I love how I finish yet another night at work, as though the beginning of the day is a coronation for my conquest.
Jairus Jason Whines Again. It came to the point of mentally drafting my resignation letter.
Perhaps I have not often mentioned what a great deal of stress my work has thrown over my shoulders. Significantly, on the few months after I’ve started. At that time, I’ve always felt an anxiousness in the middle of stomach, followed by the formation of a parch on my throat. It happens right when I’m about to press the available button. How I thought and yakked of resigning, everyday. I more often had the mindset that it was something to keep me level, and kept silent about the details which were undeniably obvious.
Perhaps my fears that sprung from work are invented. And that led me to counteract, thus I invented reasons and rationalizations that allowed me to assuage my fears. I think I thought of that, when I was staring at the site from the bus window during a late afternoon. People were rushing home. The light from the setting sky makes the buildings seem so small, despite having swallowed so many lives.
After a while, I guess I’ve learned to adapt to this line of work, to put up to a difficult feat. Time, a long length of time, makes us acquiescent to the circumstances we face.
I was telling myself just last month, “I had gathered so much complacency. I already had my intuition working on it. Just when I had extensive client knowledge, take on every customer issue, and make sound judgment calls. I had that air of professionalism hanging on me.” There was a time that I started to generally enjoy work, or have adapted to enjoying it.
And then I transferred to a new account. I felt my complacency crushed, my professionalism dampened and demoralized. My liver has not turned yellow since then. Once again, I am back to zero.
Once again, the litany of everyday life becomes, “Why do I have to put up with this?” Although after a time, I’ll eventually conquer this affliction. It’s even easier now, I know, since I’ve once grown desensitized to the fretfulness worked has caused me.
Somehow, I could say that I proved myself. Having read all the Nietzsche stuff, I wanted a test of strength, a new struggle. I don’t want to rake up the redundancy for the formula of how I got through it before. Furthermore, I can never really be certain that I’m going to pull it through this time.
Until a better job comes up, I have to be glad about what I’ve got.
After a brief period of scorching, unbearable heat, which seemed like so much loathing, it began to rain again. It drizzled on early mornings and late afternoons and the skies went gloomy all day.
I probably have mentioned this for a million times, how nature sympathizes with life’s dryness. At one point, I thought that nature itself not only sympathizes but actually dictates the course of life.
It’s 5:20 pm and I’m looking out the window while the leaves hum and dance on the large, against a background of ashen skies. A blue car passes by. I’m playing sharply depressive music, European alternative music: Coldplay. I used to listen to it a lot at work when I was on the chat team --- and ironically enough, that didn’t register any hint of depression when I listened to it at that time. It depresses me now, but I play it all the same. There is no point in wallowing in depression but we are inclined to do so, as if it was a necessary condition.
The last few tracks of Moby’s “Play” was equally depressing.
I’m still wondering if should label my present affliction as a genuine and terrible one. Maybe I’m psyching myself up for a grand re-affirmation of life. Maybe, in time. For now, I should learn to convince myself to be glad with what is steady.
Steady means all that I have for now. The two days I had off, the reads, the nights out, the occasional sex, and the little joys that I have always dwelled upon.
I know that this may or may not lead to an eventual deformation of character. I was having a drink with M&L last night. We covered one of the most usual objects of conversation: how’s work? How’s the future? How we ask not only how the present is, but also judge how the future would be, as if the future were easily predictable. As usual, I had to concede that I didn’t have any long term goals, no plans for career growth, no dreams. I only had little fantasies, like having a fantasy chick, fantasy job as a waiter, fantasy owner of a coffee shop, fantasy own apartment with fully loaded library, fantasy furnishings, appliances and amenities, fantasy car, fantasy success, fantasy life. Fantasies I would never act upon. Fantasies that let me resolve to low profile happiness. Sheryl crow sings, “It’s not having what you want, its wanting what you’ve got. I’m gonna’ soak up the sun. I’m gonna tell everyone to lighten up.” Wow, I’m getting really mainstream. I think it’s the way she sang it, the commanding precision of timing when it hit me.
Is this what it’s like to be a bystander to your fate? To simply hope for the best about what happens next? With all that I’ve learned and spouted in philosophy, this seems like a sorry lot.
Life responds? The first stroke of sunlight arrives at around 5:30, right after my shift. It automatically activates a joy-in-my-spine. I love how I finish yet another night at work, as though the beginning of the day is a coronation for my conquest. Work is over, at least for now. I take a pleasant walk to the loading zone in Ayala Triangle, along streets still silent and empty. The 5:45 am wind brushes my skin. The sunlight is pleasant, not ferocious. All those necktied men and short skirted women are still in bed, hesitating to get up. I’ll be on my way home on a commute with no traffic, unimaginably glad for the end of the night. It’s like receiving a reassurance that life will reply to complaints I file.
