I've taken to expressing frustrations via vlogs, but unless I'm particularly worked up, it's not proving to be as in depth as I need to if I'm looking for courses of action to take.
I felt utterly defeated downloading apps like Grubhub and Doordash. To be sure, I'm not "above" or "against" working really any kind of job. I am reaching levels of properly desperate or crisis in considering how much more of my effort or time I'm going to have to waste in order to keep my head above water. I can't stop myself from reflecting on how I wish I had better or more consistent manifestations of what I consider to be my worth.
The thought occurred to me that I've always excelled at things which have already been set up. School? Read this, answer that, memorize a little here and there. Easy as pie. Work environments? Even shitty ones that have a set schedule or series of required repeatable metrics for "success," I will master your system, software, or process in 3 months, make it more efficient by 6, lament how it's killing me for the next 6 and then depending on how messy my life outside of the work environment may be, quit, or suffer until I break in larger ways.
I'm not good at the "start-up" stuff. There's too many things I can't control for. I can't make people respond to me. I can't know the amount of ways I'm getting taken advantage of, like with our rent at the mall or lazy lawyer I consulted. I can't keep the faith for anyone else I'm hoping to work with. All of my projects are extremely fragile or amateur. Everything I've attempted on the land, while it functions, and certainly has met some of my goals, is explicitly "me." I would never expect a "normal" person to live like I do, nor would I create something for someone else that functioned like how I live.
This is a daily visceral contrasting set of experiences. At one level, I'm a guy with a litany of unique skills, experiences, and beliefs about his potential. At another, I'm proper random chaos who can't keep his attention on anything for longer than a few hours, so projects are half-complete, sacrifices in comfort are made, and when ruts hit, all of the potential I'm surrounded by turns into antagonism. Right now, I have 8 computer screens in front of me. There's a scammy rental fractional-investing video from a course I need to just put to bed. There's 2 different TV channels, 2 Spotify instances (as I'm in the middle of a huge downloading project for my dad), a Coursera page, and a window with some light research on more potential remote jobs.
Just beyond these screens is my digital drum set, guitar, piano, Invincible compendium, and 10 game systems, not including Candy Crush from 1 of my 2 phones. All of it, in some way, calls to me every minute of every day. When I can do something for someone else or have a genuine reason to leave the house, it nestles away somewhere comfortable. When I'm home, which is where I wish to be generally speaking, any time I'm not doing one of those things, I feel like a wasteful cunt. I think about the people getting bombed and shot. I think about the people working themselves to death and never seeing their families. How can I exist for a single solitary second not feeling a deep appreciation for my circumstances and a willingness to do whatever I must to keep it going?
I think some version of that framing is why people get trapped under impossible-to-fix and irrational guilt. I don't feel guilty. I feel like a cunt. That framing suggests that your disposition should be dictated by your ability to engage in "self-care," or more accurately "indulgences" and "privileges." I genuinely want to learn and feel confident in every instrument I own. I don't want to at the expense of any and everything else I might focus on or do. It's okay not to be playing until my fingers bleed. And, for what it's worth, no one's misery ever, under any circumstances, has anything to do with your responsibility for getting out of a funk, enjoying something, or framing it in a way that you can avoid unnecessary guilt.
My whole mood changes in an instant when I can start imagining doing whatever is "next." I'm feeling stuck in the counseling crap? Can I envision buying an ATM route and breaking even in 2 years? That, almost perfectly random, thought brought on from reading reddit comments about B2B businesses and "unsexy" things people do to make millions gets the juices flowing. I spent 30 hours finding out a YouTube business course was ridiculous. How far into Coursera and how many certifications do you think I could get in 30 hours? How about a 2 weeks of working like I do? I'm over here trying to dodge remote customer service jobs, what if I started the new year in IT?
I'm not very disciplined. What I am is a trickster. I will trick myself by building an environment that facilitates with less concerted effort. The party house was a perfect "If you build it, they will come" kind of thing. Part of the reason the land projects stagnate is because it has only been remotely the kind of environment I envisioned with Allie was out here, and we saw how that went. All this stuff I'm surrounded by is my velvety-barred prison. When I get desperate or restless enough, I get really really good at whatever's in front of me. That can be researching and reading, binging, cleaning/organizing, playing, etc.
What to pick, and why? At a very important level, most of what I'm doing each day isn't speaking to something "more." I don't have to get any better at my instruments. I can play exactly everything Jack Johnson can if that's the kind of musician I wished to be. I beat the shit out of probably 100 or more games before I pretty much stopped gaming entirely for years. What are these "new" ones really bringing to the table? If I get these certifications, I'm guaranteed to be paying $50 a month, but the job prospects? Anyone's guess. TV is ole reliable. Half these jobs I'm applying for are just engines for email spam. I know I'm going to feel absolutely ridiculous leaving my house to drive food around only to come home hours later with maybe $100.
I really do need money though. My debt situation is starting to get to a point where I'm wondering if my internal sense of crisis is driving the car I don't want into another totalizing accident. I'm still enjoying all of the stuff it's servicing, but I probably shouldn't buy anything for 6 months with a decent job, let alone the seemingly inevitable crap I'm going to find myself enmeshed in by whomever is willing to hire…and I probably should still dash on the side.
I came out here to escape "normal" life trappings, and that's proving to be way harder than I thought. Namely because even living like I do, say I did absolutely nothing fun, bought no toys, and just collected paychecks. You know how much money I'd have right now? $4,481. 15 months of 40 hour weeks. ZERO nights out. ZERO band-ts. ZERO tickets for friends or my dad. Just me, my job, and my humble abode, in 15 months of wasting gas and time and enabling people, I could in this imagined future be just shy of $5,000 if I went even further and hit the food bank!
Let's get my savings up just a bit higher. Let's kill any remote ambition regarding the counseling business. There's another $2,000. Let's make all my meals at home. Another $4,000. Nix the home insurance. $1,000. Now we're talking. Be a literal hermit who gets amazing at ramen variations and I could be sitting fat and happy on $12,000 right now! I made $10,000 for 2 spinal taps, a 5 day stay and 6 or 7 brief follow-up visits doing drug studies.
How does anyone who has to pay rent do it? How does anyone with kids do it? And whether I had $4,000 or $12,000 right now, say I get sick and needed to hit an emergency room, in a heartbeat all the time spent working and sacrificing is snuffed out. How do you not just live in a place of "Fuck it, I'll do what I want?"
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