WAKE THE F UP!!!
I just got back to NYC from a weeklong vacation at
the beach in my old stomping grounds of NC. Which means I’m also back to my
fulltime job.
When the alarm went off this morning, I realized
that I barely felt relaxed and refreshed. It’s like my vacation didn’t even
happen. As usual, I found myself grumbling, even cursing the alarm clock, as I begrudgingly
rolled out of bed to begin the incessant morning ritual of getting ready for
work.
So as I began my daily commute, I started thinking
about alarm clocks. And how – unnatural – they are.
No wonder our country is so diffuse with mental illness
and substance abuse issues.
For however many millennia, human beings awoke
naturally with the dawn – many aided, possibly, by roosters ringing in the new
day. Whether it was the cock crowing, or simply sunlight pervading your
personal sleeping space, this signified it was time – time to get out of
bed, and get on with the daily task of somehow staying alive.
AH AH AH AH STAYIN’ ALIVE STAYIN’ ALIVE!
But that isn’t the case for most of us now.
Look, I get it. I really do. That old idyllic fantasy
of the “days of yore,” sitting atop the hill at dusk, watching the sunset with
your loved one, was never really part of the human picture. Those folks – the ones
without technology – probably had to work their literal asses off from dawn til
dusk, just to eke out a living as they braved the perils before progress: the
weather, wild beasts, warmongering – even witches! Work has always been part of
the human condition, and before the Industrial Revolution that work was probably
literally backbreaking—and demoralizing as well.
In our modern life, creature comforts are nary a
concern for most of the industrialized world. Even minimum wage earners don’t
have to worry about the basic necessities of life—a roof over your head, food
on your plate.
(Although we do seem to be backsliding a bit, as we
continue to line the pockets of the so-called 1%, with more and more folks falling
outside the margins of the mainstream, or having to work 2 or 3 jobs just to
stay afloat. But, you get my point.)
But, still . . . . this whole construct of modern
day existence, and the ridiculousness of this daily grind, are delusional and deleterious.
I can’t be the only person who feels like they are on the precipice of a mental
breakdown because I have to be jolted out of sweet slumber in order to go sit
at a desk and resume my daily position as just another cog in the machine. The
fruits of such labor being, for all intents and purposes, that somebody gives
me a bunch of intrinsically worthless dirty pieces of paper with pictures of
dead white men, so that I can go give said paper to someone else in exchange
for that roof over my head and that food on my plate. Why can’t I go out and
get my own f*$#ing food? Why can’t I find my own shelter or dwelling place? Well,
because by this point, somebody “owns” all of the land, and all the flora and
fauna existing therein. It is literally becoming illegal to be homeless.
So, if I wanted to get “back to the land,” and just
go live in a cave somewhere and forage for my meals? FORGET IT. Somebody owns
the land. I’ll be trespassing, and either thrown in jail or shot.
I guess all in all, I do appreciate the roof and the
plate. I just think it’s kind of silly what I have to do to obtain that. I have
much more to write about regarding the fallacy of fulltime work—and will
get to that as soon as I’m caught up on all the menial tasks at my job. Until
then, maybe I just need an alarm clock that sounds like a rooster. Alarm cock? š
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