Been super sleepy today. I have slept most of the day and it’s around 6:30 pm right now and I am still sleepy.
As in, I was in danger of nodding off at my desk and becoming a QWERTY head not five minutes ago. Started to drift off, caught myself, then decided that the time to blog and eat supper was right now.
It was that or go back to bed and end up sleeping for Lord knows how long. Probably wake up at 8:30 incredibly hungry (having mkissed supper) and highly disoriented by the fact that I went to sleep during the day and woke up at night – that always throws me for a loop.
It’s the opposite of it should work, says basic human instincts. Even as a night owl, i recognize this fundamental truth and strive to always be asleep before sunrise, abnd if i miss that, before sunrise is over.
Easier some times of the year than others, obviously.
I have been getting away with barely trying at all for my whole life.
It started in elementary school. I showed up already knowing how to read at a grade 4 level and knowing the basics of addition and subtraction.
I knew what they were and how to do them in singles digits, at least.
Everything else I picked up effortlessly and easily. Most of the time spent in class, I was bored out of my gourd. The school work was ludicrously easy for me, and so I never had to try very hard at all and still got great grades.
That’s not fair, you say to yourself. I understand.
And the thing is, that has never changed. At no time did life give me a swift kick in the ass and force me to start taking things seriously.
I think on some level I kept expecting that to happen as I progressed through life. At some point, challenge would exceed ability and then I would hit a brick wall, my coasting days would be over, and I would have to buckle down and get serious.
But nope. Not yet, anyway. All my life I have gotten away with things not studying ever and submitting first drafts as my final work and doing homework while in other classes and the short sharp shock never came for me.
Even at VFS, I was not taxed. There was never a second draft. I did the assignments with my usual casual flare and yet my work was better than most of my fellow students’. Even near the end, when the workload was intense, I barely felt the strain.
I am forced to conclude that I am a man of extraordinary abilities that verge ever so slightly onto the superhuman. I have never met another human being who could get away with what I do.
Patient readers know that I say this not to brag but as a way of trying to figure out my life. I’ve always known I was very bright, but now I see that there is more to it than that.
Quite simply, I can do more than others. That means I am extraordinarily capable. I couid do one hell of a lot if my depression and other barriers weren’t in the way and I found the right kind of position for myself.
But as is, I lack the wherewithal to go find that position on my own. My tragic flaw is that I am not self-motivating. Left to my own devices, I do nothing at all.
Imagine what I could do if my limitations weren’t there.
Now imagine that they just disappeared.
What now, big guy?
More after the break.
We are the rich. We are the poor.
Say you are middle class. Middle class income, middle class lifestyle, middle class upbring, and so on.
Imagine that you are watching the news and you learn about some billionaire who has gone viral for talking about her battles with depression.
“Oh no, I’m incredibly rich and it’s making me sad!” you say to yourself. Big frigging deal. She’s never struggled to make a mortgage payment or changed a dirty diaper. She’s never had to stand there and take it when some twit of a middle management type berates her for her poor performance on a job the twit couldn’t do in a million years because he’s too fucking stupid. She’s never had to take her life in her hands twice a day for a brutal commute. She’s never stared at a pile of bills wondering how in the hell she is going to pay them,
“Like she had anything to be depressed about. ” you say out loud.
Your three times a week gardner hears this through an open window and leans in for a moment to say “You’re one to talk. ”
He walks away thinking, what the hell could he have to be depressed about? He’s never lived paycheck to paycheck. He’s never wondered if the kids would get to eat tomorrow. He’s never had to sit there and take it while some social worker berates him about work she couldn’t do in a million years because she’s too fucking weak. He’s never had to go to relative to borrow money they know you probably won’t ever be able to pay back just to make sure your family doesn’t get evicted. He’s never had to take out a payday loan.
It doesn’t feel good to imagine thinking that about you, does it?
Imagine how the Lady Billionaire would feel if she heard what you said about her.
The truth is that there’s a flaw in the human mind that makes it hard to sympathize with those above you in the social status hierarchy.
No matter where we sit in terms of income, we somehow manage to imagine that those above us have no problems worthy of sympathy, and think nothing of our callousness.
Even if one of the things we hate about them is their lack of compassion for others.
And on some deep level, we know that’s how the people below us in class feel about us, and that makes us unsympathetic about them in return.
After all, if they don’t give a shit about us and our problems, why care about them? They should just shut up and be glad to have what they have.
And that’s the exact way that twit at work feels about you.
The truth is that social status, like a lot of the ways we divide ourselves, is an illusion. At the end of the day, we’re all just bits of carbon suffering through life and trying to find the door to happiness. We all have problems that are just as big to us as anyone else’s, and we stumble in the dark as we struggle to make it through every day, and everyone – including the billlionaires – have problems money cannnot solve.
The only solution is to remember that we are all human and we all deserve love, sympathy, kindness, understanding, affection, and someone who understands us.
Even the billionaires. The best thing for the world today would be people willing to treat the ultra rich with kindness and compassion, and convince them that not everyone hates and resents them and has no sympathy for any of their pain. Show them that there is a reason to stay connected with their humanity, and that equality can be just as liberating for them as for anyone else, and that nobody expects them to solve all the world’s problems – just to do what they can, just like everyone else.
Break down the walls between us, and there is nothing we can’t do when the people realize they are one.
We could make this world a paradise if only we could work together.
Believe it and make it true, everybody.
Because it is.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.