I’m in one of those strange lulls I get myself into sometimes where I start questioning the logic of maintaining the status quo. Can’t be arsed with work, can’t be arsed with maintaining my forums. Don’t want to think about money. Irritated by work and my impotent career. Unable to motivate myself to break the cycle of disinterest. I feel it start to creep into relationships with family and friends. My Mother will call and I will deliberately ignore the call because I don’t want to pretend I’m doing great when I’m feeling low. People at work ask me, “how are you” and I reply with a typically-false “fine, thanks”. Which is utter lies but they’re not asking because they’re interested, they’re asking because it is the thing to do. Typical British small talk. I discuss the weather with people too. I have no interest in the weather or in the people I am discussing with, but I do it anyway. It’s expected. Who the hell am I to deny expectations?
The same. It’s expected of me to be a good Dad. A good man. A good boyfriend. A good Son, friend, citizen. Pay my taxes, smile weakly as I get screwed by the Government. Yay for the stiff upper lip and all the crap it brings upon us.
I’m scared. I’m scared of the disappointment I will bring upon people. I’m scared of the disappointment I will bring upon myself for failing in the eyes of people I detest. What madness is this? I’m scared that they will be right. That I can’t do this. That I can’t be what they want me to be or who they want me to be. It’s insane. Why do we allow people who mean nothing to us to control us? Who gives THEM the right to dictate our lives to us? I have ONE LIFE and it is 33 years gone. I’m not getting any younger but I am afraid to resist the path others choose for me. Kid. House. Job. Mortgage. Debt (and paying back that debt). Sunday TV. Monday morning back at work. Wednesday trips to the parents. When did my life become so constrained, so scripted, so dull? Why do I not have the courage to fight back and tell them all that they are wrong and I am right? I look at the people who sit around their house all day and don’t work, or have never worked, and I curse them. Scum. Spongers. Wasters.
But what balls! To hell with society. Use society. Get a job. Why? Buy a house. Why? Do what they tell you. WHY!? Are they right and we are all wrong? If we all were to adopt the sponger lifestyle, society would cease to exist. We NEED people like me (mugs like me) to pay for those who are too clever to buy in to the ratrace.
I don’t want that. I want to work. I like nice things. I deny that I am materialistic. I’m a snob. I don’t like to think of Aldi and Lidl. I like to pretend I’m more Sainsburys. I want a nice car and I want a nice home that is mine. I’m stuck in a bit of a paradox. I want what society offers me but I don’t want the 50 years and then you’re dead to get it. I’m not stupid. Yet I work in a pointless job. I like to pretend I am paid for my skills and not my time, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’m an unskilled worker-bee. Not a warrior, not a fighter, a worker. The bottom rung. Be you a cleaner or a call centre worker you’re still trash. How dare I look down upon the cleaners in our building? I’m just the same! I just like to pretend I am different. I try to deny the simple obvious truth of it all, but I can’t. I’m just another pointless human-being on this planet; Destined to live unremarkably and die just as unremarkably. Remembered by few. Revered by even less. Just a.n.other statistic. Paying taxes. Paying for the lives of those smart enough to not buy into the system. Living a lie through gritted teeth. Hating every minute yet plastering on a fake smile and not letting them know I’m nothing to them.
On to them or not. I’m an impotent warrior. Toothless. Unable to fight back. Dead before I’ve even lived.
