Despite social anxiety, Damien still aspires to be a revolutionary demagogue.
Yes, I will suddenly update out of nowhere with little to no explanation of a sudden rant.
I have social anxiety disorder. I admit right off the bat that this is a self-diagnosis, as I have never gone in and had a proper examination over it, but more on that in a moment. The confidence behind this conclusion was the ever-reliable method of online self-testing. On the wide spectrum that makes up general anxiety disorders, my own neuroses seem to be focused in the areas of speaking on the phone, and easily triggered guilt over social situations that involve any possibility of disappointing people and/or being judged. To the point where I can occasionally get completely unreasonable fears of judgment in completely inappropriate social situations, hampering my ability to do a lot of basic things such as calling strangers, confronting anyone over a wide range of subjects, and occasionally just going out and doing stuff.
Unfortunately I have no professional opinion backing this up because, as earlier stated, I've never been officially diagnosed. I don't have the money, let alone the time off of work, to set up and attend a psychiatric appointment to set my suspicions in stone or debunk them once and for all. So I'm forced to settle for living with my neuroses, accepting that if I want to survive, support myself and those around me, any health and mental issues that aren't at the levels of 'severely debilitating at this very moment' or 'life-threatening' are going to indefinitely be shoved onto the back-burner.
And I'm one of the luckier ones in this country.
There are plenty of folk out there dealing with much worse problems, who can't do a thing about it because every bit of money they make is dedicated towards keeping them and their families fed, keeping a roof over their heads and maintaining the vehicle that gets them to and from their under-paying, opportunistic employers. Like me, everything that's not a broken limb, punctured organ, or cancer (and sometimes even cancer, if it's not immediately debilitating) will get put on the back-burner in the name of living day to day.
And for most, there is little chance of ever getting out of this style of living. Theoretically one could be able to save a little money now and again, building up until then can propel themselves to a higher standard of living in one lump sum. But even that's gambling on the very slim possibility that nothing expensive will break down, whether its their car, their living situation, or their bodies. It's a self-sustaining cycle: Living on crap wages means nothing that's an immediate problem gets pushed aside out of sheer necessity. Except all that does is ensure the little problems that could be solved now with a little spare cash, get the opportunity to grow into much more expensive problems down the line. The twinge in a factory-worker's back that could have been taken care of with a little physical therapy turns into chronic back-pain and permanently warped muscles/bones a couple years down the line. The slight rattle your car makes going down the road that could be fixed at a small cost now turns into a permanently stalled engine later.
We're constantly forced to choose between making these small, preventative investments, or getting food on the table, making next month's rent, ensuring our children get a trip to the pediatrician. Since we don't know which initially small problems will go away on their own, which ones will eventually grow into big expensive problems later, even paying those preventative costs is a gamble of sorts, thus the need for food, a place to live, become more immediately important, and the small problems get ignored. Then, a little ways down the line, enough of these small problems turn into big problems which handily wipe out what little you've managed to save up... if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, they turn out to be far more expensive than what your pitiful wages are capable of addressing, and then you're just fucked.
A vast majority of Americans live this way. Our entire lives are a gamble against the odds against expensive problems suddenly cropping up at some point. It's a fool's bet, and virtually everyone is going to lose out in the end because, hey, shit happens. This is not a choice we make: Most simply know no other way of living, and for the few of us who do, we're to busy simply trying to survive to actually put any real work towards changing the system. We're all caught in the same rut.
And for those who do have the power to do something about it? The inherited rich, the political elite, and the top of the corporate food chain? A majority of them have no interest in changing the situation. A populace grinding along for shit wages with little hope of advancement, too tired from the struggle of survival to sit back, look around and realize just how badly they're getting screwed, makes the rich a lot richer. Thus the entire system is tilted towards keeping the poor, poor, the rich very rich. Don't believe me? Take a look at the facts:
- It's much more expensive being poor than rich. The rich person can afford to spend a couple hundred to get that twinge in their back looked at now and taken care of, the poor person cannot, and several years down the line is forced into thousands of dollars in medical debt as that twinge develops into something more serious.
- The rich person, unless they're exceedingly stupid, never has to worry about their bank account going low. The poor person can go into the red completely unexpectedly through the process of normal bill paying, and suddenly get hit with a forty-dollar overdraft fee with every necessary purchase they make.
- The rich person can get their car completely looked over should something sound out of place, the poor person is forced to ride their vehicle into the ground, then shovel out cash for either massive repairs, or a new vehicle altogether, when the old inevitably breaks down.
- Finally, take a look at interest rates. Of course everyone already know the issues with credit and the debt that can quickly accrue from that, as well as the financial troubles a poor credit rating can bring, but look at it from the other end: Once you have several million in the bank, you can actually live comfortably off the interest alone, making near a thousand dollars a week without lifting a finger. How many low-end jobs pay that well?
A large part of the problem is that people simply don't know any better. Most think and accept that this is just the way things are supposed to be. I'm not one of those people, I know there are better ways of doing things out there, you don't need to look much further than the rest of the First World.
I work a telecommuting job. It's not a very good job, yet it's still one of the best jobs I've ever had. While I'm daily forced to deal with my phobia of speaking with strangers on the phone, I'm at least not putting my long-term physical health on the line, and the job's close enough that, if necessary, I can walk there. I'm one of the lucky ones. Due to my position, I make a whopping ten dollars an hour, as opposed to the seven-twenty five an hour most people make. Not bad wages for a dinky desk job, right?
In the typical European country, a grocery bagger will make an average of twelve dollars an hour. A grocery bagger also has full government health coverage for less out of their paycheck than me for my piss-poor coverage. A grocery bagger will keep their coverage if they lose their job, will be guaranteed housing and enough food to survive if they can't get a new job for years. This is more than a lot of people in the US who actually have jobs can get.
If I miss more than eight days for anything other than childbirth, a death in the family, or signed doctor's notes for some nasty medical issue, I'm fired, end of story. If I work here for a full year, then and only then am I entitled to give whole days of paid vacation.
That grocery bagger? On average, at least a month's worth of paid sick and personal days right from the start of their employment, as well as indefinite unpaid days off without fear of punitive action so long as they can still do their job well. They are guaranteed paid breaks and adequate lunches, we have to start class action suits to stop wage-garnishment for going to the bathroom once or twice in an eight hour shift.
There was a recent affair in the news about how Ikea, the overseas furniture manufacturer, opened up a new plant in the states. Almost immediately reports started pouring in about the abysmal working conditions in the plant compared to its European siblings: Draconian sick-day policies, lack of health care, horrible pay, inadequate breaks. I remember looking at this, digging into the specifics, and realizing the conditions at this plant were no different than the conditions of every factory I've worked in. Europe views our working conditions the same way we view the working conditions of illegal immigrants picking oranges ten hours a day for fifty cents an hour: Effective wage-slavery.
But surely this sort of coddling of the opportunistic plebian labourer can only spell economic wore for their host country as the workforce turns into a bunch of welfare leeches, right? Let's take a look at Germany, one of the highest ranked countries in terms of workplace benefits. It turns out that not only does Germany have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, they are statistically proven to be one of the most productive and profitable countries in the world per-worker , and more economically stable than a vast majority of the world. It turns out, when you give workers good reasons to work, rather than the threat of "Eat shit from us or be homeless," the people worker harder and better.
Now the employment situation is just one single flavour in the grand banana split of what is wrong with this country. The strawberry goop next to the pineapple topping of government catering to private interest, the chocolate syrup of culturally ingrained racism and sexism, the sliced bananas of religious bigotry and homophobia, the ice cream dollops of aggressive military imperialism.
Do I hate my job? Yes, but that's not saying a lot. There are almost no employment prospects for me in this state, let alone in this country I wouldn't quickly end up despising. The problems of this job are merely symptomatic of the accepted norm in this country: Government's complete unwillingness to step in the way of the profit-making schemes of corporations, no matter how much it hurts the average worker. Remember Ikea? Why did they suddenly deviate so widely from their normal so widely from their standard conditions in Europe as soon as they opened up a plant in America? Suddenly treating their workers like crap? Because there was no law against them doing so, and thus they took the easiest route to quickest profit, fucking the average labourer over in the process. The system is tailor-made to keep the lower class into effective wage-slavery, with little to no chance of advancement from their current, miserable struggle to merely survive.
I'm more than ready to rebel.
I've often complained, angsted over the fact that I could never seem to find goals in my life worth fighting for, worth living for. I love to write, draw, and otherwise make things, but that only expresses my creative side, and does little to address my massive discontent with this country. I fight for those I love, but that's such a broad subject, the goals changing just as fast as life throws new problems their way. But this is something consistent. The screwing over of the common people has not changed and will not change without angry voices and demonstrations showing that we are not content with this.
I want to be one of those voices. I want to be one of the visible, the people forcing those in power, whether corporate or political, to acknowledge their actions (or lack thereof) are hurting people, and will have consequences for them. I want to be the voice of the discontent, the disregarded, to be the angry loud punk fighting for positive social and economic change.
Yes, I may run into trouble. Yes, I may be villified, my name dragged through the mud, assaulted or worse as those with money move to crush what disturbance I cause. That's alright, I can accept these consequences, because for me, this is something worth fighting for. I might not be the brightest, most talented, or socially brave, but I have got a lot of anger, frustration, and people I love going through the same, and I want to raise some hell for them, for everyone who has to deal with this shit.
