Work

Not to long ago, I had a conversation with my current English Teacher about people working jobs that they hate. He told me a story about workers at a Ford Plant in Detroit drinking alcohol between shifts just to pass the day. A combination of the menial labor required and the time consuming restraints the job placed on them caused them to booze away what little money they made. This was a repetitive cycle that almost every factory worker engaged in.
Go To Work. Leave Work with a staggeringly small paycheck. Booze what little money was made away.
What a painful cycle to endure. And this isn't a cycle that any of these men could break at any time based on the fact that they had an oppurtunity for upward mobility. No. These were men who were helplessly confined to the realms of the Ford Factory.
The booze, as well as drugs, were the only things that helped these men get from one day to the next. With each day becoming increasingly painful to bear through. It made me sad to realize that men worked their lives away to satisfy no greater purpose in living other than to attach one bolt to one screw head. And this person is surrounded by other people who hate their lives just as much as he does.
         Two weeks ago I was bussing tables at my place of work. For the previous four months I had spent every Friday and Saturday night in the confines of the workplace. Either bussing tables, but more likely, cleaning dishes. Dish Duty is one of the worst things imagineable. Being relegated to an endless stack of trays, cups, cooking utensils. All usually coated with a thick cheesy layer, some form of ketchup, or littered with some other nasty shit you don't want to touch. This is the type of work which will make a man question his sanity.
But the realization I came to three weeks ago was that I was just as unhappy as those men who worked the factories in Detroit. Although their work was much more strenuous, I still experienced the dulling lifelessness that the restaruant business exudes upon its employees. I felt trapped; confined to a never ending cycle of cleaning up after other people and struggling to see the good in each day. Waking up each morning became increasingly painful because I knew I would spent the majority of the night doing some menial task that would suck the life out of me.
My English teacher said "Working can suck the life out of you if you let it."
Well, it did. And I tried to resist it, and although it was a gradual process, I left that place feeling a bit more and more robotic with each passing night. Emotions began to fade as connections with previous friends wanned because of a loss of contact based. That's what the resteraunt business wants their employees to be; Robots. Droids which fulfill one mission. The more robotic an employee is, the better.
 Two nights ago, I came home feeling particularly robotic after a ten long hour shift of non-stop dishwashing. During the last hour of the dishwasing, I began to cry hystrically from laughing. The laughing probably spawned from my realization that I had become the droid that I had promised myself I wouldn't become. But the crying came for a different reason. It was the fact that I had sacrificed a creed that I had so strongly based my life off of. Never Compromise Character. My character had been compromised that night, as well as for the previous four months. And I'm not against working, but having my soul devoured to the lifeless demon that the Restaraunt Business is is not how I imagine myself living.
During this scene of hysterics, I exclaimed ''There is No God."
One of the cooks, after overhearing me replied with "Not back here there isn't"
And at that point, I realized that he was a man who was not living a life of proportions he had imagined at one point living. He was a man much like those that worked at the Ford Factory in Detroit. Living a life of meaningless proportions.
Maybe that's why I was crying. I experienced the 'Real World' for what it really was and realized that at that point I had lost all contact with my childhood innocence. Going to college doesn't equal success. Not everyone is successful. In fact, a large majority of people would trade their current lives just to experience something else. Something that might hold the false promise of fullfillment.
After coming home from that shift, I felt desecrated. I'm not exactly sure what that word even means, but it describes perfectly how I felt in that moment. I felt confined to working a job that had fulfilled nothing. A job that described what I would be for the rest of my life. A job that limited me to being nothing more than a table cleaner and a dish washer. This realization led me into a great depressive slump.
A show I watched when I was young (say fourth and fifth grade) was 'Boy Meets World.' The particular episode I decided to watch after I got off of work dealt with the father feeling as if his life in the Grocery Store never meant anything. He felt as if he had never accomplished anything he set out to do because he had been limited by the confines of the store he began working at twenty-year previously. After crying on his wifes shoulder and admitting that he felt "the job described who he was as a person" his wife responded with;
"A job doesn't describe who you are. It only makes up a very small part of what you are as a person. It doesn't limit you to being something, you only limit yourself by believing that you are nothing more than your job."
This struck me so powerfully after hearing it.
Tonight, I walked out of work a free man. An unemployed man, but a free man.

