The Mythology of The Burnout Generation
What’s next for the generation tasked with restoring an exhausted society
Society is being rejuvenated by the burnout generation’s mythology. Courageous individuals, en masse, are now rejecting the modern workplace ethos that was thrust upon them as a fact of life and are now stating that the workplace made them ill.
This awareness has implanted new expectations into this generation which rivals and seeks to overcome insufficient fantasies imposed by previous eras of society. New fantasies that weave family time, nature dwelling and slow living are confronting old fantasies of promotions, fast-paced environments and 6-figure paycheques. Because of the burnout generation, the old fantasy is now competing saliently with what it cannot offer, and it’s losing ground.
However, this new fantasy is not a static location where one arrives in peace and prosperity. Landing a publishing deal, creating content, starting an online business or taking a sabbatical will not give this generation the escape and stability it seeks. This secondary fantasy, though an improvement, will not satiate itself. This is because, from the perspective of myth, it is transitionary.
The burnout generation is at the beginning of their own mythology
The burnout generation is finalising the first stage in their myth; leaving workplaces, seeking healing and approaching work with intentions that could have only ever emerged after leaving sick environments. Governed by personal pain, the path was moulded by the avoidance of it. If we are to agree with Byun-Chul’s opening sentence in The Burnout Society, that, “Every age has its signature affiliations”, then we may also take a step further than him. Every affliction therefore must also have its own remedy. The beginnings of this remedy is seen early on in the burnout generations focus on self-healing, rest and re-location.
In 2018, when the Cottagecore aesthetic emerged, burnout was also entering the vernacular of everyday life. Termed Cottagecore, this image depicted a lifestyle of natural living, the romancing of experience and a simple existence amongst greenery, wildflowers and whimsical cottages, capturing and celebrating what workplace culture denied. The desire for this image only intensified over the next few years because it functioned, metaphysically, as a cocooned atmosphere that was safe and magical. It pushed the outer edges of the burnout myth beyond an internally located experience focused on pure healing, and gave situational possibilities of a life that was better visually and emotionally post-burnout.
Here the burnout generation’s mythology is no longer tied to being governed solely by pain (seen in the will to leave the workplace), but now becomes pleasure seeking. Life is no longer repressed, which is what happens when one is burning out, rather life now seeks affirmation. It requests a smudge on experience to know that we were here. Whether or not one desired the Cottagecore aesthetic specifically, by existing in the terrain of beauty for the collective to witness, it helped the burnout generation create alternative paths in the imagination layer of experience. Re-envisioning what existence could be, opened space to reconcile themselves with new futures. Visions that were inspiring and full of the pleasures that human experience has on offer.
Thinking in paintings, the burnout generation moved from The Healing of Palladia by Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, whereby sickness is treated and physical health is idealised to The Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titian, depicting a feast taking place with both mortals and gods, celebrating existence and dancing next to a river that flowed with wine.
However, self-satiation has limits and the human spirit’s capacity for love overpowers pure pleasure. A return is imminent. The burnout generation, in healing themselves, hear the world’s cries.
A trait that typifies the burnout generation is the reevaluation of values. Because modern society is in a state of high critique, configuring itself around the inadequacies of long-tail subjective experience, the burnout generation knows how to point out and analyse wrongs. We see an example of this trait in the view on workplace promotions. What was once an accomplishment is now viewed by many as cultural and capitalistic conditioning within an achievement-based society. We also see this in the new fantastical desires, such as the Cottagecore aesthetic, whereby individuals question their enjoyment of it. The guilt of living this way whilst others are suffering in the world causes a tension that makes pure long-term enjoyment inaccessible. This trait, forever critical of experience, allowed individuals to self-assess their mental health and quit the sick society. However it also recognises the problems of leaving that society to exist as it is. Understood properly, the development of this trait is leading individuals to an overflowing love; love of their sacred moment here on earth and love of others. It is reaching for, as the historian Thomas Kuhn puts it, a paradigm shift.
Originally, the burnout generation places others before themselves, dissolving into the needs of organisations that forget them. Then they learn to be the centre of the world, finding individuality in healing. The selfless need to learn selfishness to rectify the psychological imbalances caused by burnout. However, neither extremes will lead the burnout generation to the experience where all layers of life are being properly attended to. It is here that they are guided to their vocation, and this is what’s next for the burnout generation.
A ‘Vocation’ is the next step for the burnout generation
In the vocation, people can find both self-sanctification and great works, as it allows an individual to contribute to the world, the self and the divine. This is where the burnout generation returns to the sick society they left. For some their sacred work will appear as directly reforming institutions, workplace cultures, healing individuals who are going through similar experiences and for others it will be indirect, nurturing the collective unconscious through their way of being, their creations and the way they carry themselves in life.
If we are to think again in paintings we can wash our eyes over the Sistine Madonna by Raphael, witnessing a mother caring for and holding the divine child whilst Saint Sixtus looks upwards towards the heavens and Saint Barbara looks down towards earth.
Here pleasure and pain are transcended, and the dramatic scene visualises the deeper knowing that there is something more to ascend towards and it is made manifest on earth. Reevaluating the values of the workplace was a form of providence for the burnout generation, leading them to a life immersed in beauty and contribution to humanity.
We are still only feeling the repercussions of their early acts from 2018, now. Mental health dates, four-day work weeks and meditation memberships to alleviate employee stress. These are all consequences from the past decisions made by them over half a decade ago. Thanks to their reevaluation of work and being courageous enough to select paths based on meaningful work, they are slowly reforming the sick society.
However, this is the beginning and the real influence they will have is still coming. As these individuals are now discerning their calling and beginning to bring it forth into the world through sacred work. Realising that all areas of life are worthy of being drenched with the vibrant colours of a fruitful existence. As being struck with an arrow coated in hydra’s blood would take the Greek God Chiron to Prometheus, freeing the torchbearer, the Burnout generation’s original wound has placed them on the path of returning to the world with the gift of fire.
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No Generative AI was used in this article.
This framing of burnout as a generational myth transition feels very accurate to what a lot of people are living through right now.
One pattern I keep noticing is that after the “leave the workplace / heal / slow down” phase, there’s often a third movement that begins quietly underneath it.
Not a return to the old productivity myth.
And not a permanent retreat into the cottagecore one either.
More like people starting to ask: if I’m not building my life around institutional timelines anymore, what does work look like when it’s shaped around how I’m actually wired to create?
The healing stage creates space.
But the next mythology seems to be about authorship.
Not escaping work. Rewriting it.
On cottagecore point, fashion companies have been directly catering to this aesthetic. The aesthetic was captured and resold to burnt-out people faster than they could finish processing it. That's some desire-farming if I've ever seen one. Pinterest would market random wildflower seed packets to exhausted knowledge workers who wanted out. You can't read an aesthetic trend as collective mythological imagination without asking who profited from its distribution.
Also, there's a central structural omission. When someone leaves a toxic workplace "to seek meaning", they're doing it inside a specific material situation. For e.g. UK wages in 2023 were still below their ~2008 peak. IMO, framing labour withdrawal as a "hero's" departure takes political complaints and calls it a personal journey. So te burnt-out worker focuses on finding their archetype all while the conditions that burnt them out keep operating undisturbed.