in my line of work there’s a strict hierarchy. I suppose it’s the same in every career but it’s especially strong in careers that aren’t ruled strictly by money. Sure money controls everything, but there are a few areas where money is secondary. Say for example athletics–no amount of money can make a slow runner win the race, it ultimately comes down to ability, talent, hard work and all the “noble” qualities we admire. my problem is that my line of work isn’t as clearcut as athletics; it’s still judged on a very subjective basis and that’s where $$ sticks its dirty fingers in. If you hadn’t guessed I don’t have $$ so I can’t break through the ceiling and that’s why I’m stuck in this shitswamp I refer to as a pond.
this is where little fish supposedly band together and break out. that’s how you get to the next bigger pond if you don’t have $$. Fair enough. but there’s a reason why they’re called little fish. its because they’re stuck in the little fish mentality, not strong enough to lead so they latch onto something bigger to lead them. the problem is they end up dragging down whatever they latch onto. And that’s why swamps remain swamps.
metaphor over. I’m sick of this shit.I’m sick of every “opportunity” being just another opportunist. Nobody in this shit town understands how symbiosis works, they’re too focused on saving their own sorry asses no matter whom they drag down. 1 lifeboat for the entire ship? Let’s all pile the fuck in!
I’m so fucking sick of humans with their swamp herd mentality. but I guess it’s my fault for coming to this swamp. (not that it was by choice). Funny when I was a little kid I wrote a short story based on the pied piper fable, only in my story it was about a piper who leads all the selfish opportunist gold diggers over a fucking cliff, and it ends with him being the last to jump. give that kid a gold star for prophecy
6 comments
Risk vs comfort, that’s what it always is. I have a friend who just up and left where he was, no plan at all, moved to a new city to start fresh. It worked out, and it’s surprising how often it does.
but his situation, he didn’t risk nearly as much as I would to leave where I am. I own a damn house….. my whole savings tied up in it, plus in the current property market it’s unclear if I could successfully buy another… and all the comforts it holds, I don’t know how I would store all of it if I didn’t have rent free space.
so the question is; if you pulled the trigger, moved away, what would you be walking away from? Is there an advantage to waiting? In my case there is, I bought at a much lower interest rate than there are right now, I gain equity by sitting still. Meanwhile there’s always empty land, which is what I want.
IDK, you’re rationalizing no matter what, rationalizing being “stuck”, or rationalizing making the jump. As pro jump as I am….. it’s terrifying. The streets of cities are filled with homeless people who made unsuccessful jumps. Rural living, for all of it’s flaws, is affluent compared to trying to make it in the city.
I’m in the exact opposite position, craving the solitude of the countryside…. sick of being packed in like rats…. sick of rats and cockroaches literally as well. But, my corner of town is quiet, and that’s so hard to walk away from.
I like that bit you said about what looks like opportunity, but it isn’t. My last four jobs were that. It looked like climbing out and up…. but in actuality they only held me still where I am. Again, that conflict, I can continue to rebel and refuse to buy into the scam…. but buying into the scam is effective camouflage. Right now I feel painfully visible… it goes against everything I’ve learned about success; success is quiet, so that no one notices. If others notice your success, it isn’t likely to last.
Which leads me to “lying flat” as they call it in Asia. A whole generation of people are becoming willing to live with the shame of minimal effort. Then they get shamed for how priviliged they are… because no one can be seen “winning” against a system that calls us to willingly crush ourselves.
as unjust as it is here, at least we can express it… there are places with so little freedom… sad to say perhaps this is as good as it gets
true it comes down to your definition of success, and that’s defined by what you want. I have an inherent hatred of what I call stagnation (probably from growing up in a dead town where nothing changed but the direction of the wind), so I crave the dynamics and upward momentum of the city. Literally upward momentum, I love the sight of skyscrapers, they remind me that humans dare to fly
But yeah every success story usually comes with its backlash. I got my own taste of that briefly when I had relative success in the city. You become a target. That itself is a reason to remain mediocre, or lying flat as you said.
