Working 100% from home has many many good qualities. Better time management. Uninterrupted workflow. Not having to bring or buy lunch. Throwing on music at whatever volume I want without having to modulate for others. No commute.
But what I miss is the opportunity to be compassionate. To ask someone who is struggling how they are and just listen and be there in the moment with them. That’s something hard to do over chat. Nearly impossible.
I miss those little moments where we get to be just humans being. Those moments are rare but they make a life worth it.
And, while I agree that work should not be family. That doesn’t preclude from finding family at work.
Author: Pelgris
Sound of your own heartbeat
All the noise
And
You
Just want
One minute of silence
Then you get it
And its bliss
For a little while
But eventually
You remember
When it used to be laughter
And talking
And people saying
Stupid shit that you want to scream at
But now its just this endless silence
Come home to empty
To the weight of the nothing
And what you wouldn’t give
For a few more minutes
Of noise
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Change is too simple for what must be done
Life is long
And the dreams we had
When we were young
Seem so naïve now
Seeing the world through that lense
Where your opinions are a mix
Of what your parent told you
And what you rebelled against
I thought America was a shining jewel
A beacon of the possible
A hope in a world where the darkest parts of us
Often strut about on the stage
And now
I see its deep flaws
Its horrific tragedies
Its blatant lies
What once was golden is streaked
With green
That false gold
Eaten by exposure
We aren’t any more divided than we always were
We just have the tools to see it now
We aren’t limited by what the local paper publishes
By what makes it on the 3 channels of television
People’s egos get bound up in belief
People’s communities get bound up in single idea activism
It is hard to walk away from all you have ever known
Hard to hold a line when doing so loses every tie
Hard to accept that the belief you had
Was wrong
To embrace metamorphosis
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What is and what isn’t, is not paradox.
Seeing reality as a cycle is to look upon a sphere and see only the surface. It can be a useful tool but it is a child’s step away from ignorance to truth.
We fall into this trap consistently. Seeing things in stark contrast to the other. Always a binary solution set which confirms our internal bias.
Rather than viewing the totality. Because doing so overwhelms and we equate being overwhelmed with fear.
However, we cannot drown beneath these waves. And seeing reality as it is can only be a benefit. If your mind can withstand it without snapping back to the duality we cling to.
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Happy-virus
This idea that we should strive to be happy at all times is a false narrative. It presents us with a fictional truth, usually in service of selling us something. Be it a lifestyle, a car, detergent, or love.
This idea that every moment should be filled by the elevated state that is happiness is just flat wrong.
The baseline should be contentment with spikes of happy and the very occasional unhappy moment.
A constant elevated state of happy is, I assure you, drug induced. Or a fabrication.
It’s all about the base state.
Baseline content with spikes of unhappy with very occasional spikes of happy would be considered unhappy.
Baseline unhappy with spikes of contentment and very occasional extreme spikes of happy would be considered miserable or depressed.
Baseline happy should be considered manic. Contact your/a therapist.
Baseline extremes both indicate something is seriously wrong. Both need to be addressed with changes.
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The slow social descent into barbarism
The vast majority of activists are part time. They see an issue in their youth or after a major life change and they go full Don Quixote for a few years(at most). Then they stop. They move to other activities. Put their money and time towards other things.
Because change is hard. You can’t tear out an entrenched establishment by the roots with a few tugs. Its a colossal entity. It takes time and slow erosion.
You have to keep showing up. Keep donating. Keep voting. Keep speaking. It’s, frankly, exhausting. So rather than stop completely, I am asking that you pick two of the things. One has to be to keep voting. As long as they are pretending its a fair system, we keep voting. And for the other, pick one.
It took 50 years for the far right to pack the Supreme Court with politically motivated justices who are completely willing to forego precedent and overturn prior decisions. All while screaming about states rights. States rights being code for racist, homophobic, and misogynistic legislation and rulings.
States don’t need more rights. Broadly speaking, they have all the rights they need. Look at all the red states packing their legislatures and overturning voting rights for the last 50 years.
And look at all states who have legalized marijuana. Despite federal law.
Excluding rights from the citizenry is not a states rights issue. It’s a authoritarian issue.
Conservatives screaming about legislation from the bench are now eerily quiet, now that they are getting their way.
Hypocrisy. On the bench. In our legislatures. In our families.
Keep fighting. As much as you can. Don’t just give up. These are dark times. But eventually there is a light.
Whether that light be the dawn of a new day, or the bonfires of revolution.
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Hope is a fragile thing
I sat down to write a poem
Finding its measure wanting
And its rhythm trite
I end up here once again
Pondering this lack of sight
I find my interest waining
Not in writing
So much as life
Never having planned to come this far
I find myself forced
Made to contemplate a future
One I was certain would never come
I have all of the pieces but not the puzzle
All of the dreams but not the hopes
And the world fades out
But nothing yet fades in
On the verge of destruction
Waiting for the groundswell
A last minute effort
To give that last push
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The last stage of mourning
With all the awful, dehumanizing, evil fuckery that is happening in this country(USA) and around the world, I take solace in this simple fact.
The current arc of humanity is extinction.
Now that almost all hope that humanity will somehow conquer its base fear and somehow stop internalizing the structures and mechanisms of its own destruction, I can only rejoice in the ultimate end of the species.
May whatever supplants us do better.
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The brighter the light, the darker the shadow
I have a theory and to understand this theory you’ll need to understand the context. A prominent figure has 2 seperate pending felony cases. One is assault with sexual intent and the other is straight up rape. This same person an ethical and moralistic business person. Putting employees above self enrichment. Famously, they lowered their salary to 70k a year and raised/lowered everyone else’s in their company to the same level.
Across the board a good thing.
But also something this person hits on again and again in social media.
Now, doing good for others is great. But doing it, then using that good to keep yourself constantly in the news or limelight…it becomes clear that you had secondary motives.
So what’s the theory?
The theory is: The more public good you do publicly, the worse your private secrets are.
I see it over and over again. They think they can justify their actions by doing good elsewhere. All while doing evil in private.
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Just one more hour
I’m procrastinating. Procrastinating going to sleep because tomorrow I have to work. If I had the day off, I’d be sound asleep.
Because that’s the trade off. Sleep means less time for myself. Less reading, less me.
Unless I’m relaxed, in which case, it means dreams and other lives.
But I’m not relaxed. Tomorrow I work. I have it better than many. I work from home. My work is remote and its all mind, little physical. I have a good boss, a good team.
But my time, my life is not my own. And that’s hard.
Vacations don’t help. They merely serve as counterpoint to work days. Throwing into stark relief the difference between my own recognizance and work hours.
The truth is I’m burned out. Not by work necessarily, but by life. This endless grind just to exist. I want more than that.
But find myself tied down by responsibility and reality in equal measure.
I feel like screaming, STOP!!!
Hoping the world will just freeze. And for a time, I can just be. So I can heal.
But I don’t think it will ever happen. I’m too burnt out for hope.
Pelgris 