So I realize things here have devolved into dog pictures and occasional CD reviews. The short explanation is that my life is pretty well summed up that way, yet also, the paucity of interesting tidbits here reflects the mindless and joyless rut my life has ground itself down into. Music and the dog are the little bits of daily pleasure, and the rest is best left unspoken about and quickly forgotten. Truth is, I am utterly exhausted, dis-spirited, emotionally drained to the point of indifference, and I am finding myself battling a near-sinful state of acedia or anomie.
There has been tremendous upheaval within my family, from which any real escapism would be counter-productive. Beyond that, my utter dependence on my paycheck has highlighted the degree to which I have painted myself into a corner. Because of the way things work, it is not in my best interest to have any sort of honest expression of the stresses related to my current employment, but they are not small. To top it off, I am obliged to feel utter revulsion at the fact that I have these feelings when I am also quite aware of just how much worse things are for so many.
On one hand, I could point out the effect that prolonged cooking of my brain in drugs likely is having on me. It is a big driver in my hermetic lifestyle, and it absolutely has sapped me of any sense of initiative, spark of creativity, or normal pleasure derived from interacting with others (an absence of libido not being even the worst of it - at least from a more well-rounded standpoint.) I don't see any way out of this. I cannot live more than 24-48 hours without these drugs. I cannot get these drugs without health insurance. I can't get that without a job. To keep the job, I need to focus all my efforts on actually getting to and from work, and keeping up my end of the bargain with my employer (which is to give them work worth purchasing from me.) I feel completely trapped and cannot imagine any real way to change things.
I do spend some time questioning how our society became as nasty as it is. How did we get to a point in which an absence of joy is considered to not be a "real" problem? I have basic material needs met, and indeed have a level of material comfort that exceeds the expectations I had for my life. Mostly this comfort exists because I eschew responsible management of my resources. To do otherwise would remove the little luxuries which provide me with the only tangible reinforcement for the thin rationale I have for continuing to participate in things as they are. Go without??? But why? It's all going the same place either way!!! The situation won't be righted via denial unless I practice denial for a decade! That being a decade I can't imagine seeing the other side of!
I believed what I was taught about the trajectory good lives take, and I did my part. My complaint isn't that I did not get what I was promised. To the contrary, I got more than I thought I would. My gripe is that none of it means anything to me, I wouldn't do it over again, and however well-intentioned, the guidance I received in choosing goals and channels for effort was absolutely wrong. I got very serious about doing what I should and didn't imagine for a second applying the same energy to doing what I wanted to do. Correcting this can still be done. It can be done via the simple abandonment of my obligations and by opting to serve only my interests. Alternately, I could try learning to like what I have, or strapping it on for the herculean amount of work it would take to untangle this knot "the right way". I truly think I could do things the "right way" (untangle the knot) if I felt better. I feel a little better as time passes, but I don't just mean "a little better".
I have never really taken the "just walk away" option seriously because it creates some rough difficulties of its own, and it also requires me to do things I still reflexively feel a revulsion towards. Moreover, within that venerated pile of crap I bought into when I took upon the Protestant Work Ethic and Heartland Values version of right and wrong, there are just enough truths I find I truly do believe in that I cannot morally justify fucking someone else over simply to get away from my circumstances. I did sign my name and said I was going to pay X amount. It really isn't right for me to simply choose not to do so because it is easier not to while retaining some ability to keep up my end of the bargain. If I reach a point of being disabled, through no fault of my own, I would not feel bad in getting away from those obligations. If I am a victim of things truly beyond my control and cannot keep up my end of the bargain, I could forgive myself having to get away. The one thing I can't do is simply pull out the middle finger and say "I don't wanna keep the deal because it is a bad deal and I didn't know just how bad it was." I suppose if it came down to choosing walking-away to self-termination, I could do it, but that isn't really where it is, nor have I ever gone down that road. Luckily, the will to not survive has only visited me in a serious way as a by-product of physical agony and the resulting emotional exhaustion which prolonged pain visits on the spirit. Simply unhappiness has never been enough - I truly think I am just to used to that.
I have been saying this to myself for many years, and got around to writing it hit within the last few years, but without a doubt, something has to change. I don't know what it is and I don't know where I will find the strength to make these things happen, but happen they must. It cannot go on, and I have learned that superficial changes of job, home, and interpersonal relations don't do much of anything to positively impact things. Were I not ill and exhausted from it, I think I coulda solved this shit years ago; but I haven't. It piles up and piles up and piles up, and I get despondent about it, as much for the drag that it is as the loss of what I could be doing were my mind freed for the task.
I believe the times are still right for those properly inclined and motivated to do important things. I caught a huge break and live in a time of great transformation. The impossible sometimes feels possible. Overturning the horrid corporatist dynamic we have allowed to define our national identity feels like something that could be our gift to future generations. The generation behind me (the Millennials?) is a good one. 90% of my work contact is with people at least 10-years younger than am. They don't remember the America of The Greatest Generation - the world I was born into. I got lucky to be coming out of school as that group hit retirement age, and so much of the grinding perverse conformity and caste-conservatism simply packed the desk, took the gold watch, and went to Del Webb with their AM radios firmly programmed to talk radio. The tech came along just late enough to befuddle the Baby Boomers, meaning their nasty fingerprints are nowhere near it either. The incredible paradigm shift that became possible in the wake of technological advances fell into the lap of GenX and I think we have done a HELL of a good job with it. My main source of optimism is that the youngins coming in behind me seem to instinctively understand why tech is being oriented towards "open" and "collaborative" and "free" and DIY, and I am convinced that they will withstand the backlash against it when its full impact makes itself known. The tired old hoary zombies who try to force everything back into the channel with the toll gate haven't really started fighting yet, and the GenXers who tried moving up on the old school tip aren't going to abandon their training without a long and unpleasant tussle. The good news is that they are going to lose. There is so much good going on in so many channels, it kills me to be sitting it out. I want to be doing that open field running with what is new - not enjoining the perpetual staring contest I have with the ceiling as I wait for time to pass and take pain with it.
I think I still have time to turn things around, get out of this rut, and get back into the good fight. The energy I need to do that has been used up for other things - things I did not choose yet also could not avoid - but it is the miracle of life itself (and a large part of why I am a Christian) that the well can spring eternal. It is possible to withstand what seems impossible. It is almost impossible to explain the how's and why's of that fact, but I know that basic good is what we are anchored to. I have become distracted from these ideas and detached from my own power; a power I believe I know well enough to lament its long hibernation. I have been going back and forth with my mother in emails that touch on the difficulties of dealing with those things that come that really don't have a silver lining in them. There are lemons that won't be turned to lemonade, and so what the hell do you do with them? If you can chuck them, great. If they are in your own head and heart, you are going to have to carry them around with you until you figure out how to tease them out. I am sad to see my mom having to enter this process, but as a long-time practitioner of the agony-arts, I try to impress upon her the idea that this emotional dead weight is not bigger than us, and more importantly, those things which actually are bigger than us tend to be the good things. It is the good that prevails and survives. I wish she would read Siddhartha! I wish I could live it.
Posted by rudayday at July 01, 2009 04:14 PM