[1139] Poof

I just had a flourish of a feeling. It was brief but palpable. It happened after I thought about securing a job, in particular, one that would potentially put me at $2,000+ a paycheck.

One of my running criticisms of people is that they are constantly looking for license. Who can’t imagine a scene from a movie, or the drama of their own life, where someone screams, “Look what you made me do!” It’s a popular-enough Taylor Swift lyric. We want to feel justified and like any given situation deserves our behavior.

This is tenuous ground to stand on. But what does having a secure-enough job or incoming paycheck provide? It’s a door to a litany of justified positions and posture. I, constantly, have “the next thing” I want to buy, be it building materials or upgrades to things I have. I psychologically moved fast food into a category of “don’t stress about this” when I was at DCS and essentially forced to eat while driving for 2 years. It was justified, in my mind, because I’m efficient, and had a job.

The feeling was a brief brazenness I haven’t experienced for months having hunkered down and cut my spending severely. Who knows what amount of Amazon stuff will flow through my doors once they say I’m hired? Who knows how many tickets I’m getting nosebleed seats for turn into closer pavilion rows. I want to be able to access a certain proud free-flowing posture with regards to funds, and that makes it something of a dangerous trap.

The job that would set that trap would be another prison/jail environment. It would require a bit of a commute. It would almost certainly be “hitting the ground running” and taking on too many clients. But, if I actually managed to refrain from jumping the gun on order buttons, I’d be out of debt in 5-6 months. I’ve made dozens of professions about my dissatisfaction about debt over the years. At the same time, it’s facilitated a fuck-ton of fun and utility. Do I have viciously competing goals, or a poor understanding of my priorities?

I want each day to be something I’m looking forward to. I can’t know for sure what the next prison job would bring, but I know an immense amount about the field. I know I can eat shit for a few months, and usually start the next job search a few weeks in. I don’t want to be in the business of downplaying and justifying, ironically then in service to more justifying in how I spend to escape my sense of dread and misery. Undue pride and boldness can be a response to that diminished sense of self and agency.

I still don’t know how to break out of this cycle. I’m genuinely trying to not let my thoughts about it eat me alive, and I don’t get the impression anyone I explain my problem to really gives a fuck or feels it in the same way. There’s something of a parallel when it comes to offering counseling services in a world where people generally only want a “harm-reduction” fix. I want you to feel confident you don’t need drugs or medication to live a happy and healthy life. You want license to maintain a perspective that’s at the mercy of your circumstances.

I don’t want to believe I’m stuck here. I don’t see the rest of my life hopping between overwhelming and unfulfilling roles entertaining people’s pathological behavior. I haven’t discovered where I might be more useful or effective. I don’t think the “comfort” I find in a paycheck helps me stay focused on the search. I would say neither does the relatively endless free time I try to provide myself, but I did just get a window installed in a wood-shop I finally put together and have been pretty aggressively yard-working. It doesn’t pay.