Life's habits

Life has some really bad habits. It sits at the proverbial dinner table scratching its crotch, burping and farting loudly while insulting everyone present. It's the neighbours who invited themselves, something you didn't ask for but got anyway and there's nothing you can do but deal with it. It won't go away, you can't get away and there's nothing to let you out. It gets you hooked on freedom then takes away the supply, leaving you a desperate begging user for the rest of your life, forced to work the majority of your waking life away into oblivion to support your addiction.

Yes, life's a bitch. On a good day.

But then sometimes life isn't so bad, either. It drops a windfall of money in your lap, lands you a job you didn't think you'd get and has someone incredible walk into your world. It gives you friends that stay with you all your life, lets you see things you've worked on come to glorious fruition and allows you to live happily.

Life can be good.

Can be. If it feels like it.

I guess i have to be grateful that i'm not starving, or being shot at on a daily basis, or some other thing. My woes and angst are strictly white-anglo-middle-class-male, which would be nothing in the face of what many endure on a daily basis. i acknowledge this, ok? But here's the catch: because we're not being shot at, or starving, or whatever... we have a different set of standards to live by. This means we expect a better standard of living; but also means we're expected to get a job, earn lots of money, have a stable family life, 2.3 kids, dog, cat, commodore, holidays at the gold coast and just generally Be Happy(tm).

Fuck that. Life gives me the wrong safelight in the darkroom to fuck up my prints 2 days before my portfolio is due. Life puts palm trees where you didn't see them when you back out of a carport at someone else's house (stupid fucking place to put your carport, honestly...). Life sets all your due dates at the same time at uni, gives you major crises to deal with right before the client wants to have the job done.

i don't have an ideal relationship with life. It's been damn good to me, but it's also fucked me around. i can't fuck it around to make things even. i can't have the shit kicked out of sportos who beat up my friends for no reason, i can't stop gluttonous corporations (especially banks) from ripping everyone off, i can't stop the system doing exactly what it fucking well wants.

i want to be young while i still am, but this is when i have to Get A Career(tm). i want to wear what i want, but to Get A Career(tm) i have to Get A Haircut(tm) and Wear A Suit(tm). But if i Get A Haircut and Suit(tm), i can't Be Happy(tm). But i need a job (read: Career(tm)) to Be Happy(tm). So, seeing as it's catch 22, i have to Compromise(tm); it becomes a measure of DEGREES of Being Happy(tm). Would i be happier doing what i want but having no money whatsoever; or having to work and fit my life in between business hours, but have money to actually live decently?

Welcome to the salt mines, chombatta.

written, not read back, uploaded. 31-5-98