I have social anxiety disorder. I admit right off the bat that this is a self-diagnosis, as I have never gone in and had a proper examination over it, but more on that in a moment. The confidence behind this conclusion was the ever-reliable method of online self-testing. On the wide spectrum that makes up general anxiety disorders, my own neuroses seem to be focused in the areas of speaking on the phone, and easily triggered guilt over social situations that involve any possibility of disappointing people and/or being judged. To the point where I can occasionally get completely unreasonable fears of judgment in completely inappropriate social situations, hampering my ability to do a lot of basic things such as calling strangers, confronting anyone over a wide range of subjects, and occasionally just going out and doing stuff.
Unfortunately I have no professional opinion backing this up because, as earlier stated, I've never been officially diagnosed. I don't have the money, let alone the time off of work, to set up and attend a psychiatric appointment to set my suspicions in stone or debunk them once and for all. So I'm forced to settle for living with my neuroses, accepting that if I want to survive, support myself and those around me, any health and mental issues that aren't at the levels of 'severely debilitating at this very moment' or 'life-threatening' are going to indefinitely be shoved onto the back-burner.
And I'm one of the luckier ones in this country.
There are plenty of folk out there dealing with much worse problems, who can't do a thing about it because every bit of money they make is dedicated towards keeping them and their families fed, keeping a roof over their heads and maintaining the vehicle that gets them to and from their under-paying, opportunistic employers. Like me, everything that's not a broken limb, punctured organ, or cancer (and sometimes even cancer, if it's not immediately debilitating) will get put on the back-burner in the name of living day to day.
And for most, there is little chance of ever getting out of this style of living. Theoretically one could be able to save a little money now and again, building up until then can propel themselves to a higher standard of living in one lump sum. But even that's gambling on the very slim possibility that nothing expensive will break down, whether its their car, their living situation, or their bodies. It's a self-sustaining cycle: Living on crap wages means nothing that's an immediate problem gets pushed aside out of sheer necessity. Except all that does is ensure the little problems that could be solved now with a little spare cash, get the opportunity to grow into much more expensive problems down the line. The twinge in a factory-worker's back that could have been taken care of with a little physical therapy turns into chronic back-pain and permanently warped muscles/bones a couple years down the line. The slight rattle your car makes going down the road that could be fixed at a small cost now turns into a permanently stalled engine later.
We're constantly forced to choose between making these small, preventative investments, or getting food on the table, making next month's rent, ensuring our children get a trip to the pediatrician. Since we don't know which initially small problems will go away on their own, which ones will eventually grow into big expensive problems later, even paying those preventative costs is a gamble of sorts, thus the need for food, a place to live, become more immediately important, and the small problems get ignored. Then, a little ways down the line, enough of these small problems turn into big problems which handily wipe out what little you've managed to save up... if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, they turn out to be far more expensive than what your pitiful wages are capable of addressing, and then you're just fucked.
A vast majority of Americans live this way. Our entire lives are a gamble against the odds against expensive problems suddenly cropping up at some point. It's a fool's bet, and virtually everyone is going to lose out in the end because, hey, shit happens. This is not a choice we make: Most simply know no other way of living, and for the few of us who do, we're to busy simply trying to survive to actually put any real work towards changing the system. We're all caught in the same rut.
And for those who do have the power to do something about it? The inherited rich, the political elite, and the top of the corporate food chain? A majority of them have no interest in changing the situation. A populace grinding along for shit wages with little hope of advancement, too tired from the struggle of survival to sit back, look around and realize just how badly they're getting screwed, makes the rich a lot richer. Thus the entire system is tilted towards keeping the poor, poor, the rich very rich. Don't believe me? Take a look at the facts:
- It's much more expensive being poor than rich. The rich person can afford to spend a couple hundred to get that twinge in their back looked at now and taken care of, the poor person cannot, and several years down the line is forced into thousands of dollars in medical debt as that twinge develops into something more serious.
- The rich person, unless they're exceedingly stupid, never has to worry about their bank account going low. The poor person can go into the red completely unexpectedly through the process of normal bill paying, and suddenly get hit with a forty-dollar overdraft fee with every necessary purchase they make.
- The rich person can get their car completely looked over should something sound out of place, the poor person is forced to ride their vehicle into the ground, then shovel out cash for either massive repairs, or a new vehicle altogether, when the old inevitably breaks down.
- Finally, take a look at interest rates. Of course everyone already know the issues with credit and the debt that can quickly accrue from that, as well as the financial troubles a poor credit rating can bring, but look at it from the other end: Once you have several million in the bank, you can actually live comfortably off the interest alone, making near a thousand dollars a week without lifting a finger. How many low-end jobs pay that well?