11

a semi-aware state of mind. not really knowing what is true and what is false. wondering if what you are doing is actually happening or if it just a thought., sometimes you hope it is just a thought, but sometimes you really hope it is reality. This reality, is a reality you wish to encompass your life. the meaningless existence you live in. A life that serves no greater purposes, but has a false promise of actual fulfillment. The fulfilment doesn't exist. It's a depressing thought to know it doesn't exist. I wish it did. But really, I'm glad it doesn't. Fulfillment and hope are false promises. Promises used to satisfy people who aren't able to accept the truth which they are fighting so hard to disprove. I wish sometimes it was different. Actually, I wish all the time. I wish I didn't have to wake up everymorning and realize that this day was going to be shittier than the previous one. Our society has only destroyed the world we inhibit. I fear for the children that will be raised in this society. Maybe they will be forced to eat out of test-tubes for the entiriety of their lives because the chicken population expired because of the high level of pollution in the air. We are so fucked. So literally beyond fucked that the damage we have done is irreversible. Irreversible to the point that God's Intervention wouldn't be able to change what has happened. Maybe this reality I;m living is all a perception i've established that doesn't really exist. I wish it was, that way I know I wouldn't have to deal with getting from one day to another

Will I ever really be able to overcome the bleak white walls which contain my life and reduce it to a shear nothingness?

7

A Call.
A simple call was all I needed. It's been too long, and I've missed you.
Missed you more than you could think imaginable. All this time I thought you hated me.
Hate is such a strong word.
Can't we got back to how we used to be?
Not possible I guess. To many years have passed.
What a strange thought;
years have passed.
Where did the time go that we used to have?

6

It’s always a weird phenomena for me to look back at the person I used to be. But an even weirder thought is to realize that I am most likely still the same person. A quote I’m often using when people tell me that they’ve change is that “People never change, they just wear a different mask.”

The mask being what they portray themselves as, hiding their true identity beneath.

I’m stuck wondering if I’m wearing a mask sometimes. 

People some to be so interchangeable. One friend quickly fades while another invades the landscape. Shortly to be fade and have the same cycle repeat. What a depressing cycle. A cycle where people grow apart. People who once knew each other and found common ground in an assortment of interests. 

Looking back at my life, I always find it strange to think of all the friends I once had but whose names I struggle to remember. But as forget-able as they are to me, I’m sure that I am just as forget-able to them.

Different routes that we all endure lead us all to different places. Routes that we believe will lead us in a certain direction that we think has an overall result that will help us gain. So often these paths that we take are riddled with trials and tribulations; some good, but mostly bad. 

If a person we to look back at five significant moments in their life, I could honestly promise you that a majority of their memories would be based on negative circumstances. It is so easy to focus on the negative in life because we recognize the immediate pain that it presents. We are a society that when the things are going well, we don’t recognize the pleasure we are receiving for what it is. But when the tables have turned and all is wrong, everything bad seems to metastisize in our lives.

But it seems so hard to recognize that positive in life because we, as a society, take almost everything given to us for granted. When good things are happening, the time flies and attention to all the positive things that are happening in life are brushed to the side. The logic is;

“Hell, if it’s good now, It’ll be good for a long time.”

This logic seems to often to be flawed. Riddled with the false promise of actual fulfillment in a life that seems to have no actual purpose. At least no recognizable purpose that I can fore-see. But I wish I’m wrong. In fact, I could only hope I’m wrong. I wish that I had an assurance that there is something greater promised to us after this life. 

Knowing about the future makes dealing with the current situation more bearable. Not knowing about the future leaves a wafting mist of the unknown floating through our lives.

We Live.

We Do a Few Things.

We Do a Few Things We Regret.

Make a Little Money.

Spend a Little Money.

We Die.

The End.

cb's idea elaborated upon

What’s the motive for you rising every day and placing one foot in front of the other? Where is the will being generated from that keeps your internal engine turning? What are the self imposed restrictions that you have placed on yourself from reaching your potential? At what point do you finally realize that you’ve had enough?

