The world has many names. Some call it just ‘The World’, others, ‘Gaia’, ‘Mother Earth’. If you look at the vast religions, everyone has a unique way of referring to this pale blue dot in such a maternal manner, quite romantically.
Even though the world is the inspiration to my great minds, it is also the downfall to a great number of souls. I, for one, am amongst the ones this world has shaped in a not-so-gentle fashion.
Incidentally, life can’t get much worse. And for those who know my story, I would like to extend a parallel to what I wrote last time. I may even make this more of a repeated occurrence rather than the old casualty of coming here just after a very unprecedented incident happened.
Well, to articulate my sentiments,
Due to my big mouth, I mentioned my retrenchment priorly (circa the 1st quarter of 2021.) Hence my interesting luck-factor, I was being laid off at the start of this year for reasons other than a ‘bad work ethic’, or ‘drinking problems’ most NEETs fall prey to. I had a hunch all the time that the customer support position wasn’t to my liking, but also that I suffer from a cataclysm of disorders [ADHD, disembodiment, heightened anxiety, low energy, etc]. Nevertheless, I still have these oddly ‘high hopes’ of becoming an astronaut (call it bipolar or what have you), and I always believed the magic wand to be waived with events turning around for the better sometime. A time where all this consciousness anxiety and overt-awareness will dissipate for good.
It has been 13 years from the time that I first struggled with hyper-awareness anxiety. I am hyper aware of my breathing constantly, sometimes my body position. It is where your brain locks into ‘awareness’ mode and can’t snap out of it, you can’t focus on anything else but this inner turmoil. It is a true demon which I could never cut myself properly loose from, and will probably be with me forever. And negatory, I am not in the position to claim benefits as I am not living in a socialist haven. Converse to the problems of socialism, at least the feeble-minded and dull can benefit somewhat, or at least, have a bit of a voice.
Interestingly, ever since my childhood I have dreamt of becoming a prominent figure in society. Memorizing the periodic table at age 12, I was fascinated by the little things in life. And yes, I am aware of the tell-tate ‘small things amuse small minds’ epithet that was always recited to us at school. Yet, I was engulfed by the richness of experience. I wrote stories, crafted novels, realities, and fantasies I could dwell in. It is saddening to read that some can’t even so much as visualize landscapes. If I could pick one thing, one character trait which, amongst all others, saved me from this bad cut of beef called ‘world’, it would’ve been my ability to immerse myself in a world of my own creation, devoid of the pain I always succumbed to at school and the general public.
I am now in an odd position where, after the recent exit from my job, I emotionally vocalized my disgruntlement with the world and my inability to acquire gainful employment. The family friend who sat beside me empathized with my plight and offered help, said she was acquainted with an HR person who could aid me. Subsequently, she had sent my resume to this contact afterwards.
Admittingly, I felt frightened living by my golden rule; that is ‘Never request favors as a favor lent, beckons a favor returned.’ Consequently, it is [just] not in my nature to request a relative for work-favors or placements as I have less autonomy to leave, and should the job suck (it oftentimes does), or I somehow ‘fail’ to meet the high benchmarks, or <<surprise surprise>> my anxiety creeps up and I freeze in shock, I don’t have to face the embarrassment of looking my family member in the eye after the whole of my family is enlightened to my perpetual failure once again.
Not to mention, I also failed the psychometric intelligence test twice, albeit trying very hard to pass. This caused a huge dent in my confidence in keeping a professional job. Apparently my score was a whole standard deviation lower than the Professional norm, which leaves me with call centers and blue-collar jobs for the rest of my life. If I were to take this score seriously, coupled with the very low workplace malleability I have experienced, I should truly tread carefully in going after corporate enterprises.
As luck has it, I arranged an interview this morning and passed the initiation. Not too bad for the try, yet again, the main interviewer stated the high stress level and overtime working in this job. This kinda made me fearful as it is apparent that I can’t cut myself loose. My initiation in asking this relative for help with my resume, and with that turning into an interview, will appear disingenuous in excusing myself from this position forthwith. Through the process, I briefly meditated on getting another position whilst waiting for this one to take off, but then again, I am not so confident that I will find something within a couple months.
