I'm not sure I've ever written about DLE before, but I figured this would be a good place to write up a basic introductory guide- what DLE is, how I discovered it, and why I now use it as a guiding philosophy in all fields.
DLE stands for "Direct Life Experience," and I present it as an alternative to the Protestant Work Ethic, or PWE. The PWE, as I see it, like all things to do with Protestantism or Catholicism, is an outdated, tautological idea which has no value in the modern era. Much like the Divine Right Of Kings, which states that nobody can question the legitimacy of a king because the king's power is bestowed by God, the Protestant Work Ethic encourages excessive labor because it promises a fulfilling afterlife in Heaven. Of course, as with all appendages of religion, Heaven is a comforting lie used by those in power to maintain power- a carrot on a stick, in effect. One should not work hard with the expectation of an infinite reward, because anyone who expects infinite reward is only going to be disappointed when the infinite reward fails to materialize.
The best way to live, I think, is to confront life on its own terms. DLE is closely related to hedonism, and I apply both in equal measure (My essay on hedonism and its benefits can be found here), although DLE can be experienced without hedonism. If hedonism entails the practice of maximizing personal joy at the expense of the so-called "suffering of life," that is, to reject the idea that all life or even most life need be suffering (which is rooted in the explicitly Christian notion that life is a transitory state, rather than the only state)- DLE is the opposite side of the coin- the bitter dessert of contemplation and self-actualization after the main course of reckless abandon. Both states of being compliment each other reasonably, and I would recommend, if you are a hedonist, to at least give DLE a try, because it can provide a useful contrast and a new perspective.
One problem I've noticed with my generation in particular (Gen Z) is that we're inherently materialistic. We are, perhaps, more materialistic than any generation previously. We can't help this- these systems of materialism were passed down to us by the previous generations, of course- but we experience a lot more of it. We've convinced ourselves that college is necessary, that if one doesn't go to college one will be unable to function as a productive member of society. All my friends want to be lawyers or scientists, they talk about big houses and big cars and steak dinners. Everyone is in the pursuit of material excess while simultaneously denying their hunger for material excess and feigning moral superiority. This obsession with the acquisition of material results in a lack of identity and individuality- nobody my age even seems to want such a thing. An identity is a luxury which they assume will materialize spontaneously at some time in their thirties. They don't consider that, at a certain point in time, identities were usually present at 17 or earlier. This isn't an issue in older generations, particularly the pre-Millennial ones. I heard a 50-year old friend of mine complain about people being "slaves to their jobs," leaving events at 10 P.M. to wake up the next day without considering that staying up late might provide more fulfillment than waking up early the next day, and I had to explain to him that's simply how my generation views things, that we outright deny autonomy.
The fixation with college, in particular, is detrimental, because college only funnels people towards occupations which benefit the system. College, in most cases, does not facilitate the formation of an identity, it only creates a bland attitude and funnels one into an unfulfilling position in some tech firm or law firm. These jobs pay extremely well, because the economy incentivizes them- but money is worthless if the mind goes unnourished. If one works in a tech firm and only thinks in terms of IT support, for multiple days a week, one isn't going to have fun on their luxury yacht. This is the trade- one can have an excessive, materialistic life if one is willing to lose their vital humanity. And then one commits suicide, because one becomes apathetic toward the value of life. Suicide is also, of course, motivated by the fallacious belief in a superior afterlife. I see this pattern play out, again and again. It is becoming repetitive at this point, to watch as my peers- who I wouldn't even necessarily consider peers, because they seem to operate under the PWE without recognizing as much- follow the same path of self-destruction.
The lack of a coherent identity is especially prevalent in Denver. Denver has an unstable population, meaning that it is full of people who leave, arrive, and stay for five-year periods on average. There is in fact a stable population, but these people never go outside because they hate what their city has become. They live indoors like the sequestered undead because Denver engenders a type of endemic neuroticism. It's written into Denver's structural fabric and cannot be separated. Denver's key problem is that it favors its unstable population and neglects or outright ignores its stable population. Coloradans are not viewed as a legitimate American demographic in the same way Yankees and Southerners and Midwesterners are. This invalidation of identity, this denial of lived experience, means that only people who do not identify as Coloradans or Denverites get to enjoy life in Denver. Denver is frequented by the jet-setting hoi polloi who regard it as merely another destination and don't stay long enough to see the havoc their careless behavior wreaks on the people who have resided here for multiple generations.
