Oct 08, 2008 19:28
I think this explains why my current situation with a job and an internship (neither of which is that structured or "normal" at all), is actually quite satisfying. Maybe someday I'll be a career woman, but that day is not coming too soon. And I'm loving my ridiculous life filled with new people and new experiences daily. I think it's just what I needed; in the past month I've met a truly diverse group of people (from work, the Playground, and Links) and I've done a lot of things I'd never done before. Plus, I'm not doing almost any of it from behind a computer at a desk.
"It ain't rocket science; you are a social animal and thus you are born with little happiness hormones that are released into your bloodstream when you see a physical benefit to your actions. Think about all those teenagers in their dark rooms, glued to their PC's, turning every life problem into ridiculous melodrama. Why do they make those cuts on their arms? It's because making the pain-and subsequent healing-tangible releases endorphins they don't get otherwise. It's pain, but at least it's real.
That form of stress relief via mild discomfort used to be part of our daily lives, via our routine of hunting gazelles and gathering berries and climbing rocks and fighting bears. No more. This is why office jobs make so many of us miserable; we don't get any physical, tangible result from our work. But do construction out in the hot sun for two months, and for the rest of your life you can drive past a certain house and say, "Holy shit, I built that." Maybe that's why mass shootings are more common in offices than construction sites.
It's the kind of physical, dirt-under-your-nails satisfaction that you can only get by turning off the computer, going outdoors and re-connecting with the real world. That feeling, that "I built that" or "I grew that" or "I fed that guy" or "I made these pants" feeling, can't be matched by anything the internet has to offer.
Except, you know, this website."