saving ink

I can unequivocally say that 2011 was the most formidable and fulfilling year of my adult life. It was my first full year of just freelancing, which means it was the first year that I have been wholly in charge of my financial situation. It was also the first year I have kept a detailed budget since I had my first job at 16. It was the year I paid off my credit cards in full. It was the year I didn’t leave Central Europe all summer, and still had a blast. It was the year I stepped foot on the African continent for the first time (and did it cheap as hell). Most importantly, it was the year I broke even, despite working the least and having the most fun of my adult life.

But forget my words, let’s look at the numbers, because graphs are fun!

Here’s a breakdown of my total expenses for 2011, by category:

Fun fact: I spent 1/3 of my food budget on booze. Yay? The basics such as rent, electricity, and food ate up the biggest chunk of my budget, but paying off those credit cards (i.e. the sins of the past) really took a toll. 2012 goal: keep that number under 5%. Oh, and then there’s that pesky student loan…

Now that we’ve got money out, here’s money in:

As you can see, proofreading and translations paid the bills. Considering my savings took a hit, it’s no surprise I barely earned any interest. Other is generally selling stuff, band money (very rare), photography gigs (even more rare) or gifts from family, while writing only earned me a measly 6% of my income. My goal for 2012: 50% income from writing.

Perhaps the hardest part of freelancing was the month-to-month disparities in income. Feast or famine, as they say:

(Net income + savings - net expenses)

All in all, I scraped by. I earned exactly PLN 188.39 (about $50) more than I spent in 2011, and managed to end up with just under PLN 800 (about $230) more in my savings account than I started 2011 with.

The Important Part

Victory? Technically, yes. Really though, this was just a(n educational) start to the freelance lifestyle, and this year I need to earn a whole lot more, spend a bit less (especially on booze, ouch) to make this thing sustainable. There is some hope, though, because here’s another telling figure:

Pages translated or proofread in 2011: 1085.18
Estimated hours worked* in 2011: 813.89
Hours worked in a normal 9-5, 40hrs/wk job (assuming 50 weeks): 2,000

What this means: while the average joe was slaving away in a lightless office for 2,000 hours of 2011, I spent about half of that actually working, while the rest was spent reading, working on my websites, reading more, playing music, biking, enjoying the summer, going to festivals, traveling, and in general feeling better about life. That also means I can still work a bit more this year, earn a better income, while still having more free time than if I were traditionally employed.

Just to bring it all home, this was me working in November, on a sunny beach in Barcelona, sipping cappuccinos and enjoying the 19 degree t-shirt temperatures:

What this untimely means: the “free” in “freelancing” makes it absolutely worth it.

*This was my best guess, judging that it takes an average of 15-30 minutes for me to proofread one page and 40-60 minutes to translate one page, based on the breakdown of translation and proofreading pages… let’s just say there was some complicated math involved, but my best guess is that I spent between 800-1,100 hours working in 2011, whereas the average person would have spent 2,000.

This is part of my ongoing series of articles that I’ve written for Airgate magazine, one of my glamorous freelance writing gigs. This one is especially timely, considering I’m taking off for Texas in a couple of weeks, to escape the Polish winter (or at least a few months of it). Enjoy!

So, it’s your first Polish winter, you say? How hard can it really be to survive, you wonder. Or perhaps you’re a seasoned veteran of the blistering cold and are more interested in thriving rather than merely surviving? We here at Airgate care about your well-being, so whether you’d like tips for staying warm or enjoying your time out in the snow (or ideally, both!), read on.

Plan A: Get the **** out!

One might consider leaving Poland for the winter to be cheating, but I consider it as a way to maintain your sanity (and desire to live). Of course, it may be difficult or downright impossible to migrate south for months at a time due to your job, school, family responsibilities or lack of financial resources, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a more temporary escape when you need it most.

If you have a limited amount of holiday time allowed by your workplace, perhaps consider cutting that summer trip to the Baltic shorter this year (chances are it’ll rain anyway) and reserving yourself a “sanity week” come February or March or whenever you feel that spending another day looking at dirt- and dog dropping-covered snow might just drive you to consider a swan dive off the Town Hall Tower. There are plenty of warmer destinations within a few hours’ direct flight from Kraków (but you’re reading an airport magazine so you know that already), such as Rome, Italy or Alicante in Spain. You can even catch a charter flight to North African climatic paradises such as Egypt or the Canary Islands, where the average temperature in January is 17.6°C (quite nice when compared to Kraków’s January average of −2.1°C… ouch!).

