Life
my current predicament
December 4, 2018
For the last two weeks each night with a few exceptions I have been playing Red Dead Redemption (video-game). In the game I am a cowboy outlaw, it is fun imaginary play. In real life I am a self-chosen vegan, in gameplay, I am working on shooting digital hawks, coyotes, and deer to increase my hunting skills. That is not all, the character I play is a cowboy who can help others restore law and order while being a tool for justice in the Wild West. I think the paradox is a fun mind game I get to sort through every time I 'shoot' the fictional creature or help solve a problem for one of the townsfolk. I would never choose to do this in real life unless I lived in a time where doing so was the only choice I had to make sure my family could survive. I am spoiled in my options to not have to kill a creature to nourish my body...to not have to in any way make any contribution to factory farming for that matter. At the same time I am missing out on a primal connection to my early ancestors who had no choice, they only had each moment on hand to survive. Like all of us....benefiting and missing out in various ways. Harnessing a healthy respect for those that take the responsibility of living off the land for survival...I am aware that we in the post-industrial nation of technological advancements... are just too many. There are too many humans to live that way...and materialism has tainted the land with plenty of poison making the balance off kilter.
So in my real world reality...where I am no cowboy, and the West has long been settled... I go to the co-op and buy hydroponic lettuces and organic tempeh; doing the best I can with the reality at hand. Truly trying to be something that matters to me while also idealizing those who have a smaller carbon footprint than I. Those tiny house folk, off the grid, bike pedaling powered wash-machines, and solar roof folk. Mythic anomalies that I am searching for: heroes warriors fighting the brainwash of capitalism who forgo convention.
The trappings of my convention of current events are now to follow:
I have been hired by Delta airlines the clearance procedures of the airline has me in month 2 now of waiting for TSA to get me the badge. Meanwhile, I have been volunteering a ton, helping Josh with the business when I can, driving for Door Dash and Grub Hub (If I drive for 4 hours a day Monday through Friday I make $300 -$400 dollars delivering FOOD, wacky... crazy!). All the while I have been having fun interviewing at 15 places I would never actually work just to get a chance to see inside, subversively interviewing the interviewer interviewing me. Did you know DeathWish coffee was offering to pay someone $80,000.00 to be the personal assistant to the owner Mike. I made it to the final round of 5. When he asked me what would be my biggest problem with being his personal assistant, I said having to sit with him for lunch to listen to him chew and not be repulsed. Same goes with the Antique guy...Mark, no thank you, why would I interject myself into a position of annoyance so my will can be broken slowly with each bite where I will grow bitter and then full of acceptance of servitude to assisting anyone where the partnership is based on an exchange of service for monetary gain. I just don't want to be that person. ... anywho... DeathWish...laughing at my truth of actual limitations in my personal comfort...surprise, he later sent me an email saying I would not be a good fit. I must not have wanted that job enough, so true... Josh was relieved because part of the job entailed me traveling the world with this 'stranger'...and well so was I. I really don't want to be anyone's personal assistant, no one but Noah's and Josh's at this point in my life. Now I make sure to buy the DeathWish coffee, whole bean, grind it every morning and let my coffee maker slowly steep the beans. Steaming up our house in the aroma of DeathWish as a reminder that I could do anything I want If really want it bad enough. What I seem to want the most is to be available to Josh and Noah as much as possible, work part-time, and volunteer my services devoid of the social conditioning that whispers Status...."strive for status".... (driven by the desire to make more and more money).
Then again who am I kidding? Here we are building the business...and money is not some slithering sin to be shunned from our mind...mingling with goals for a self-sustaining creation that provides much and creates a legacy.... so again a paradox.
Countermove:
I have been invited by Americorps to work as a Sienna Fellows ...ah...to volunteer. If everything does work out with Delta, if someday soon they do get the clearance from TSA.... I will work part-time for the Airline and Americorps. Delta, some money, new learning opportunities, and travel benefits. Americorps community service working for the Justice Department of Albany. The interview is on Thursday, I am curious and open to the possibility of finding a way to immerse myself into a project that helps me reach my goal of working in service to others that is not motivated by the dollar. It's a tricky dance being a helping force to the family that I ultimately want and need to serve in a commitment to the goals of substance, build the business, have an independent identity, payback college loan debt, a mortgage, and be a source of growth for Josh and Noah. All that, while also rejecting the "game" of life in mainstream capitalistic U.S.A. How do I find ways to peacefully reject conventions of modern life I find personally destructive, avoid society imposed norms of life is stress, and connect to my ideas I have been slowly reaching for over the last 30 years? Tricky tricky.... for sure.
"Hey, Snob." I hear this in my self, a quick voice...I choose to question ...(this is also the call of many whispers...if you sit quietly and don't engage in the group...you will find that the mob with words like a stones throw...to toss at others is very much in the realm of 'snob', 'dissenter', and, it becomes about "who do you think you are"...dialog", which many are working through as they refine their own being...so we all are united in this process of self-realization though we may not see it that way in moment to moment interactions)
Possibly my opinions are frivolous in pondering. True, like you...and everyone... I am a snob. I have it in me, the snob in all of us finds ways, all sorts of ways when dealing with all sorts of things. Some have the snob that sticks their nose up and laments how they work harder than everyone around them, how they hold the world up with the toil of their labor, or the snob who can't handle grit so labels it negativity basking in only colors of 'positivism", or constantly compete to be the best at everything and prove it through all sorts of ways...or of the recluse who creates boundaries thick and tall who is more spiritual...more this or that....or the snob who...
....well I don't need to go on, we can just see it for ourselves all around and within. we see it...we definitely do, usually in others...guilty (me too).
How can I tune my snobbish nature to serve a bigger construct? A work in progress for sure!
Clearly, my current predicament is a blessing. You know what they say, blessings come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
So mote it be to the power of three, nine, and pye.