In hindsight, my family is delighted at this opportunity taking to fruition, so it will be difficult to extinguish it on my behalf. I am honestly puzzled at what to do.
In a way, I want to inspire myself to achieve greatness, yet I am also very aware of my prior failures at keeping jobs due to ADHD, along with my anxiety battles. When a job gets difficult, I get something called ‘vertigo’, especially in high-stress environments (akin to this job.) Thus realistically, I am aware that someday my anxiety will get the best of me and will keep me completely bewildered. In this case, I won’t be able to focus on the subject matter and will be dealing with extra fear of getting served an additional cold dish by fellow employees, eager to show their ‘dick size’ and obviously will be the first to point out my “anxiety”, and goodnight Vienna for me…
It is days like these in which I feel this propelling need for an extinguishment, an end to all this misery of the sausage factory we have to out-perform. I can’t stand (and wasn’t ever able to) this extreme bureaucracy of this world whence we came, lacking in so much colour, full of pain – An animal farm, if you will, where we are in fact nothing short of, marching off to an ‘abattoir’. (Not the proverbial green-pastures as displayed in the movie Chicken Run, after that one chicken at the start was butchered and the rocket chicken came to save all of them.)
Frankly, there isn’t always the imaginary fairy god-mother who will drag you out of the ditches when you fall onto the gravel.
It appears that this pareidolia of hope is just that – A river in the middle of a desert. Upon reaching out to it, you notice it being a mere sensory overload, an optical illusion if you will.
Reviewing all of this that had happened in a light, it all started way back when I was 4 years old. I was an early-visionary, almost with an uncanny insight to how little I really belong here. If it weren’t for my unorthodox birth posture, and tell-tale signs of living in the wrong slice of time, I don’t know what else would. Probably the gedachtenexperiment I had when I was only 3 1/2, and asking questions like ‘who am I’, ‘why am I here’, ‘is this a movie?’ was already proven troubling to teachers and other aged members of society. Or better yet, people who were older in the ‘animal farm’.
Perhaps, this is what pisses off people the most, in that we, fellow SP people, can see the folly of this world, the empty dream it once sold us a far. Stockholm syndrome to its highest form; a world where those around you push you beneath the water to keep themselves upright.
I always have a sneer of disgust when anyone mentions a ‘Utopia;’ as this is not how the world works. A Utopia will prove the reverse of what we all know; that people have you in their best interest. It is natural selection reversed, a world where everyone can claim its victory.
I believe, the only way out of this situation that will turn sour soon, will be to fail the upcoming interviews. At least if failure ensues, I don’t have to worry about being the lazy arse here as it is them who gave the red light. I am too afraid that I will push the envelope with a situation which will cause me heightened anxiety, and becomes too real.
It is now the time to embrace honesty (something I never admitted to.), and realize that my anxiety prompts me into a lower-paid job, just so I may keep on living.
Living stoically, the truth oftentimes hurts but we should accept it. This is the hard part – Accepting something you want to be so wholly different, and yet look yourself in the mirror every morning, openly admitting that you failed once again. This is something I can’t cause happening, and will most likely happen should I go forward with the interviews and then having to face redundancy later on when anxiety punches me square in the face. Moreover, causing such a dent in a family relation that I could’ve otherwise saved should I only have kept my mouth shut.
This momentarily glimpse from the past is a fleeting rags to riches, hopefulness which fades away with time. Before you know it, you are all grown up and these treasury chests are the memories of your early infancy.
Welcome to the ‘real’ world, I suppose…
P.S. Frost* released a great new album. Please do yourself a favor and listen to this song. Just today, I felt sorry for myself and for the rest of us, [only] a little whilst listening to it.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmiAmW3sgHs
1 comment
Hey I’m glad for your job, challenging work helps keep your mind off everything else. As for the psychometric test, you’re depressed. Yeah, you’ll get a fucked up results. It doesn’t mean you’re less of a person or that it’s the end of your career. And to be honest you don’t sound like the call center kind. You’re more than that. It’s great that the people in your life are happy for you, but I wouldn’t take that as the ultimate goal in all this. You’re alive and self conscious. You don’t owe it to anyone to think about their happiness before your own. If you’re unhappy with where you are, change it without a thought for anybody else. It’s what you need. Anyway, I hope you feel better. And I’ll listen to that song.