Assimilate with Extreme Prejudice

I find the world of work to be utterly dumbfounding. Don't take this the wrong way. I work. A lot. I have always been with a job since the day that I was of legal age to hold one. Well, that's not true. I've spent short periods of my life jobless, and pretty bored and miserable. What I find to be so ridiculous about work is that we have allowed ourselves as a society to hold jobs that we cannot stand. We work for companies that don't even need to exist. We build useless shit and then we buy useless shit with the money we earned from the job that we dislike.

Now I know that this all sounds a little negative and cynical, and that there are people out there that love their jobs. I also agree that there are a lot of people out there that are doing great things with their lives, helping others, improving their surroundings, and all around just increasing the quality of life for themselves and others. I am willing to bet there are still more folks that would love to be in the position to do the same, but have been pigeon-holed into a situation where they have to make the ends meet by working at the tire factory or the chicken "processing" plant, or some other lifeless cog in the wheel of the American Dream machine.

If we could all truly take a step back from our "culture" and look at it for what it really is... it's heartbreaking. There is no one to blame but ourselves. Not MTV. Not FOX News. Not Wal-Mart. At some point, the majority failed. It's collective voice sighed in resignation and said, "I can accept mediocrity and dwell in the shallow end of the doldrums for the rest of my life. Besides, I got mouths to feed. It can't be THAT bad." Next thing you know, we get disco. And then, it got even worse. New Kids on the Block made it okay for young boys to go get $30 perms, only in the back, mind you. Thirty dollars. Parents were shelling out money they didn't really have to make their kids happy, to make their kids look like fools. I'm guilty. Guilty as hell. I never had a perm but I had a nappy rat tail. I remember my mom laughing at it, but she paid for it anyway.

We have been hoping to find happiness in the worst places. We were taught that if you shell out money for the trendy label then people will just flock to you and love you and then you will be happy. We have belittled ourselves to the point of working shit jobs to buy shit products from these companies that are exploiting our insecurities. I swear, if ever the wool had been pulled.....

I guess my whole point is to do what you love. Don't settle for what is convenient. If you have to struggle for a while to make it work, then I can guarantee that someone somewhere has got it worse. Stick it out. Don't give up. All that positive pep talk shit.

But seriously, we gotta help each other out to get through this thing. It really shouldn't have gotten this bad.