Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?--Hunter S. Thompson
After twenty one years and eleven months, I have walked away from my day job. I could no longer access that thing in my head that said it was okay to continue working for a multinational corporation.
Five days a week, I would clock in and be a good little cog in the machine for eight hours. There were always times that I felt like life was passing me by but eventually those feelings would pass. Especially when it came time to pay the mortgage. In recent months, I was unable to shake that feeling and would either end up having a panic attack or balled up on the couch. It was time to go.
Yes, I would be walking away from half way decent benefits and a union wage but at what cost to my sanity. A false sense of security was no longer worth being in an abusive relationship with my employer. I became completely incapable of plastering a fake smile on my face in order to plow through my daily tasks so I could be paid almost enough to live a life.
After losing one parent and watching the other go through what will eventually become long term health issues, I could no longer bear the thought of having an office job. People who did the “right thing” and worked their whole lives did this for what? It looks like they were doing nothing but working to die and I could not accept that for myself.
I know they would rebut that argument by saying “Well, that's what you're supposed to do.” But why? No one has ever explained to me why we should all suffer through endless bullshit from the ages of eighteen to seventy. There might just be a different way to go about things and I think I'll give that a try for a while. There will always be shitty office jobs.
This will either end up being the best decision I've ever made or the worst but there's no going back now. The “American Dream” never sat right with me and always seemed like a trap that people fell into. It felt more like being in service to Capitalism than some sort of ideal to strive for. Racking up an insurmountable pile of debt by going to college, getting married, buying a house and having 2.5 kids may be fine for some people but I no longer have the capacity to find that acceptable.
The people that I know that have gone that route all seem to have ended up miserable and freaked out after a few years because they figured out that they fucked up their lives and were stuck. Or they became oblivious to their situation and drone through their day to day. I only brushed up against that kind of life on a few occasions and, luckily for me, it blew up in my face every time that I did. I have learned my lesson and won't touch that stove again unless my hand is forced.
I sometimes envy people that are able to go through life without noticing how awful their surroundings are and are able to work an office job and live a low impact existence. To have a brain that's not filled with so much noise that I can't function in the “normal” world. Then I remember that maybe I'm not the one with the problem. It's not my fault that I saw through a capitalist society's conditioning and rejected it.
I don't know what I'll do with myself between now and when I fall over dead. It will either be very quiet or very loud. Maybe I'll try to do this writing thing for real and see if anyone will give me money in exchange for my pithy thoughts. Hopefully there's still a market for the opinions of a rapidly aging punk with a low tolerance for ignorance and bullshit. The media landscape has been fucked beyond recognition by tech bros and venture capitalists but let's see if they'll let loose a few dollars for me to buy ramen and keep the lights on.
All I know for sure is that this is the first time in my life that I have stepped off shore and subjected myself to the storm of an uncertain life. Merely existing and having a mind numbing day job to fall back on was making me sick to my stomach and I could no longer carry on. I have learned that stability cuts both ways. Yes, I was able to solve some problems by throwing money at them but that comfort and security made me soft and complacent.
That being said, if you happen to know anyone looking to hire someone to write something or take some pictures, my schedule is wide open.
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