Everything we experience is built upon what we have done before, everything that happens is built upon something that already passed. Even new things, even things as crazy as christ depicted in feces in a modern art gallery, are built upon things that happened before. None of us are truly original, and none of us are entirely fake. The desire to be original means you are a copy of another person who tried the same thing, and even if you do something new, it doesn't matter.
I realized today I hate my job. I hate it. I haven't felt this much hatred in a long time, I haven't felt this beat up or tired or demoralized since, well, the last time I left my job. The last time I left my job I agonized for months, maybe even a year. I was younger, a little less confident, not sure how or where or even if I really fit into the world. I wondered if anything else would come along, or how i would survive in the interim. I don't worry about that anymore. I have designed my life in a such a way that I have savings built up which allows me the financial flexibility to leave, i have built my own personality so I am strong enough to do it. Work, rather the work that I am supposedly trained to do, should be empowering. I should be learning new things and meeting people and helping companies run themselves better. It may not be the most noble enterprise, but it should be interesting. It has given me, in a fairly short amount of time, the ability to save money again and build up some savings. I realized tonight, after coming home and responding to some email, after I left work to work at home on a document I'll never bother to write that nobody at my company really cares if I ever do, after reading an email that somebody changed a password without telling me so I need to email 22 people for the second time in 3 months that the password changed and nobody told me, that i hate my job. I believe managers should empower people to make decisions, to learn, and to guide them in that. I don't get that. I have no hope for promotion, excitement, or interest in my job for at least 6 months. I am supposed to run this project that nobody else in the company understands and help build our online training courses. I am doing the latter because when I had free time, I went looking for work within the company to help someone. I am now in a career spiral because I was trying to be a good employee on one hand and, probably more accurately, was bored and trying to fill my day. Now, I am writing training courses. Somewhere towards the end of Catch-22, there is a line where Yossarian is saying they won't send him to the Pacific to continue fighting because he is certifiably crazy. He says, "They can't send me, I'm crazy." The other guys looks at him, and you can almost feel not only the pity that he doesn't get it but the absolute hopelessness of the line, and he says, "Who else would go?"
It might be time for me to go. It might be time for me to give notice on the apartment, sell some books, sell this computer, sell my car, store some pictures like buble wrapped memories and disappear for a while.
I told a story as I was in a canoe in Mosquitia in Honduras about spending a week on a beach in Mexico. I didn't really speak spanish, and it was a small town on the Pacific coast and nobody spoke english. I had a good book and a notebook and I spent all day alone with those 2 friends. I was happy. The joke was that that was paradise for an introvert. Maybe it was, and maybe i am. Maybe I need that again, I felt alive again when I was travelling a few weeks back in central america on a trip I still haven't figured out how to write about. maybe it's just time to pick up and try something new. I told people I was working from home in the morning tomorrow. I'll take a walk, drink a coffee and watch the river flow. I'll pretend I don't understand anyone and they don't understand me. I've been to busy lately and I lost touch with myself again. I promised myself before I would never let that happen and I would never do a job I absolutely hated. I fear I might be 0-2 right now.
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