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:: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 ::

Modern Malaises

This post was originally going to be about the Unseen Academicals and worth, but I'm going to be all metaphysical / post-modern (what does that even MEAN?) about it and talk about the post I would have written but didn't.

Every once in a while, I go to a dark place in my mind. I don't mean "kill stabbity gore murder and mayhem" kind of dark, but "what does it all really mean" kind of dark. Sometimes it's barely noticeable background radiation against the normalcy of life, but at other times it circles like a great white shark (AGAIN with the shark metaphor...!), a murky shape threatening to break out of the water.

I've been dealing with it for years, ever since my unhappy transition into adolescence and one traumatic life event after another. It's not bad enough to warrant treatment; come to that, I don't even allow myself to give voice to the searing, sucking abyss of pain that is my life^TM. I'm cavalier about this to the point of self-deprecation because apparently I don't even think I'm worth spending this much mental effort on.

Or possibly I'm pre-empting the disdain from my audience by doing it for them. Who knows.

Anyway, the CNY period didn't help much or at all, because it only served to highlight to me how little worth I've accumulated in the Asian context. Don't have a job worth a damn in today's society (sure, people speak of, or claim admiration towards teachers, but it's the doctors and lawyers that get the awe-struck respect and the slightly dazed tone of voice they use for someone who's Made It In The World), unmarried, obviously no kids and nothing, nothing interesting at all to offer as gossip fodder, except possibly to talk about the expensive car that I don't drive or the flashy prestidigitation hobby I don't have. If your skills aren't useful to everybody, then they aren't useful at all. I could probably edit someone's article within an inch of its life, but no one cares about that.

Worse, I get dragged into games of "Who's invited" involving six-year-olds. Is it not enough that I already feel unaccomplished and out of place? Must I be demeaned further by six-year-olds I don't even know saying that they wouldn't invite me to their homes? I don't care about their validation either way, but why make me an unwilling participant by pointing at me and asking the question?

Good lord. I had enough of this through secondary school. It makes me want to have children for the sole purpose of coaching them to tell you that you're NOT invited. I know it's petty and small-minded, but that's how much this game annoys me. Especially since I know you'll only do this as long as they're still small and sweet and adorable, and the moment they hit those awkward teenage years, you won't care about them except to express a very cursory concern about how well they've been doing in school (in order to compare them with your direct descendants).

(Yeah, this rant is probably directed at a particular person, but let's pretend that I'm speaking in general...)

I actually felt better after being at work today because at least it gave me some feeling of being useful. And how sad is that? That I must derive worth from my work?

Okay. Rant over.

Labels: Rant

:: And that's all she wrote 6:25 PM [+] ::
1 comments

1 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

if you were a columnist.

but don't stop there.

writer, journalist, editor..

get out there.

2:46 PM, February 16, 2012  

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