Plan B: Bundle up

This may go without saying, but I have a word count to fill so I’ll say it anyway: durable, high quality winter clothes are worth their weight in gold during the cold months. Sure, your brand new trainers may be wicked right now, but come February you’ll regret sacrificing warmth for fashion when it’s -30 and you haven’t felt your toes since Christmas and are wondering if they’re still even there. A great pair of waterproof, insulated boots is indispensable come snowfall, as are the inserts (wkładki) you can buy at any shoe store for added protection. As far as jackets go, you don’t necessarily have to pay a small fortune for branded mountain trekking gear approved for -200°C with a built-in polar bear repellent (though if you plan on spending a lot of time in the Tatras, that might just come in handy), but one solid, thick jacket that’s waterproof and durable is worth shelling out a few more złoty for, particularly if you plan on spending many more winters here.

Finally, the art of layering is a good one to master. Just remember: it’s always easier to remove extra layers if you’re too warm than hope an extra layer magically materialises when you’re too cold.

Plan C: When in doubt, stay indoors

Part of Kraków’s charm is its abundance of cosy cafes, bars and restaurants, and that charm is only amplified when you’re sitting by a fire, drinking mulled wine or beer while outside snow is falling. Winter is the perfect time to explore all of those places you meant to check out during warmer days, especially if they serve hot beverages (and most do).

However, if you decide to spend most of your time in your own flat or home, be aware that your heating bills may reach astronomical proportions. There are two ways to prepare: first, put aside extra money into a “winter fund” when your bills are low in the summer, so that even a higher than expected electric or gas bill won’t put you out on the street. Some utility companies even do this automatically, by charging an averaged bill that’s identical each month and is based on your prior usage.

Second, be wise in your use of electricity or gas, both in terms of heating your flat as well as heating the water you use. Most utilities have “savings times” such as the hours between 10 pm and 6 am, and perhaps an hour or two in the afternoon, when the cost of that utility is half price (taryfy nocne). Ask your landlord or utility company when these times are, and then invest in a 12-złoty timer from Tesco or the like that will let you automatically set the heater or water heater to operate only during low cost hours.

Plan D: Embrace the cold!

The old adage “if you can’t beat them, join them” certainly applies in the case of Polish winters. While you cannot change the fact that the next few months may be unbearably cold at times and weeks may pass without you seeing the sun, you can make the best of the situation by taking up a winter sport such as skiing or snowboarding. There are several slopes within an hour or even half-hour drive of Kraków, and for longer expeditions there is the relative proximity of Zakopane, northern Slovakia or even Austria. Missing the sun? Try night skiing! Need a break from the slopes? Just about every half-decent ski lift has an adjacent diner with plenty of hot soup and mulled wine to warm you back up.

If you spend your time enjoying the cold rather than griping about it (and I suggest leaving griping in the hands of the local professionals), before you know it the sun will return and the cafes on the Market Square will be pulling their outdoor furniture back out from the cellars. And remember – when in doubt, there’s always Plan A!

It’s amazing how much the weather has an influence on me. I never really felt this in Texas. Sure, I bitched that it was hot, but it was ALWAYS hot, and for months and months that didn’t change. And anyway, I was always in an artificial climate - no matter what was happening outdoors, my day was an invariable 72 degrees and I was completely indifferent to the blazing heat or torrential downpours that were a norm. It takes a hurricane for people to notice the weather there, and only because they might be forced out of their air-conditioned homes and possibly spend some time in slightly less air-conditioned motels.

But here, weather matters. Especially now, when my days are often quite literally determined by what’s happening outside my window. Oh, it’s a sunny, beautiful summer day? Screw work, I’m going to bike 25 km because who knows when it’ll be this nice again. It’s above 30 you say? Well, that only happens a couple of times each year, so I’m definitely going swimming. It’s pouring and cold? Guess I need to leave 10 minutes earlier to catch the tram instead of taking my bike (yeah, I’m a pussy like that).

