"And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep..."

[mousme]

New earworm, to replace Sheena, at least momentarily.

People in this country have their priorities all screwed up. If my friends weren't all (or almost all) in Montreal, I'd pick up and move to a country where they've never heard of the words "deadline," "rush," or "express."

Seriously. Things have gotten to the point where no one slows down anymore, let alone stops altogether. I don't want to live in a society where my main concerns are how quickly I can move paper from one spot to another. I don't want to worry about messengers, photocopies, and large bank transactions. These are not things worthy of that much expenditure of time and energy. They are, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant.

I find it unutterably sad that the things I love most in life are the things I do least: see my friends, play music, write, make art (however untalented I am, I still enjoy the process) and knit. I want to go watch my friends perform without being exhausted from chasing after paperwork all day. I want to be able to cuddle my cats on a moment's notice, and not have to plan in advance when I'll be able to spend time with them. I want to write when inspiration strikes, and not have to put my ideas on hold until I can get my reports done and my filing put away before getting on the metro and travelling for forty-five minutes in order to get home and then maybe get to my writing if I'm not too tired.

I'm tired and frustrated right now, mostly because I hate having a job that doesn't seem to mean anything. I move papers around, I answer phones, and I help people who already have lots of money to make even more money, and then to spend it again. I routinely see cheques worth $45 million dollars cross my desk, only to be swallowed up in the vast machinery of the bank. The numbers are abstract, theoretical, meaningless. They don't really exist, except that the people around here insist that they do. It's only because peope believe in the money that it exists. If people stopped believing what they read on their computer screens, all that money would go up in smoke. Leprechaun gold, gone with the morning dew.

Nothing I do feels like it has any point at all. I'm not helping people in any way. I'm just part of the rank and file, a faceless minion of a faceless corporation. I'm not paid to think, I'm paid to execute what really amounts to menial administrative tasks, and while I was happy enough doing that in a company where I seemed to be genuinely making a difference for people, in this place it just feels empty, like a hamster running in place on an exercise wheel.

I want my energy to go somewhere else, worthier of everything I have to offer. I know it's ungrateful of me to say so, and I know that this is all my own doing and I have no one to blame but myself, but there you go. I just want to say it once again.

I'm better than this.

Comments

FWIW...

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

A lot of that money eventually percolates down the conomic food chain into people's paycheques and stuff... but yeah. One of the things I gravitated more towards the regulatory/compliance side of the securities field was that the transactional stuff was so abstract it made me feel like I was participating in some sort of silly magical ritual, where if we waved our dead chickens in accordance with the high priests' dictates, the world wouldn't end.

But the silly dead chicken-waving work does ultimately make a difference in the world, even if it's only that the great big dead-chicken-waving edifice of the modern capitalist economy that keeps everbody more or less fed, clothed, and housed doesn't collapse into something where the most heavily armed and ruthless take over from the richest...

*ignores temptation to re-examine job priorities in light of that last statement*

Re: FWIW...

[mousme.livejournal.com]

A lot of that money eventually percolates down the conomic food chain into people's paycheques and stuff...

I'd really like to believe that, except in my experience all it does is move around like a large fictitious shoggoth. :P

The money for paycheques and whatnot is not the money that real estate people move around. Real estate money goes into real estate in a weird imaginary cycle of imaginary money. If someone pulled the plug on the computer system that handles it, the entire real estate market would cease to exist. That's my private theory, anyway. ;)

Yes, I know it's not all on one system. I just prefer to live here in my happy delusion that some day someone will snap and bring the whole house of cards down with them. :)

The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

It is the human mind.

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

Almost there... I'd complete that thought with "...when it's directing human work". But give me enough in the way of arms and I can convince plenty of human minds to part with a large portion of the wealth created by their work rather than have me use said arms against them.

In other words, better lawyers bearing breafcases than goons bearing guns and baseball bats :).

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Man cannot survive as a predator on his own kind for very long. It always catches up with him. There's always someone cleverer, and when one acts like an animal, one motivates them.

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

Always? Stalin and Mao both died in office in their beds of old age, and so did Kim Jong Il's father...

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Exceptions which prove the rule. By the way, there is evidence that Stalin collapsed in his room, having a heart attack, and his aides were so afraid of disturbing him they didn't enter his room.

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It was a stroke, and I wish now I'd read all the comments to this entry before replying the same thing to fearsclave. :D

Re: The source of wealth is not force of arms.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Actually, sweetpea, Stalin had a stroke in his office when he was in his fifties, and he was left lying on the floor for nearly an hour because his people were *too afraid* to touch him.

I'm not familiar with how the other two died. I just happened to spend a lot of time in high school studying the USSR. :)

[karine.livejournal.com]

... you could always contact the placement agency to see if they've got something else for you...

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

"And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep..."

Or, as Toby says, "The best that you can hope for is to die with your boots on."

In your sleep with your boots on? That's a thought.

OK, I haven't been up very long.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Unless I'm sleepwalking, I can't see how I would have my boots on *and* die in my sleep... the sheets would get awfully dirty. ;)

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

They don't call it "knockin' boots" for nothin', ya know.

[joane.livejournal.com]

I grok this - it was the same thing that happened to me after a while at Bankers. The CO would come in specifically to scream at us for imagined mistakes and inefficiencies, and all I could imagine was what kind of change he could effect in the world if all that energy went towards something other than stressing about mother-lovin' PLASTIC PENS.

It's not ungrateful, it's not unreasonable, and there's no blame to be placed. You ARE better than that, and you will find the proper soil in which you can grow. {{hugs}}

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

I sometimes wonder what the people in my office would be able to accomplish if they weren't so busy worrying about condominiums and shopping malls and overdrafts and loans...

[silly-imp.livejournal.com]

"Seriously. Things have gotten to the point where no one slows down anymore, let alone stops altogether. They are, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant."

Here! Here! I'll cheers to that.

Now go check out:
www.charityvillage.ca

[mousme.livejournal.com]

That's a great link! Thank you!

Bravo, Dear!

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

I routinely see cheques worth $45 million dollars cross my desk, only to be swallowed up in the vast machinery of the bank. The numbers are abstract, theoretical, meaningless. They don't really exist, except that the people around here insist that they do. It's only because peope believe in the money that it exists. If people stopped believing what they read on their computer screens, all that money would go up in smoke. Leprechaun gold, gone with the morning dew.

Welcome to the evil that is fiat money. You're a wise woman for understanding this.

Re: Bravo, Dear!

[mousme.livejournal.com]

:D

It's like having my own one-man cheering squad. Awesome. :D

Re: Bravo, Dear!

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

Wise? That she is. Pearl among women.

Re: Bravo, Dear!

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Aww, shucks.

:::blush:::

~Everybody's working for the weekend...~

[vureoelt.livejournal.com]

Things have gotten to the point where no one slows down anymore, let alone stops altogether.

Sure they do. It's called death.

I can understand what you mean though... being a cog in the machine to make a living can be soul consuming work at times. *hugs*