Ping-pong

I've had a frightening brush with that old protestant work ethic. It came upon a realization that I was spending a great deal of emotional energy applying for a job and a volunteer position, and that I was doing this in large part because I want it to be the way to something better. And in a moment of clarity (the commercials blaring out of the TV must have let up for a second) I extrapolated what I'm doing now for 20 more years. I saw offices piled with papers on the shelves; I saw myself shaking hands and pinching my cheeks for that full colour effect; I saw myself walking up and down hundreds of stairs: into department buildings, government buildings, schools, libraries, stores, apartments; I saw the bills on the kitchen table; I saw a relaxing evening with smooth jazz; I saw a futon and an armchair and a television; I saw a queen-size bed in the northwest corner; and I felt the weariness of my bones and the tightness of my arteries and veins. Not surprising, really. The likely scenario--perhaps inescapable.

People in our age are supposed to have an average of seven or eight major jobs, if I recall correctly. That's a lot of shifting and adjusting. It runs counter to all my predispositions. As a result, it is a distinct possibility that I'll be tossed by the wayside even in our "socialist" country by armies of well-bred and clean people waving their CVs and begging for letters of reference, the same people who can play the phone tag for an entire day and think nothing of it. My methods are not compatible with this--maybe this is why I'd be a perma-student if given the chance. I build slowly and strike out randomly, and if I encounter resistance, I run back to cling to my mother's apron strings (metaphorically; my mother doesn't cook).

Case in point: I studied for a bit today, and then got sidetracked reading about M-theory, something that 1) I cannot understand and 2) cannot apply. I spent three hours leafing through something that beat my sense of intellectual grasp to the ground.

Consider (with apologies to D.: "...fools say in their heart / "Rasta, your God is dead!" / but I'n'I know / jah, jah / dread / it shall be dreader dread..."