Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Philosophy bakes no bread...

So, it all started when I was a child. I must have had a bad experience 'trying' something, and quickly decided, it's better to think than to act. Better to ponder, weigh, determine, mull, sort, judge, postulate, theorize, cogitate, contemplate and even decide, but not do or be. I was an a priori 'yes', a posteriori 'no' kind of kid. You know the type. Better to hide in the bedroom and listen to progressive rock music than go play in the park. Better to spend your money on batteries so your flashlight could stay lit all night while you were reading instead of on candy bars and action figures. Of course, I usually fell somewhere in between all of that. Eating candy bars at night and marking my books with the wrappers. Who knows. It's so long ago. I can't hardly remember what happened yesterday.
Which brings me to my point. Office work is not a necessary, functional way to carry out the business of life in a capitalist economy. It is not the stuff of sink-your-teeth-in, career-oriented freshman pep rallies. It's not even the by-product of the corporate monster, some unfortunate mess to tediously clean-up or maintain. It is evil. Pure evil. 976-Evil. And it's inky tendrils of wickedness will poke through every clean ounce of your spare time and use up every last empty drawer in your mind until you have no joy, no happiness, no ability to remember appointments, no recollection of recent past events. Everything is gone and you are wondering 'what the heck happened? How come I used to have dreams and goals and now I just have lunch hours and overtime? I've traded peace for post-it notes, the high life for a highlighter. This is not my dream! This is not my aspiration! This is not my beautiful wife!

You may say to yourself, calm down. It's just a job. You can go home afterward. You can sit on a porch, pet a cat, climb a tree. You can write a symphony in your spare time. Just don't freak out. Don't be so dramatic. And you're probably right. It's fine. I'm okay. I'm not hanging by my ankles in a French prison. I'm not pulling rotten meat off roadkill to satisfy my endless hunger. I'm typing on the computer, eating Wheat Thins, trying to decide what kind of tea to go and get for myself. I think Tazo Passion. Because life is short, and I'm pulling a 12-hour shift today. Even Big Brother takes a holiday now and then...