Hello! I’m Oshan Jarow.
I write essays and produce a podcast about the relationship between economics, consciousness, and human development.
This newsletter is something of a search party on that same trail. How does the economic organization of society affect the individual’s organization of conscious experience?
What kinds of human beings are we becoming by virtue of living in the kinds of economies that we do? What kinds of human beings might we become by redesigning our economic arrangements?
And what are the economic arrangements that might help design better conditions for the development of subjectivity? I’m interested in things like basic income as a means for decommodifying time, and codetermination as a means for decentralizing power.
I’m interested in something like contemplative economics. An economic framework that’s for the cultivation of subjectivity, that values human interiority.
This kind of thing requires as much familiarity with the many textures and possibilities of conscious experience as it does economic policy. So meditation, psychedelics, literature, music - the spectrum of contemplative practices are all woven in to my approach towards economic design.
You might start here if you’d like to get more acquainted with my corner of the internet.
I’ve written for media outlets like Ribbonfarm and The Side View, but most of my favorite writing comes either through the newsletter, or as essays on my website. A few of my favorites: We Should Get Better at Consciousness // Acid Capitalism // To Annie Dillard’s Astonishment
If you’re interested in supporting me or the newsletter, which remains free, you can share the newsletter with a friend - musingmind.substack.com - or support me on Patreon.
My basic sentiment is this: We’re all miraculous creatures headed towards the grave, but in the meantime, the world is far more mysterious, wonderful, and stimulating than human consciousness plagued by economic precarity can experience. Healthy economic conditions are like psychedelic substances that change - and dare I say, improve - conscious experience. Despite being surrounded on all sides by enchantments, our lives are too often squandered in forms of suffering and anxiety that, in the 21st century, are no longer necessary.
Following André Gorz, I’m interested in an economic system that celebrates and encourages “the ontological multidimensionality of existence”.
This newsletter emanates from MusingMind.org, the splayed trail of my reading & writing, my becoming as an astonished flesh-bag in an expanding cosmos. Let’s have a pot of tea & share our astonishments?
Unwind & enjoy,
~ Oshan
