Learning new skills during my downtime
voorhoede.nl
voorhoede.nl
It's not a direct response to this article, but to this general trend of seeing free time as a thing that must be optimised and turned into economic opportunities.
What a shame.
Why do we work five days a week until we're old and getting ready to die? It's not like the time before or after work is enjoyable. At least it isn't for me.
So we only get two days a week for ourselves, mostly to catch up with chores we couldn't complete in the other five days.
We need four day work weeks.
Capitalism requires us trade our labor for the compensation necessary to buy food, clothing and shelter until we're old and our labor is no longer worth anything to the market.
Also, because of the Jewish Sabbath, and later because of unions and labor laws, since the norm used to be a seven day workweek[0].
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend#History
And in that sense, capitalism is the only system in which that is required.
It's quite fun and keeps you a bit busy.
But in general I'd say: don't feel pressure to be productive during this 'downtime'. There are more important things right now than learning now skills. ;-)