And layering - it’s really an art form. I can say I never really appreciated the amount of strategy a good layered outfit requires when I lived in a place with two fashion choices: t-shirt or t-shirt and light jacket. Here, depending on the occasion, I can go with as few as two or as many as four or five layers - and that’s just the top, there’s also the tights or long johns underneath the jeans when it gets really cold. So, a wintertime Friday night outfit can consist of a base layer of light dress over tights or a fancy t-shirt or tank top, layered with a sweater or hoodie, layered with a thick sweater if necessary, layered with a winter coat. Oh, and gloves and hat and the ubiquitous scarf (best if it can double as a hood) and perhaps another sweater in the purse, just in case. Even most summer days require light jackets or sweaters in reserve for the evenings.

But enough about fashion. What got me on the topic of weather in the first place was yet another realization of just how much influence the weather has on my mood. I feel powerless whenever I realize how little control I have over this effect, as if having control were the natural state of affairs, rather than the guise we all throw on to mask our impuissance. Heat, cold, rain, sleet - it means nothing! We mighty humans have conquered weather, have beaten Mother Nature at her own game. Watch us as we build our air-conditioned mansions and irrigate the deserts. What does it matter that it’s grey and dreary outside when I’m in my well-lit, heated office building?

It does matter, though. Being closer to the weather, having it directly affect your day also results in it gaining a direct ability in affecting your mood. In short - when it rains, I get less done. I’m sleepy and useless and have to force any semblance of productivity. And then the next day I’ve had even less sleep as I spent the previous day force feeding caffeine in order to work, but it doesn’t matter because the sun is out and I’m up and working out and working and the caffeine actually works too and isn’t it a beautiful day to be alive. And the difference is a few clouds releasing water molecules and lowering the temperature by an insignificant couple of degrees.

So maybe it is a kind of devolution - not exactly a return to nature, but at least a greater awareness of it. But it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost any kind of battle, because it seems like an awful waste of energy to be fighting this war in the first place. We evolved on a planet with seasons in most places, and despite our constant battle to ignore those changes in temperature and precipitation, as long as we’re not freezing to death or dying of heatstroke maybe it’s better to be affected by our surroundings, even if it means riding bikes instead of spending days in an office, or lying in bed watching TV instead of marking tasks off a never-ending to do list. Luckily, those are luxuries I can afford as a freelancer, but I still wonder if the rest of the Western world would be better off living like this as well.

I’ve been absent from this blog for a while, and no matter how I try to rationalize it (I’ve had a lot of work, my parents visited, there was an epic wedding weekend, I had to clean up cat puke) and say I’ve been too busy living to write, I find that excuse leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Imagine me dropping dead and my obit reading, “She was doing so well but then she got too busy to breathe. Poor thing.”

So what’s the problem, exactly? It’s been eight months since I left my old job and turned freelance. I’m slowly getting to the position where I’m getting steady work (though I need to do more marketing and sort out some legal details still). My website is set up, so all that’s left is to do the actual work when I have it, and that takes far fewer hours per week than my old job required of me, especially since I no longer have to spend eight hours in an office whether I have work to do or not. I have more time than I’ve had since my first year of college (the only time I didn’t also have a job), and plenty of ideas for writing projects, not just in this blog. And yet, it seems that every part of my day is increasingly occupied. So what’s the matter with me?

I think I’ve isolated at least part of it: I may have left my old job behind in December, but I took my old habits with me.

When I had to sit in an office all day, I developed coping mechanisms. As I’m a late riser and night worker, I’d spend the first hour or two of each morning just trying to force my brain awake so I could start being productive. This involved visiting news sites, reading my RSS feeds, downing enough coffee to dispatch a small elephant and generally killing time until I either had to do something time-sensitive or felt like my brain was present enough to start writing an actual article.

When I used to check email at work, it was a matter of keeping my head above water during the daily flood, which meant ignoring a good number of messages, putting many off until the absolute last minute, and dealing with the truly urgent ones - but not immediately, just before it was too late.

These days, I set my own hours. If I feel like working early (say, noonish), I work early. If I feel like getting groceries and working out and making a nice dinner during the day and then working until the wee hours, I do that. I don’t have a set schedule, I have a schedule regulated by necessity and efficiency. I work when I feel I’m most productive. As for email, it’s no longer a flood but a manageable trickle.

