I'm sitting at my desk, which means Caitlin is in bed working. We'll switch later, and I'll be sitting in bed. I ate a sugar free yoghurt this morning. It was fine, but the taste of the artificial sweetener is still lingering half-an-hour later. Lastly, I'm appropriately caffeinated, which is a nice change.
I started work yesterday. I spent the entire day doing HR mandated training—safety videos, how to efficiently load shipping containers, tips to prevent heat exhaustion, etc. I will be doing the same thing the entire week.
To be frank, I am disappointed. I joined the military, got a BA, moved to Seattle, and this is what I get? I get paid a bit more than minimum wage to do a job that anyone with a functioning body and reliable transportation can do?
I was earning nearly twice as much last year. Granted, I was miserable. I left that life because I was miserable. I needed to leave. I hoped for a bright future. And what was the future is now the present. And the present isn't bright. It feels pathetic.
I think I know what I have been doing wrong. It's an existential thing. I have Irvin D. Yalom's book Staring at the Sun to thank for this insight. I have lived my life in the expectation that it would resemble an ever-growing upwards spiral of increasing potential and opportunities. That is where I found my sense of safety. That is how I escaped my own personal fear of death.
I thought I was brave because I joined the army. I thought I had a grip on my fear of death because I was able to read The Death of Ivan Ilyich and still be mostly-unbothered by thinking about slowly wasting away on my deathbed. I thought I was facing my mortality every time I rode a motorcycle.
But those are not the ways that I fear death.
My safety bubble—what Jung would call the womb-tomb—is my hope in my merely-latent potential.
The tragic thing about (my) latent potential is how much greatness and beauty it promises and how little substance it seems to generate when I actually try to access it. I've accused others of getting high on their dreams; now I see that I am doing the same thing.
I've said this all before in different words. This time it is a little bit more accurate. This time it is a little bit more real. This time it is a little more incarnate.
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Better to have true despair than false hope.
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Moving boxes for UPS is only temporary. It is humble. Many people look down on it; I know this because I look down on it. I know I shouldn't; and this would be less painful if I didn't. But I do, and I'm working on understanding the meaning and value this type of work can provide.
I fucking hate the thought of working only to make someone else more wealthy. I just don't want to be—or feel—used.
Well, it's not like I have any other choice right now. I hate this. But at least I know I hate this.
Hate is okay. I just shouldn't grow resentful. Hate may become fuel. But resentment is always poison.
I will try to learn as much as I can. I will try to make this a valuable experience.
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A ghost speaks: Every moment is a microcosm.
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A dubious koan inspired by Nietzsche comes to mind:
How do you do it so that you can do it forever?
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My writing here is not achieving anything.
But my writing is doing something: I am transforming my thoughts.
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