This is a Substack about being burnt out by capitalism.
More specifically, it is about class division and the stresses of everyday life in a capitalist hellscape.
A Thousand Natural Shocks is a reference to Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” speech. The full quote is “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” which is a phrase that has calcified in my brain.
Money, jobs, love, housing, fulfilmment: all promises made to lower to middle class Gen X and Millennials if they just followed the right path. Not even worth tempting with happiness, Gen Z straight up inherited a broken world. Speaking as someone born and raised in the United States, I am exhausted by the individualist lies I was fed about how to achieve a successful life.
Go to an expensive college and take out loans and if you don’t you’re a loser
Move to a big city and if not, you’re a loser
Get a job and if it’s not in your field, you’re a loser
Find a nice apartment and aspire to live alone or you’re a loser
Work really hard and be busy and aspire to be a good worker and get promoted and make a lot of money or you’re a loser
Expensive self-care?
And on and on and on. We were hammered with narratives meant to break us away from community and sell us upward economic mobility that does not exist for most of us.
The word “natural” in the title of this Substack is not to say that life is naturally this difficult and fractured, but that we can’t beat ourselves or each other up for the trajectories we can’t predict and for the purposeful objections to growth and peace barreling down on us from on high.
You can be as responsible as Dave Ramsey yells at you to be, and life still sucks.
This isn’t financial advice.
Okay, it isn’t only financial advice. It’s talking to each other like human beings and not white-toothed Fox Business correspondents or multi-millionares telling you to just budget. But also, you know, uplifting and sometimes funny.
A Thousand Natural Shocks is the truth of the matter. I am somewhat Internet famous and I work a minimum wage job. I’ve done sex work. I have lost a house in a break up. I’ve transitioned and lost my sponsorships. I have sold all my possessions to stay afloat. I’ve had crushing debt. I’ve attempted suicide because of money. I’m living under a government that’s trying to kill me because it might drop the price of eggs.
There are more people like me than there are people wondering about how to play the stock market.
So to paraphrase Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver” (because trans men really ARE men):
Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you.
Who Am I?
I am Gabe Dunn, a New York Times best selling author, writer, filmmaker, pet shop employee and trans guy hailing from Florida. I have hosted the finance and feelings podcast Bad With Money since 2016. The show began as a way to chronicle my personal money education and ended up turning me into a socialist.
I grew up in a addict and alcoholic household where money wasn’t really discussed and was therefore confusing. We seemed to fluctuate between dire straits and randomly flush.
In 2019, I wrote the nonfiction book, “Bad With Money” aimed at erasing shame and helping people get their financial lives together in a system that made it nearly impossible.
In my 20s, I believed in a meritocracy when it came to myself. When I failed, it was because I was missing a magic ingredient that all my peers in Los Angeles had that I didn’t. I believed that ingredient was hard work.
It was not. It was money.
What To Expect
I will be writing essays on my personal experiences with capitalist burn out, mental illness, advice about finances and feelings, and working toward community under these back-breaking conditions.
One essay will be paid, and another open to everyone - so if you subscribe as a paid subscriber, you’ll get four essays a month and if you don’t, you’ll get two.
Every new post is also sent directly to your email inbox.
Should I Sign Up?
Yes! Even as a free subscriber you’ll get access to my writing, and as a paid one, you’ll get the real juice. I’m coming out of a depression (bipolar hive rise) and I’m mad as hell about the world. You’re gonna wanna see this.