It seems that we as a society are so often confined to such a small world. Going through our daily lives performing the same meaningless task that we did the day before, as well as the the other thousands of days. What is it like to live a life of true meaning? Even better, does such a life exist? How are we supposed to be able to add some sort of meaning to a world of seven billion with such a little amount of time. 

I realize more and more that those who are remembered the most are also those whose stories have been elaborated upon the most. Look at Jesus for example. Excuse my sac-religious nature.

Actually, don’t excuse my sac-religious nature. Embrace it for what it is. Enjoy a concept that might be different from the one you carry. Understand my point of view and hopefully it will help you better clarify your own.

Sometimes, a person is able to further complicate one’s owns beliefs by experiencing another mans which are to the contrary.

A reason why there is such little tolerance in our world lies in the fact that people are unwilling to accept things outside of their realm of comfort as acceptable. How are we ever going to be able to break this never ending cycle of judgement and self restriction if it is so deeply ingrained in our society? It seems impossible.

But impossible is nothing.

Impossible is a big word tossed around by small men. Small men who complain that a task can’t be accomplished because of the barriers that lie in the way. The men that are remembered are the men that shattered these barriers. No man has ever been remembered for living an average life. The proof of this can be found in your history books.

Tell me who Alex the Third is from 17th century England. Exactly; you can’t. I’m sure that at some point in the 17th century and Alex the Third existed. But did he live a life of exceptional proportions? Probably not, otherwise he would be remembered today. But correct me if I’m wrong. For the sake of the argument I’m trying to create, ignorance is not bliss.

an issue

An Issue of National Proportion

As Americans, we have a given set of guaranteed amendments. These amendments range in specifications and purpose, but serve to perform one goal. To protect and guarantee the rights of American citizens. The basic Amendments are the foundations for which this country has been established upon. It’s amazing to realize that Amendments that were passed over two hundred years ago still carry weight in our current society. Even after all the innovations and all the change that our society is now characterized by, these Amendments still maintain their presence. But as of right now, these given rights that have been set on stone for so long are in grave danger of being violated. The very catalyst for which makes this country the ‘Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave’ is the same catalyst that is being slowly crippled by laws enacted by our own government to further undermine the power of the United States citizen.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, or the NDAA, establishes that the United States government can seize any American citizen without reason other than suspicion that the person is engaged in some form of illegal activity. The reason this Bill was proposed was to protect the American people from the threat of terrorism. Logic behind this Bill is that the quicker the Government is able to seize terrorist suspects, the less likely another terrorist attack is to occur. But with this, our government has decided to shortchange the American people of liberty at the notion of security. So to quote the famous words of Benjamin Franklin, "Those willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both."

If the NDAA was enacted, an American could be seized for no reason other than suspicion, given no trial, and be refused any sort of representation. this Bill basically strips an American of their Fifth and Sixth Amendment Rights. An even greater fear that many hold is that by the Government having this unchecked power, that similar more extreme bills could be aroused in the future. A sort of Domino Effect would occur, causing for even more drastic laws which violate the given rights of American citizens to be passed. A ‘Big Brother’ like society is in the works of being created because of Bills like the NDAA. A blind society in which the people conform to an all-powerful entity because the people are unaware of the power they possess.

The National Defense Authorization Act is a sign of a dying America. An America in which Miranda Rights have been swept under the rug, and an America in which personal freedoms are slowly being diminished to the ever increasing greedy hand of our Government. It is sickening to believe that our Miranda Rights and our Fifth and Sixth Amendment are under attack by the same sort of people that established such rights. 

Even more incredulous is that this Bill was passed 93 to 7 by our Congress. The Congressmen that have been elected to represent millions are sidelined by their own private agenda’s and have failed to recognize the deadly cancer that the NDAA represents. Our President, Barack Obama, has promised that if this Bill reaches his desk he will use his Presidential Power to turn it down immediately. A fear that I hold, as well as many others, is that somehow this Bill will evade the Presidential reach and end up being enacted.