Would you like a little philosophy with your whine?

I never could figure out why people hated the "lazy" attitude I've always had. Work is unpleasant, and why should life be any more unpleasant than it has to be? Now that I have some philosophical sophistication, I realize that I side with Nietzsche against the Western Judeo-Christian traditional concept of "work ethic," which from the beginning has been a way to keep those who work for the necessities of life planning their lives around work. The difference between myself and Nietzsche on this issue is that he believed the proletariat should serve the ruling class to allow them the time and freedom to create their great works of art and philosophy.

Having a "real job," with all the heavy lifting and bending and such that it entails has awakened me to the perverseness of the unskilled labor system. Despite the fact that they still need people to do my job, and that I'm performing and learning it well, and that I said I was available every night of the week, and that I wanted to work full time, I was only given three nights my first week. Having picked up a fourth, I was given two my second week and three my third. It's like they know that a full-time job would get me to a place where I could actually save enough money to get a good start somewhere else. Maybe I shouldn't have asked about insurance at the interview, and keeping my hours down is a way of keeping me from claiming it too soon, since I don't get it until I've worked 1000 hours. (And it doesn't come into effect if I'm not a full-timer anyway.) In any case, I'm screwed here if my work situation doesn't improve. I'll be damned if I'll confuse any sense of misplaced pride for a "work ethic" and screw myself out of taking a job where I'm personally valuable if I can find a way to get one. My best bet at the moment is Geek Squad or something along those lines.

The best thing about my job is that at least during the last half of the night, when I'm shelving crap in grocery aisles, I'm afforded much time to think. For the first time in I don't know how many years, I can answer the question, "What do you want most?" What I really want is to wake up and discover that the last 4 years or so have been more of a prophetic dream than my life. I'm happy for all the friends I've made, but I've done so many stupid things for so long; I'm ready for a do-over. But we don't get those, do we? There's no such thing as save points in real life. I'd like to go back to before I was a perpetual third wheel, to before I screwed things up with the only person who'd ever loved me back, to before I nearly abandoned the city where my oldest and most of my closest friends are, and I'd like to do it knowing what I know now. I feel like I personally understand why reincarnation is an attractive belief. Fresh starts have always been an attraction for me, from the days I was very young. It's related to my inability to start a book in a series not having read the ones before it, or my obsession with getting everything in games with collectibles. (Pokeman is the bane of my existence.) I tend to throw out reminders of my past that others might keep, like school yearbooks from elementary school or scrapbook-fodder with a few notable exceptions. I no longer have almost anything older than high school, other than a few toys, a button or two in my collection, and these shreds of memory that are depressing in both their incompleteness and their unimaginably pleasant nostalgia. It feels like most of my life right now is geared towards recapturing something of my past: either the joys of childhood or participating in mental self-flagellation for past mistakes or negative character traits. (My recent desires for leisure activities have included writing, rollerskating, SNES, bowling, miniature golf, anime, and more rarely, makeouts. Of them, I write, watch a bit of anime and play the occasional SNES rom.) I'm sick of my whining, so here's the long and short of it: I need an increase in social interaction and professional psychological help. I'll probably end up getting neither (since, let's face it, I'm lousy at seeking others out, especially when I need them, and I can't afford a shrink) by the time it'd make a difference.

Twisted Transition

I'm probably going to break my rules about being calm and contemplative and not bitchy in this blog, but I am past the point of caring.

So, I'm all moved in to my happy little home in CR, and I have many of the little comforts (oh dear God, may I never have to live without internet again) that make it worth it, but the transition from college student to independent individual is going about as well as you would expect a fuck-up like me to manage it. No definite job, no real prospects, few marketable skills and nothing more than a high school diploma in certification, no driver's license, no reliable transportation. Yeah, I planned this well.

I taught myself to tie a tie today. I have never felt quite as hopeless as I do now. Even should I find work, it's not like I'll do much more than survive, and entertain myself a bit. Ugh. What happened to me? I had such promise. In any case, for me, it's the necessities first, and if I feel like I need to expand my life, I'll just have to find a way to do so.

When did life become so small, anyway? It seems like last week my focus was on the problems of the world; now I'm busy trying to figure out survival. I used to complain of feeling like I was a side character in someone else's story. Being somewhat Sartrean, that's kind of a bittersweet analysis, reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir's long and unfair dismissal as Sartre's footnote. Now I feel as if I've passed into the stage where I'm just making cameos for my die-hard crazy fans. Being a secondary character is better than being written out of the story entirely.