My Muse Moved to Mexico
I never write anymore, which thoroughly sucks. I've tried increasing the frequency that I write in my personal journal, hoping that making a point of going through the motions would kick start my desire to write things I really care about, but for the most part, I end up with entries along the lines of "Bored of my job, feeling vaguely alienated, kinda wish I had a girlfriend, fuck my life." Well, no. It's not always fuck-my-life. Sometimes it's stuff like, "Went out to J-Clyde tonight, hung out, had a good time, tra-la-la." But I don't know, man. It's like someone slipped some lithium in my tap water or something. I feel like I used to care about shit. Now, I mostly just oscillate between mildly depressed and distantly, impersonally happy.
Part of it is my job, which I have no great love for. I feel guilty about that, the lack of the love, because somewhere along the line, I think corporate culture in America started to resemble an emotionally manipulative girlfriend in the way it relates to employees. In matter-of-fact tones, I am assured that my love is a given thing, that my job is certain of my unwavering devotion. So, I'm made to feel guilty when I don't actually give either. A status quo is established through the constant background reinforcement of the notion that it could never and should never be anything but. The other day, I actually apologized for only staying an extra hour to work on a project, the time for which is expected to come not out of my usual forty hours, which is devoted to another project, one for an external client, but from my personal time of which I should willingly, gladly, automatically sacrifice for the company.
Having no wife or children makes it more difficult. I feel like my project manager, a man who works more than full-time and who spends his nights and weekends pursuing an MBA out of town, would look at me like a dog who's just been shown a card trick if I tried to explain to him that I just wanted to go home at 5:30 because there are other things I'd rather be doing. Not people-are-counting-on-me things. Just... whatever. I want to read a book, go for a run, take my dog out to pee. I'd feel silly saying them out loud as realistic alternatives to working overtime. I'd feel like a petulant child, obstinately refusing to wipe up the Coke he purposely spilled on the McDonald's floor in a fit of spoiled rage.
"Please just wipe it up. You're embarrassing us. Fine, we can go to Toys R Us. Just calm down." Cheeks redden. Heads are held low. God, I hope no one we know saw that. How embarrassing.
And it's not even like I really have to work all that much overtime. I just don't like how no one seems to acknowledge it as extraordinary, not even a little bit. It's less that I'm being so often asked to make these sacrifices I bitch about than that I'm annoyed by how unremarkable they are. Forty hours, forty-five, fifty. Who's counting? We're all friends here. Right?
Living on the ass end of the world doesn't help either. I got this apartment because I thought it would be nice living so close to work, but as it turns out, work is a half-hour drive from all my friends and anything in town worth doing. I feel like there's something psychologically draining about having to get on the highway literally every time you want to go anywhere you actually want to be. It's all a big metaphor for something or other. Alienation? The distance both physical and symbolic between you and where you want to be in your life? Yeah, I think that's more or less on the right course.
I don't dislike where I live. I just don't care, same with my job. For all my bitching, I realize that if I ever do find a company that doesn't have a thousand little things that piss me off, I need to tie it down when I go home at the end of the day so that faeries don't carry it away in the night. I don't give a shit, and that bothers me. I'm a year in, and if I drove in to work one morning to find the building a smoldering cinder, I'd probably be psyched about the excuse to bail. The thought that I hoped no one I worked with or knew was in there would probably occur to me several minutes later.
All of which means, I guess, that my quarter-life crisis is still going strong. Or possibly that I'm not living a life I need to live and should go ahead and bail. One of those. Either way, I'd like to start giving a shit again.
Part of it is my job, which I have no great love for. I feel guilty about that, the lack of the love, because somewhere along the line, I think corporate culture in America started to resemble an emotionally manipulative girlfriend in the way it relates to employees. In matter-of-fact tones, I am assured that my love is a given thing, that my job is certain of my unwavering devotion. So, I'm made to feel guilty when I don't actually give either. A status quo is established through the constant background reinforcement of the notion that it could never and should never be anything but. The other day, I actually apologized for only staying an extra hour to work on a project, the time for which is expected to come not out of my usual forty hours, which is devoted to another project, one for an external client, but from my personal time of which I should willingly, gladly, automatically sacrifice for the company.
Having no wife or children makes it more difficult. I feel like my project manager, a man who works more than full-time and who spends his nights and weekends pursuing an MBA out of town, would look at me like a dog who's just been shown a card trick if I tried to explain to him that I just wanted to go home at 5:30 because there are other things I'd rather be doing. Not people-are-counting-on-me things. Just... whatever. I want to read a book, go for a run, take my dog out to pee. I'd feel silly saying them out loud as realistic alternatives to working overtime. I'd feel like a petulant child, obstinately refusing to wipe up the Coke he purposely spilled on the McDonald's floor in a fit of spoiled rage.
"Please just wipe it up. You're embarrassing us. Fine, we can go to Toys R Us. Just calm down." Cheeks redden. Heads are held low. God, I hope no one we know saw that. How embarrassing.
And it's not even like I really have to work all that much overtime. I just don't like how no one seems to acknowledge it as extraordinary, not even a little bit. It's less that I'm being so often asked to make these sacrifices I bitch about than that I'm annoyed by how unremarkable they are. Forty hours, forty-five, fifty. Who's counting? We're all friends here. Right?
Living on the ass end of the world doesn't help either. I got this apartment because I thought it would be nice living so close to work, but as it turns out, work is a half-hour drive from all my friends and anything in town worth doing. I feel like there's something psychologically draining about having to get on the highway literally every time you want to go anywhere you actually want to be. It's all a big metaphor for something or other. Alienation? The distance both physical and symbolic between you and where you want to be in your life? Yeah, I think that's more or less on the right course.
I don't dislike where I live. I just don't care, same with my job. For all my bitching, I realize that if I ever do find a company that doesn't have a thousand little things that piss me off, I need to tie it down when I go home at the end of the day so that faeries don't carry it away in the night. I don't give a shit, and that bothers me. I'm a year in, and if I drove in to work one morning to find the building a smoldering cinder, I'd probably be psyched about the excuse to bail. The thought that I hoped no one I worked with or knew was in there would probably occur to me several minutes later.
All of which means, I guess, that my quarter-life crisis is still going strong. Or possibly that I'm not living a life I need to live and should go ahead and bail. One of those. Either way, I'd like to start giving a shit again.