What Will Suffice

So while America may have been on the brink of something good well over a month ago, I myself was on the brink of work, work, and for good measure, work. Somebody has to do it, I guess.

In general I am the kind of person for whom busy is a desirable state of being, but not only has this neverending stream of work left me bored out of my skull and antsy for some non-work-related endeavour, my body is beginning to rebel. It demands caffeine at odd hours and is always on the lookout for a sugar rush. It also lacks the stamina to write/read/watch anything in the evenings/on the weekends. My “free time,” cobbled such as it is in five minute increments over the course of sixteen-hour days where I am continuously on-call, is spent reading blogs because my addled mind is too tired to process anything else, and suddenly it’s 2 a.m. and I might as well get to sleep.

I am in full re-evaluation of this current mode of living at the moment, which feels a little too much like, well, not-living. Don’t get me wrong – I’m materially comfortable, I am treated like an adult at my job, and I have lots of friends. Also I have an excellent cat. But this vibe is not a sustainable one.

I have received many competing pieces of advice on this point, which often include some variation of “You’re awesome, you’ll do awesome things” (see above re good friends), which is self-esteem furthering but mostly discardable due to bias (I am, after all, somewhat lovable in my tendency to dream up one world-conquering scheme after another, and Tuesday’s is always a complete departure from Monday’s, if you catch my drift).

Another common theme: “can’t you just enjoy the simple things after work?” You know, I wish I could. I see all these people – and let me be clear, I think they are generally better and more useful human beings than I – who are happy with their expensive bags and dinners out and beer, and I don’t really understand why I aspire to something else.

However, in the spirit of the Great Democratic Experiment that is the internet, I hereby put the issue to a vote: