recently some of my friends got into a discussion around a general sense of “I don’t know what to do.” with COVID fading into the background, destined to be another source of misery and death for the rest of our lives, and not a single lesson having been learned by the World, any hope that perhaps habits of labor and care might change has proven naive.
at the time of the discussion, I didn’t feel these concerns as acutely as my comrades did/do, since as of late I have been absorbed by writing projects that keep me preoccupied, if not exactly content. plus I’ve been more social in the last few weeks than I have in a long time, finally pinning down some friends of my who have been, let’s say, difficult to reach. but I am always at odds with myself about what I want to do. I have commented on this often, so often that I’m sick of hearing myself talk about it if I’m not going to do anything about it.
there’s something I don’t seem to get, something everyone agreed on at some meeting, or maybe there’s some memo I never received, about the inevitability of conformity, about the necessity of murdering your inner child, along with its ideals for what it means to live well, for the sake of submitting to the world of Work. I understand intellectually, but can’t abide it, not without the vertiginous sense that Death approaches. in my grandiose mode, I mystically imagine ways we as a people might change, what sort of resistance or revolt is necessary to alter course, something I don’t think is impossible like some more melancholic leftists might believe. but absent large-scale political action and organization, the social changes necessary to improve everyone’s lot remain pipe dreams.
I spoke with a friend of mine about all this this morning, about wishing I could quit my job, about the sense that I will need to make certain compromises soon, about feeling like I make too many decisions out of fear. despite being much better off than many people nowadays, I still feel the precarity that by design creates anxiety around employment, health care, etc., and so cannot imagine how exactly to operate without the guardrails of employment.
the conversation made me feel a little better, in that I shouldn’t bother trying to form some escape plan from the straight world and should instead continue to focus on writing, while in the mean time determining what my actual options are, rather than merely the easy/obvious maintenance-of-course ones. like, for example, I could sell my car and with that money I could afford to live without a steady income for quite a while, maybe a year or two. just, as an example.
here are some specific, concrete actions I can take while I continue to assess my options for avoiding regret:
- first and most importantly, continue writing.
- sell/get rid of what I don’t need.
- take stock of what is “necessary” to submit to vis a vis technological control, vs. what is “convenient”/”easy”/”seductive.”
- make an effort to be more of a diva and a clown, and less of a goody-goody all the time.
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