It's been a struggle to write the last few weeks. I've started, stopped, erased, and just moved on 6 or 7 times. Almost nothing I've done or thought about has felt "worth it." I've had annoying things happen. I've been mildly inspired by a handful of things I've watched or read. But, what's the point? I usually write because I need to feel better. If I'm not really feeling one way or another, what then?
I've been considerably more observant of myself. I'm watching each beat of a situation as it might elevate. When I'm hungry, begging to get even more frustrated about my dead car, annoying service agents, and prices to fix things, I'm feeling each decision on the way to saying something shitty to someone who can't shake themselves out of call-center mode. When I think I want to be social and interject myself into a random conversation at the bar, I pull out immediately when the polite signal to fuck off shows up, then go home almost as quickly as I decided to try being out.
Yesterday, I went to a comedy show. I drove my truck, and was quickly reminded of the gas cost disparity against driving my Scion. I get parked, and Parkmobile with it's defaulted to my Scion information, takes my $7.25 and does not allow me to change the vehicle I get parked. Of course. Their chat "person" cites policy, kicks the can to Indianapolis parking, and when I called them, they told me to email someone else as they also couldn't be bothered. I get a response this morning that says they can only refund with a confirmed meter malfunction and that it's the responsibility of the driver to indicate the correct parking spot. I did indicate the correct parking spot.
It clicked with me the nature of the shitty soup we're all swimming in. How quickly and "reasonably" we take these kinds of scenarios for granted and "normal." Of course, it would take nothing for an entry-level program to let you select the right license plate, but 1,000 or 10,000 oversights a day or week or month is capitalism. In a world with common sense or decency, this would never be a conversation I needed to have with anyone, let alone 3 or 4 people over several days, and only likely getting them to capitulate through some level of fraud or exhaustion. The "peace" I make with losing the $7.25 is going to look like a measure of ongoing property destruction or defiling of Indianapolis.
That's my bargain. I refuse to go quietly into the night of getting taken advantage of. You want to talk about the immaturity or disrespect, save your breath. I'm not choosing violence, I'm forced to contend with the policies of violence that are designed to make us all feel like we're helpless. Institutional theft and laziness is not a standard I'm willing to live by.
Any time I get a cog to break, you might be tempted to call that "hope" or a win. But the point is that I shouldn't be prompted to and training for how to break people. Yes, I've, fairly routinely, exhausted people into doing the right thing. That's not sustainable.
I think I feel perfectly desperate to live along some pretty basic lines of fairness and common sense. I know how complex that "simple" statement really is. To this day, the incidents from my life that I'm most incensed by, I never get push back on. You don't want to pay twice for a parking spot, whether you "have the money" or not. I, technically, don't, having been in debt the last few years, or my entire adult life, depending on your frame of reference. How can a college-educated single person who lives in the middle of nowhere be in debt? We've normalized the grift. Those with the power feel entitled to capitalize on your innocent missteps, ignorance, or desperate circumstances. You're too busy, tired, or blind to bother with how deep the hooks have set in.
I'm not. I have the time. I have the autistic superpower to make the "trivial" my number one priority until I'm satisfied. Again, it's not sustainable, but it is possible, and I've succeeded enough to feel like it's worth it every time I try. Also, trying in and of itself speaks to the broader principle and point. We don't lose the world through millions of people just turning evil and burning everything down. We lose it through negligence. We lose it through taking things for granted and refusing to protect timeless basic shit. That battle is never over.
I'm in the nonprofit business of teaching "coping skills." The catch in attempting to teach such things is that they need to be translated into your own individualized language. I write, for example. But, if I write to "feel better," I'm the only one who knows whether or not I'm writing in a way that gets there. I'm writing with a purpose to expose myself to difficult or trying thoughts and circumstances and hopefully get them incorporated. I want to think about and find the focus for the hundreds of things I care about or would prefer to do. A large or chronic problem has a habit of totalizing my awareness. Instinctively, luckily, I was able to discover the light at the end of many meandering tunnels into my thoughts.
If I conceive of the world as a series of chronic and unhelpful problems, fixes range from elusive to impossible. I observe the consequences of what I perceive to be chronic conditioning, and I locate courses of action within my agency. You don't want to provide a reasonable refund? Ok, I can choose to behave unreasonably and in a reactionary way until I'm satiated. It's not the preferred fix, but it's on the table. I've bemoaned "capitalism" and the pathologies of American myopia as much as anyone, so I rearranged my entire life to spend more time in the void and in search for asymmetric attacks.
Coping is complex because you don't even realize you're doing it. I see people who have next-to-zero capacity for recognizing how they are or aren't coping. Then, I see people who are utilizing refined and specialized versions of basic coping skills ultimately against themselves. Say you have a supportive family, money to indulge indefinitely, are well-read on the chronic behavior patterns you emulate, and exercise, eat right, and sleep just fine. Great recipe for working yourself to death and downplaying how much the capitalist machine is eating you alive. This appeared to be the fate of all of my smart-enough middle-to-upper-middle-income and management types I lost contact with from college. Why pay too much attention to a thousand injustices 5 days a week, when 2 you get to sip expensive whisky and climb a rock!?
I think about all of the paths I didn't follow as a result of my demonstrated classroom ability I hesitate to call "intelligence." I read a lot. I read about how people succumb to the miserable echoing trends culturally that manifest in unique ways for their field. Previously "sacred" or "exalted" paths riddled with horrifying modern realities. Doctors experiencing a suicide crisis. Researchers publishing "popular," and unscientific, crap to keep the grants flowing. Nurses getting screwed by traveling nurses who essentially function as scabs who get paid more to eschew long-term benefits and undermine unions. A lack of leadership in the trades selling out members and cutting corners. Lawyers living 3 and 4 deep and still barely affording rent. "Teachers" not even needing degrees. Pick an industry, you'll find the rot immediately. Anyone else still mourning what DeJoy's done to the post office?
How do you cope? How do you learn that's what you're currently poorly doing? Who tells you that all of the best things about your have been weaponized against you and exploited past the point of you even being able to recognize how they were supposed to function in an environment that wasn't originally designed to kill you? First, you have to accept it's your responsibility to listen to and respond to the persistent antagonizing voices. You don't have to become obsessive and compulsive chasing down your $7.25, but this paperboy understands the principle in demanding his two dollars.
No comments:
Post a Comment