A large part of the problem is that people simply don't know any better. Most think and accept that this is just the way things are supposed to be. I'm not one of those people, I know there are better ways of doing things out there, you don't need to look much further than the rest of the First World.
I work a telecommuting job. It's not a very good job, yet it's still one of the best jobs I've ever had. While I'm daily forced to deal with my phobia of speaking with strangers on the phone, I'm at least not putting my long-term physical health on the line, and the job's close enough that, if necessary, I can walk there. I'm one of the lucky ones. Due to my position, I make a whopping ten dollars an hour, as opposed to the seven-twenty five an hour most people make. Not bad wages for a dinky desk job, right?
In the typical European country, a grocery bagger will make an average of twelve dollars an hour. A grocery bagger also has full government health coverage for less out of their paycheck than me for my piss-poor coverage. A grocery bagger will keep their coverage if they lose their job, will be guaranteed housing and enough food to survive if they can't get a new job for years. This is more than a lot of people in the US who actually have jobs can get.
If I miss more than eight days for anything other than childbirth, a death in the family, or signed doctor's notes for some nasty medical issue, I'm fired, end of story. If I work here for a full year, then and only then am I entitled to give whole days of paid vacation.
That grocery bagger? On average, at least a month's worth of paid sick and personal days right from the start of their employment, as well as indefinite unpaid days off without fear of punitive action so long as they can still do their job well. They are guaranteed paid breaks and adequate lunches, we have to start class action suits to stop wage-garnishment for going to the bathroom once or twice in an eight hour shift.
There was a recent affair in the news about how Ikea, the overseas furniture manufacturer, opened up a new plant in the states. Almost immediately reports started pouring in about the abysmal working conditions in the plant compared to its European siblings: Draconian sick-day policies, lack of health care, horrible pay, inadequate breaks. I remember looking at this, digging into the specifics, and realizing the conditions at this plant were no different than the conditions of every factory I've worked in. Europe views our working conditions the same way we view the working conditions of illegal immigrants picking oranges ten hours a day for fifty cents an hour: Effective wage-slavery.
But surely this sort of coddling of the opportunistic plebian labourer can only spell economic wore for their host country as the workforce turns into a bunch of welfare leeches, right? Let's take a look at Germany, one of the highest ranked countries in terms of workplace benefits. It turns out that not only does Germany have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, they are statistically proven to be one of the most productive and profitable countries in the world per-worker , and more economically stable than a vast majority of the world. It turns out, when you give workers good reasons to work, rather than the threat of "Eat shit from us or be homeless," the people worker harder and better.
Now the employment situation is just one single flavour in the grand banana split of what is wrong with this country. The strawberry goop next to the pineapple topping of government catering to private interest, the chocolate syrup of culturally ingrained racism and sexism, the sliced bananas of religious bigotry and homophobia, the ice cream dollops of aggressive military imperialism.
Do I hate my job? Yes, but that's not saying a lot. There are almost no employment prospects for me in this state, let alone in this country I wouldn't quickly end up despising. The problems of this job are merely symptomatic of the accepted norm in this country: Government's complete unwillingness to step in the way of the profit-making schemes of corporations, no matter how much it hurts the average worker. Remember Ikea? Why did they suddenly deviate so widely from their normal so widely from their standard conditions in Europe as soon as they opened up a plant in America? Suddenly treating their workers like crap? Because there was no law against them doing so, and thus they took the easiest route to quickest profit, fucking the average labourer over in the process. The system is tailor-made to keep the lower class into effective wage-slavery, with little to no chance of advancement from their current, miserable struggle to merely survive.
I'm more than ready to rebel.
I've often complained, angsted over the fact that I could never seem to find goals in my life worth fighting for, worth living for. I love to write, draw, and otherwise make things, but that only expresses my creative side, and does little to address my massive discontent with this country. I fight for those I love, but that's such a broad subject, the goals changing just as fast as life throws new problems their way. But this is something consistent. The screwing over of the common people has not changed and will not change without angry voices and demonstrations showing that we are not content with this.
I want to be one of those voices. I want to be one of the visible, the people forcing those in power, whether corporate or political, to acknowledge their actions (or lack thereof) are hurting people, and will have consequences for them. I want to be the voice of the discontent, the disregarded, to be the angry loud punk fighting for positive social and economic change.
Yes, I may run into trouble. Yes, I may be villified, my name dragged through the mud, assaulted or worse as those with money move to crush what disturbance I cause. That's alright, I can accept these consequences, because for me, this is something worth fighting for. I might not be the brightest, most talented, or socially brave, but I have got a lot of anger, frustration, and people I love going through the same, and I want to raise some hell for them, for everyone who has to deal with this shit.