, Uber driver dabbling with day trading.
Are you good enough to be one of us?
Every few weeks, I receive the odd email requesting my assistance in some sort of copywriting task from agencies/companies. While I'm flattered, given I'm ESL, I can't help but feel annoyed with their entitlement.
Oh, I can immediately tell who's running a business and who's running with an idea. Both want the same things but the former adds an extra zero at the end.
The entrepreneurs need to entrap you into their world. They ORDER you to change your personality to work for them. And what they offer is a sense of "I'm good enough". Which rarely puts food on the table.
This part of an offer I received (copy-paste):
Must be easy going, fun and open
Must be a team player and want to be part of a mission-driven culture
Must be humble, no inflated egos
Must be available for daily calls and team catch-ups
Must be dedicated and committed to our vision
"Must be willing to put out from the first day. Dude, you're looking for a boyfriend, not a freelancer."
In the same way making coffee became a complex socioeconomic product of interdependent industries, work has become a relic of the pre-internet era. Nowadays, people don't ask you what do you do for a living, they ask who you are.
And if I'm being honest, who you are is intimately connected with what you do. It just happens that esoteric entrepreneurship brainwashed you into thinking you're not enough.
This post was [Written by Human], and not a robot. Make sure to subscribe or else...
Much wow, or like people like to say - “Banger”. Very enjoyed it, hits hard. keep up the great work!
P.S. the only people who ask me “what do you do for a living” these days are border control guys.