I was at a civic meeting the other day and heard someone from out of town remark that Denver is a "developing city," and I had to wonder what that even means- Denver is and has always been a developing city, for 150+ years of cyclical history it's been a developing city. It develops but goes nowhere. Denver wasn't created yesterday, Denver is caught in a repetitive loop where we fail, over and over, to learn from our mistakes because by the time the next cycle comes around and it's time to fix our mistakes, the entire population has been supplanted. There is no long-term investment here, no century-long consideration, we don't plant time capsules because we know any such project wouldn't last. We lack both foresight and hindsight. I've spoken to city planners who are from Texas and attempt to design streets in a manner they find aesthetically pleasing in Houston or wherever, and I want to scream at them that it won't work, that turning Denver into a gaudy theme park attraction at the expense of actual practical use is of no benefit to anyone, and that to be an effective civic planner you would need to be from Denver, and understand vital facets of Denver geography. The expensive high-rise apartment complexes of today will only decay and become the exact same torn-down slums in 40 years, because everyone who built them will have left. I spoke with this city planner, after they made a snide remark about how white Denver is (mind you, they're white and from a less diverse area) about how the diversification of the city will be a step-by-step, incremental process, but that we are gradually seeing an influx of Hispanic and African-American citizens, and how I knew this because I live next to Colfax, and Colfax serves as a unique window into Denver's shifting demographics, given that it includes virtually all groups. They were dismissive of this, tsk-tsking in a kind of condescending academic superiority, as if they knew my own city better than I did, and scoffed at my anecdotal methods.
It may be true, of course, that Denver might come off as homogenous to someone who moves here from a comparatively diverse area. I don't see, though, how someone who ostensibly wants to promote diversity will simultaneously discredit the firsthand lived experience of someone who interacts with more groups and places than they ever will. They, being collegiate, being a "have" in a system of haves and have-nots, drive around enclosed in their car, entirely sheltered from the outside world, unaware of the plight of the downtrodden. I, on the other hand, take the bus everywhere, so I've seen the groups at the Downing intersection who spread messages of Rastafarianism and have Nation of Islam rings and are actually concerned with the state of their city. I interact with Denver's African-American population on a daily basis, I hear them talk about how they dislike the influx of rich coastal tourists, and as such I know more. I learn more about people and their sociological interactions riding up and down the Colfax bus than someone will ever learn in a social studies course at Harvard.
People who have to confront reality on a daily basis- people who ride the bus because they don't have a car, people who walk everywhere, people who work in pizzerias or convenience stores instead of hipster conglomerates or chic offices- these people become extremely grounded and level-headed, pragmatic rather than idealistic. These people provide the actual roots and fundamental building blocks of culture. If harnessed, if tapped into and portrayed, they can be given a voice with which they can effect real change. But so long as they remain powerless in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles- rising rent prices, bad weather, a lack of water and food- Denver will continue along its chaotic descent.
What's especially absurd is that people who are clearly in a position of privilege fail to notice their privilege- to "check" it, as the saying goes. Relatively, I'm privileged compared to the people who sleep in doorways on Colfax- however, compared to most of my peers (Peers, again, being questionable)- I'm at an extreme disadvantage. I'm autistic, which means that I can't operate in group settings, meaning that I'm ineligible for 99% of jobs which would entail me operating in a hierarchy at someone else's behest. I'm a hyperindividualistic egomaniac and somewhat misanthropic- neither of these traits are economically or societally incentivized- and I'm asexual, meaning that I cannot rely on someone else for economic or mental stability. I therefore find it bizarre when a college educated scientist, for instance- maybe the most privileged demographic it's possible to be in these days unless you're a millionaire- accuses me of being privileged because I live in Denver but don't have to pay rent. I don't pay rent because I'm a fifth-generation Coloradan and my existence here is essentially a fact of life, I wouldn't feel comfortable moving anywhere else because I've been here so long that I wouldn't be able to function anywhere else. I know there are other Denverites who feel this brooding isolation- but, again, they all remain indoors. The scientists don't realize how privileged they are- to be able to move cities every ten years, to adapt and grow and learn, to function in a collegiate and professional capacity. My generation is full of people who complain about the effects of late-stage capitalism while only enabling and facilitating late-stage capitalism, they seem to assume I'm one of them even though I've lived most of my life in abject poverty, and they complain about how the system works them to death without considering that ultimately, being completely disenfranchised by the system is much worse than being able to function within it.