i’m just so fucking sick of a pointless life, and being stuck in a small town is the embodiment of that. It’s not even a matter of risk for me, it’s literally that I lack the money to live in a big city otherwise I would be there, damn the torpedos
even suicide in a small town is such a dismally mediocre end. but a swan dive on 5th avenue now that’s what I call class
pt 3
because i shouldn’t clutter up this site with more bs posts, i’ll just keep spewing here until the drugs save me
ofc the irony does not escape me. the irony that im noyhinhg but a little shit fish myself so i have no right to whine. but i did manage to scramble to the top of my little shit universe and (they always tell you) that’s worth something
but that’s the real tragedy here. it’s learning that what they always tell you is wrong. hard work, perseverence, perfection and discipline is no fucking guarantee of anything. there’s always going to be a ceiling, and the only way to get past it is dumb luck
back to the athlete analogy… you could be the fastest runner on 2 legs, win every high school track meet by a mile, even beat jesse owens time, but it doesnt mean shit if nobody outside your shit town knows you exist. you have to be lucky and maybe a college scout passes thru your asspimple town, stops at a gas station and sees your picture in the local rag, then maybe you have a shot at being recruited and breaking out of your asspimple. but that’s pure dumb luck.
so the real irony here is that i think i’m special which i’m not. all these fukiung years of hard work and dedication dont make me any more special than some jerk who buys lottery tickets every day
the only difference is I put way too much effort into failing
fuck this. drugs round 4
I mean, we’d have to lump in having family connections with luck, which I guess it is because no one chooses who to be born to.
anyway, it’s been a few hours, perhaps you found temporary oblivion,
but then my biology fascination kicks in, some people are lucky in biology. I watched a video about optimizing performance on bicycles. It’s similar to running, as it is cardio, but because the mechanism is ergonomic, designed for people, the limiting factor is less technique and more biology.
What it turns out is the common limit is lungs. Some people’s lungs absorb oxygen better than others, and even with training there is no getting past that. We pretend to be a merit based society, because that makes poverty the fault of the poor…. but it isn’t. There are people with advanced degrees, people smarter than I, homeless, hopeless.
The rat race has become more of a flume; if you are advantaged in aerodynamicness (market position), then you get ahead, then you eat. but it’s not a race when more than half can never win the race. It’s not a competition. It’s a joke. But no one is laughing.
I forgot, I was going to drop a quote, and once again recommend that you watch Ishtar (1988). The scene is dramatic, Chuck is suicidal, his girlfriend has left him, he’s an unsuccessful musician…. he’s out on the ledge of his apartment, ironically composing songs about the pain he’s in.
His musical partner Lyle gets out on the ledge with him, trying to talk him down. Chuck says to Lyle; “Are you disappointed in me?”
Lyle drops this wisdom nugget; It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don’t you understand that? Most guys’d be ashamed, but you’ve got the guts to just say ‘to hell with it’. You say that you’d rather have nothing than settle for less, understand?
Chuck replies; I never thought of it that way.
IDK, it’s inspiring, these two men neither of them doing well, but their friendship is enough to keep them going. I think about having nothing, and it does take a lot of nerve to admit you’ve got nothing. Yes, shameful, but HONEST…… how many people are still living the lie that there’s hope, when there isn’t. We’re ahead of the rest of the market, which is almost always advantageous
I just looked up ishtar and was surprised to see it has isabelle adjani… I’ve been a fan of hers since I saw the 70s remake of Nosferatu. I also have a soft spot for movies that were slammed by mainstream critics.
Biology has a lot to do with winning. I might even say more than being born rich. Lots of rich kids end up total zeros, but a biologically blessed person (translation: good looking, the right race) is almost always a success in whatever they do. I’ve never known a good looking person to be a total failure… unless you count suicide but I don’t. Lately I see suicide as the ultimate victory over life.
Back to lung capacity that’s thought provoking. to think the playing field is skewed by something as simple as the capacity to absorb oxygen. It makes sense now more than ever.. I live in the top half of the country which is orange with shitty air for the past week, and I literally can’t get out of bed. Depression+no oxygen is a death sentence. Who knows maybe that’s all depression is.