And yet, I still won’t answer some messages for days, though they require minimum effort on my part. Worse still, I find myself spending significant parts of my day visiting news sites, reading my RSS feeds, drinking coffee and energy drinks and generally killing time. Except now it’s my time that I’m wasting, not an employer’s, and I’m the only one losing out.

This week was a bit of an eye-opener, in that all of my precious habits that I had developed during my years of working at the newspaper and continued into my freelance life were forcefully disrupted. My parents visited for the week, and since my apartment is tiny that meant I slept at a friend’s place while they took over my flat. That meant no computers, TV or even wifi before bed or right in the morning. Over the weekend two of my good friends got married, and since it was a proper Polish wedding that meant the festivities started on Thursday and finished Monday morning. Luckily, I didn’t have much work during that time, and none of it was that urgent, so that means I spent less time in front of my computer and more time surrounded by breathing human beings that weekend than I had in years - and I had an amazing time. Sure, it helped that the wedding party was well stocked with enough food and booze to keep a small nation-state going for weeks, and that I was surrounded by old friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen in years, as well as my parents, who I see about once a year, but in the end what matters is that the world kept going even if I wasn’t constantly reading about it, and I didn’t die of boredom even if I didn’t constantly have a screen in front of my face.

Does that mean I’m going to throw out my computers and start crashing Polish weddings? No, I like working just enough to ward off imminent starvation (though, have you ever seen a Polish wedding? Crashing those would keep me fed for life…). But it does mean that I need to reevaluate how I spend my time, so that every minute spent in front of a screen is spent doing something that will either earn me money now or in the future. I need to start creating more and consuming less. I need to unsubscribe from RSS feeds (or just delete Reeder off my Mac and phone), be content with listening to the BBC while making breakfast for my daily news fix, turn off the screens before bed and get enough sleep so I can drink coffee for pleasure, not necessity, and take back my time.

In other words, I need to unsubscribe from my old habits, and embrace new ones. It’s about time.

Over the weekend, President Obama visited Poland as the last part of his European tour, which spurned comments across the American blogosphere mostly along the lines of “Why the hell Poland?” (along with the far too frequent “Where the hell is Poland again? Isn’t it like part of Russia?”) So to clarify the situation for some geographically and/or historically-challenged Americans, I thought I’d post an article I wrote last month for the Krakow Airport magazine (one of my glamorous freelance writing gigs). It was originally titled “A Brief History of Poland for Expats”, but I think it can be a bit more universal. 

The polonophile is a rare breed of foreigner that comes to Kraków: a student and lover of Polish history keen to debate even Poles on the lineage of Queen Jadwiga or the finer points of military strategy during the 1920 campaign. The rest of us, however, arrive with only a general idea of recent Polish events: invasion, war, brief freedom, more war, communism, and post-communism, i.e. The Era of EU-Sponsored Hugs and Puppies. Not a very happy picture (at least until recently), and quite incomplete. So for those who would like a more robust view of the beginnings of their adopted country, without taking the time to get a master’s degree in European Studies, read on!

It’s not a stretch to say that Poland has had a colourful history. Though it’s seen as a very Catholic nation today, both its Catholicism and its status as a nation began in the 10th century. Let’s just assume that prior to this era, Poles were running around in animal skins hitting each other over the head with clubs continuously and getting nothing productive done. It may not be the case, but this is a magazine article, not a Norman Davies hardback, and our space is limited.