Other terminology is equally alien to me- the concept of the "third space," for instance. I was talking to someone and they remarked about how they don't see the "third space," then went on to explain to me in lurid detail the exact same concept I'd heard of in countless listicles and pretentious diatribes online- that the current generation lacks a "third space" besides home and work. I can't relate to this conundrum because, as a freelance artist- the only occupation I feel comfortable pursuing- my home is my office- and I experience third spaces all the time which aren't either. I'm on the bus a ton, I walk all over aimlessly. I go to overstimulating concerts because I need sensory input, I'm bored out of my head from a general lack of adversity. I would go as far as to posit that 75% of my existence is spent in third spaces, and in fact one could make a decent argument that Denver, in its entirety, is a third space- a transitory, decaying realm, a city that time forgot, an environment nobody is willing to acknowledge because they're either in their car or locked behind closed doors or on their phone, or attending college, which is the ultimate echo chamber. It is impossible to live here for prolonged periods of time without feeling aimless, because even the most highly valued jobs and positions result in nothing of any real consequence taking place. There are no material gains to pursue. Mentally ill people my age want desperately to be in a gang without realizing that gangs are a byproduct of societal adversity, and their college education means that they won't be forming the next NWA anytime soon.
To tie this all back to the PWE, I believe that the Protestant Work Ethic is mostly to blame, and that more people would do well to consider whether their behavior is influenced by it. Do you work long shifts in the pursuit of a retirement fund? Well, that retirement might be nice, but by then you'll have shingles and arthritis and you won't be able to have fun anymore. You'll look back on your 20s and think, "wow, my job sucked ass and I could have been having cheaper forms of fun and worked less." Do you want a big yacht? Well, bad news- the Egyptian afterlife is just as fake as the Christian one, so even if you mummify and embalm yourself and bury yourself alive in a massive tomb with all your riches and worldly possessions, they won't be following you to the afterlife because there is no such thing. Your yacht might be fun, but you'll only be able to enjoy it for maybe a decade before you cease to exist, so just buy a little rowboat when you're 20 and you can enjoy it for a much longer time.
DLE is, as the name implies, a form of direct experience with life, a middle finger to college and to professionalism and to any notion of a superior being. It means walking whenever possible, going out in blizzards and rainstorms and all kinds of inclement weather, it means taking the roads less traveled, soaking in as much life as possible even when doing so doesn't make any practical sense. It means learning to enjoy the mundane or even the negative- to view all events in life as interesting and worthwhile, and to only work enough as is absolutely necessary to maintain basic health. In a world of increasing escapism, I find it very interesting to watch as the physical world is increasingly ignored or neglected, and left to rot- which, again, manifests in a particularly unique way here. I believe this may be an increasing trend, as time goes on- "third spaces" will indeed become less and less common, until the only ones available are sewers and alleyways. The class divide between the college-educated and non-college educated public will increase until the strain leads to some kind of breaking point. The megalopolises in the skies will serve as inaccessible glitter atop a cake of smog and waste, and neither group will be able to relate to the other.
DLE is good because it creates extremely smart, resilient individuals. The Hobo culture of the 1920s and 1930s, for instance, produced maybe the greatest specimens of humanity who ever lived. They had culture and folklore and methods of communication which were entirely unique, and these forms were shaped by hardship and adversity. They lived according to DLE- blatantly breaking or disregarding societal norms in favor of stoic individualism, working only when necessary to sustain themselves, and contacting the real world in its broken detail every single day. They are, I would say, perhaps the best example of DLE in practice.
One benefit of DLE is that it makes one virtually immune to cult indoctrination. The common stereotype of people in poverty falling victim to the seductive promises of cult leaders is mostly false. Many cults- the vast majority, in fact- operate on elitist principles. NXIVM was composed mostly of Hollywood elites, many of the Manson Family were Beverly Hills trust fund kids. Perhaps the best example of academic elitism in the cult mentality would be Dr. Frederick Lenz, who encouraged members of his fanatical sect to become high-level computer programmers, and who developed a mystic symbiosis between computer language and spirituality. Much of the new-age bullshit prosperity gospel type notions of the 90s which still plague today's generation can, in one way or another, be traced back to him.
Now ask yourself: who would be more susceptible to the guiles of a manipulative cult leader? Poindexter Pete, who works in IT and knows nothing except how to boot up a hard drive, and craves danger because his life is boring and mundane, or Hobo Joe, who eats nails for breakfast and lives with the sack slung over his shoulder, and lives only for himself every waking hour? If, say, Keith Raniere or one of these smooth-talking bozos were to go up to Pete and Joe, and ask both of them to join his sunshine harem, who do you think would hop on board and who do you think would issue Keith a prompt knuckle sandwich with all the trimmings? You can probably see where I'm going with this- anyone who incorporates inherently Protestant values into their life, in any capacity, is more likely to end up falling for other bullshit. And anyone who negates their own autonomy in favor of the will of someone- anyone- in power- is destined for a life of suboptimal boredom as a pawn with no purpose.
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