Dark Akademia Klub IV: The Cost of Living

We’ve been taught that value is something we earn—through work, through output, through becoming someone worth keeping around. So we measure our time, our relationships, our usefulness, and... our worth. We optimise what we can, and slowly abandon what we can’t justify. They say that the invisible hand will self-regulate the economy towards stability. But why is it that the things we long for in life—passion, care, love—are valued so cheaply, yet... remain so scarce?

In this series, we'll be discussing the questions: when we internalise capitalism, what's left in us to survive? If everything has a price, what does it cost to simply be?

About Dark Akademia Klub

A series of salons that bring together individuals who are curious, reflective, and willing to engage, not as experts, but as participants in a shared inquiry. Topics span across culture, politics, identity, relationships, and power, offering a space to dissect ideas, challenge assumptions, and think out loud with others. It is less about arriving at answers and more about learning how to stay with complexity, even when it’s uncomfortable.