In 966, King Mieszko I brought Christianity to the heathens and the Kingdom of Poland was established in 1025 (these things took longer before Twitter was around). Not content with rule over a significant portion of the European continent, King Sigismund II Augustus, the last monarch of the Jagiełło clan (yes, the ones the university is named after), joined Poland with its northern neighbour Lithuania, forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The fate of the two peoples was sealed in the mid-16th century with the Union of Lublin, and though the two kingdoms were equal on paper, in reality, Poland dominated the partnership, and the Commonwealth’s capital was Warsaw. So while the rest of Europe was mucking around exploring the New World (like anything good came out of that), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth grew to become one of the largest and most populous kingdoms during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was also one of the first modern quasi-democratic systems, and featured an elective monarchy and a parliament comprised of the nobility, as well as being uniquely religiously tolerant for the times.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and for Poland that happened thrice over. Like a delicious piece of szarlotka, the Commonwealth was cut into pieces until there was nothing left. One by one, the Cossacks, the Swedes, the Russians, the Prussians, and Hapsburg Austrians invaded, snatching up land as they came through. The constant invasions and warfare took their toll in the form of population loss and economic decline. However, the crisis also gave rise to a period of intellectual and artistic enlightenment, and the May 3 Constitution (now known mostly for creating four-day weekends together with the 1 May holiday) passed in 1791, becoming the first constitution in modern Europe. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much good for the declining state, and with the third and final partition of Poland in 1795, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist, and Poles found themselves now citizens of Russia, Prussia, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Though Poland disappeared from European maps for 123 years, Poles fought hard to keep their culture intact and even thriving, and widespread rebellions like the 1830 November Uprising kept morale (as well as body counts) high. During this period, the great Polish tradition of emigration to Western Europe, a practice I’m told is quite popular to this day, began, with figures like Adam Mickiewicz, Cyprian Norwid, and Frédéric Chopin all packing their bags to make their names in the West. Eastwards, various Polish puppet states came and went, but for the most part the Polish nation remained under the rule of the three afore-mentioned powers.

World War I brought conflict across Europe, but its end brought Poland’s return to the globe, as the 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially recognised it as a country once again. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, the Polish army took advantage of Russia’s preoccupation with its own civil war to invade and annex old Commonwealth lands in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. This didn’t last long, as Stalin got those lands back and then some thanks to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and invasion by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in September 1939. The devastation of Poland and near-elimination of what had previously been a thriving Jewish community followed, and then fifty years of Soviet-imposed communism followed that, as we all know. Since 1989, history has been kinder to Poles, a trend we hope will continue throughout the next millennium.

There. Don’t you feel smarter already?

12:21 am last night. That’s when it came, that moment. It comes more or less weekly, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always when you’re alone. No television, no spouse, no distractions in your headphones. The bed is the best place - that, or the shower. But it’s always when you have just let your guard down, whether scrubbing routinely or just about to drift away.

That moment, when just for a split second, you know you’re not going to make it.

It takes different forms for different people, most more mundane. A housewife knows they’ll run out of money. A father sees his children taken away. A soldier sees the bullet that will sail straight for him. And I see failure and mediocrity, of being not a late bloomer like I always thought, but a non-bloomer.

Just for that moment, you know, know it’s not worth it, that every effort you make is a waste. But then it’s over, and reason takes over, and you see the road ahead with your dreams fulfilled, or at least a damn good effort made towards them. And luckily, this feeling lasts longer.

As creatures of flesh that crumbles and consciousness that fades, we only have two roads to immortality, and one is easier and thus chosen by most, and one is infinitely more difficult and even the ones who choose it, inadvertently or not, usually fail. Some may try both, but in the end one will always be sacrificed, whether through lack of attention or logistical failings. We have two choices: genetic or artistic immortality.

Genetic immortality is self-explanatory. You reproduce, have a kid or a dozen, pass on not only your genes (though, biologically, that’s really the only purpose of our existence) but your ideas, teachings, and the traditions of your family and your language and your nation, and hope your kids live on to do the same.

Artistic immortality is much trickier. You must give birth to an idea so potent, so pivotal it becomes part of the human story, and is passed on from generation to generation. Perhaps there’s a better name for it than “artistic” immortality, as I don’t mean just creating a visual or auditory masterpiece a la da Vinci or Beethoven (though that’s certainly one way); Einstein, Heisenberg, Darwin, Copernicus, Satre, Curie, Marx, Rand, Newton… all of them did this, for better or for worse, and that’s the level of ingenuity each and every one of us is competing with for immortality.

Perhaps that’s what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom: our belief that we are more than our genes, that ideas can live on just as organisms do. Ideas evolve, adapt, and sometimes die out, but once they’re out there they become separate entities with fates no longer bound to their originators.

