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I may have mentioned this somewhere else. My friend George (of blessed memory) used to say that life was 80% maintenance.
I realize now, many years later, that for me, this is wrong. George, bless him, may have experienced this, because he actually had some down time in his daily life, and hung out with friends and family often to do fun and meaningful things. He had some unspoken white male privilege that we just took as read.
None of us seem to have time, money, or energy to do fun or nice things anymore. The group of friends really fell apart after he died.
Life, for me, is about 117% maintenance on any given day right now. I'm serious. I know 117% is impossible, but it's what it feels like. Everything is maintenance. And on mornings like this when I'm having insomnia, it hits even harder.
I was talking with an old friend on Sunday about the monetization of everything, the transactional nature of everything, and he was telling me how a lot of that stems from Christianity. I was trying to wrap my head around the transactional nature of believing in Jesus Christ as the savior. Not having been raised Christian, it's not easy for me to understand, but I'm starting to get it, which means I'm starting to understand this undercurrent in American culture. I'm sure it's similar in other countries.
I mentioned how there are no free spaces to be in anymore. Everything is monetized. The culture of the coffee shop means that you have to spend money to be somewhere. The culture of micro-transactions and monetizing every last bit of your daily life means that there are not free public spaces in which people gather to do things that are not monetized and controlled. One of the last bastions of this freedom is the public library.
It's been a gradual creep, this pay-to-play culture. It's been an intentional creep, apparently as well. Monetizing our every minute has become glorified and captured in the grind. Money and having lots of it is still considered neutral/good rather than the old idea of "the root of all evil", and monetizing every action is considered to be entrepreneurial or savvy or... whatever.
It's not healthy.
Neither is having a life where 117% of it is maintenance and negative however many percent of it is relaxation and fun and actual personal interaction, growth, rest, and enjoyment.
In spite of attempting to step out of grind culture, apparently I am still strongly affected by it. And I have a shit ton of privilege!!! I'm housed, I have a fairly stable income for now, and I have access to good food. I have relative health atm and I am able to invest in that.
But I don't have the same social structure I had when George was alive. There's very little true relaxation. There's very little relaxed interaction with other human beings. And I definitely don't do crowds or parties anymore because of the pandemic.
I miss George. Being around him was relaxing. We got to do fun things like drum circles and seasonal celebrations with our intentional group that we had. We even traveled all together to festivals now and again! I know I lived a very stressed out, insecure life when he was around, but getting to have breaks for fun with him and friends was really good. Maybe my life was only 95% maintenance then. 
Watch the creep, my friends. Watch the creep of monetization and taking away your time. Intentionally resist where you can. Carve out spaces where things are not monetized if at all possible. Make those spaces for other people if you have the means. We're still all in this together, regardless of what lies we hear in popular media or from other people.
George did not lie about maintenance. He did the maintenance he needed to do, and he worked right up to at least 80% of it. Maybe it was part of his own resistance to take that 20% back for himself and enjoy being with his family and friends. Maybe I need to push for that in my own life? 20% would seem pretty damn spacious to me right now.
@arisummerland The inability to request a part time schedule even if you can survive on reduced pay seems like the same general collusion as return-to-office mandates. If we start having ideas about being people, and not just employee-consumers, we very well might work *and* consume less, nibbling the "surplus value" profit sandwich at both ends.
It'd also likely save the planet, but who cares about that when you can keep a jet for those weekend trips to Mallorca?
@cwicseolfor 
public education having failed me, I have no idea where that is... *goes to Maps* oh, I see it is a "renowned island vacation destination" in the Mediterranean.
Well, lucky them, I guess. Unlucky earth and the rest of us because of them.
But you're right. I feel like we became consumers within my lifetime. We were headed that way before my lifetime, but I rarely see the word "citizen" used anymore.
I wish I understood the transactional nature of everything, why it's apparently rooted in Christianity (?), and why people keep buying into it.
Empathy (except oddly monetized, fake versions?) seems to be nonexistent anymore in the world. If it is, it's a rare pocket of it, soon to be crushed by our monetized existence.
Oh gosh. I need to go hug a tree now or something. I've made myself depressed! 
@arisummerland After a nap I can probably dig into the roots in Christian hegemonic culture pretty easily. I think in *practice* for people who were raised in this culture but don't associate it with religion it boils down to a scarcity-brained zero-sum idea of resources. If you give anything up, you'd better get sth back, or you're presumably being taken advantage of (& God, per Calvinism, or its secular rebrand as the Law of Attraction, would only let that happen to you if you deserved it!)
@cwicseolfor Ohhhh.... hmmm. Starting to make sense! Thanks.
@arisummerland There's another part of this equation that I think gets overlooked often and contributes to that feeling of 117%.
"Maintenance" has a marketing problem. It is unsexy work to most people, and very often isn't seen. This is absolutely ridiculous for something that constitutes so much of our time (80%? 117%? more?).
In addition to "carving out space," I think we need to do a better job of making the maintenance we do transparent to the people around us and giving it the credit it deserves. I'm still chipping at this, but I'm trying to practice more in-the-moment gratitude about the little stuff I do to set myself (and those around me) up for success.
...yes, I work on infrastructure for a living, how did you know? 
More seriously, though, this applies to way more than the physical/digital infrastructure we use to live.
@internet_ryan ohhh yes, that is awesome. I do my very best to think about past me and future me from the viewpoint of present me. So, as far as success at maintenance or other things go, I often try to do things so future me is set up for success -- for lack of a better phrase. Often, I will stop and thank past me for doing the thing that made it possible for future me (actually present me, in that moment) to do another thing without hassle. It's fun!
@arisummerland Internet stranger, I hope you manage to find/make/chip out some space so that your 117% reduces. And that the people you want to relax with can do the same thing so that you are all available at the same time.
@exlibrarykris Thank you kindly!