Of course, the word “immortality” is misleading itself, as unless we make contact with intelligent beings from other worlds or the robot singularity occurs or a new, even more intelligent species evolves on Earth, both types of immortalities are tied to the mortality of the human race. But since we’re a part of that closed group labelled “human”, we can’t see past the event horizon anyway, so this simulated immortality will just have to do.

Thoughts?

Last month, I transitioned from a “proper” job as the editor of a small newspaper to a freelancer. Now that the novelty of working at home and out of cafes at whatever hours I choose is wearing off, I’ve made some observations.

To be completely honest, what I’m going to miss most about my job, besides the people I worked with, is the press previews, free passes, and additional access that the title of “journalist” afforded me at events like exhibition/museum openings and festivals. Not because, if I were to add it up, I probably got thousands of dollars in free entrances and swag (although that certainly helps), but because of the status that came with how I got those things. That little badge that says “MEDIA” or “Press Photographer” on it is not just a free entry, it’s proof that I’m just a little more clever than the people without one, because, hey, those suckers had to pay to be here while I didn’t!

It’s the privilege of knowing something first, before the unwashed masses get their hands on the information (though thanks to Twitter and WikiLeaks, that privilege is quickly disappearing). It’s tangible proof that I’m better than other people - or, of course, it just seems that way, because everything I’ve said is complete and utter bullshit.

Being a journalist does not make you a better person; it makes you, in the best of cases, a more observant person, and in the worst and more frequent cases, a closed-minded, self-satisfied son of a bitch. Journalism is a world of entitlement, because whatever job title or piece of paper says that you’re a certified journalist entitles you to information. But it’s a closed world, and it rarely produces human beings that come out better than when they started in the business.

Still, I’m glad I had the experience, and I’m glad to be out. I still want to write more than ever, but on my own terms, and not dictated by the hot topics of the day. And I believe there’s still a market for this type of writing, perhaps more than ever before, thanks to the proliferation of god-awful articles and thinking out there. It just becomes that much more difficult to make it without that innate entitlement that comes with the title. That’s ok, though, it’ll make it all the sweeter in the end.

One morning a couple of months ago when I still had a job (a painful 9:15 am to be exact, about five hours before my brain tends to wake up), a colleague and I interviewed one of the trumpeters of St. Mary’s Church (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I suggest clicking the afore-mentioned link to read about an awesome legend that involves a Tatar warrior with rather unbelievable archery skills). While in general the interview was pretty fascinating (turns out, there are seven trumpeters, and they work in 24-hour shifts that allow, at most, 55-minute catnaps during the night), there was an anecdote he told us after the tape recorder was turned off that seems like an apt parable for today’s news media.

According to the trumpeter (and technically, fire fighter, as every trumpeter is a member of the Krakow Fire Brigade), in the early 1900s there was a watchmaker’s shop on the Market Square, right by St. Mary’s. Every morning, the trumpeter on shift would go to the watchmaker’s and check the time and calibrate his pocket watch, then proceed up to the tower to do his job, which means playing the Hejnał (St. Mary’s hymn) every hour, on the hour, sun or rain or hail or snow or holiday or weekend. One morning, the trumpeter awoke to find that his watch was broken, so he set out earlier than usual to make a longer stop at the watchmaker’s. As the watchmaker was fixing the pocket watch, the trumpeter asked, “Sir, how do you calibrate the clocks in your shop to keep the correct time?” “Well, that’s easy,” the watchmaker replied, “I listen for the Hejnał every hour!”

Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this.

The world of the news media and journalism has become a closed circle of information, feedbacking onto itself much like a guitar pick-up placed too close to a speaker - after a while, all you get is noise. The news agencies have replaced interviewees as primary sources, and the rapid pace of updates has allowed for inexcusable mistakes. All of this has led to a downward spiral of journalistic quality, when one outlet keeps time by the other’s watch, which is simultaneously being wound according to the former’s. 

So what’s the solution? Better quality control at journalism schools? (Does anyone even go to those anymore?) A narrowing of the market? Or perhaps a change in motivation, from ad revenue to direct payment for content? I still don’t know the answer, but I know damn well that a change is necessary, before the rest of the world’s media is swallowed up by the self-referencing American model.

Freelance is not a fancy word for not having employment; it is a fancy word for not wanting employment.