judy prince wrote:
> Annie,
>
> Thanks for Al.
I have a problem with Al. Mainly he's a politician. I forced myself to
vote for him in 2000. While I detest the word "sincerity," something
about Al had the coinage value of pyrites. I prefer not to do this
here--but while Bush even then was a worse choice, Gore still made me
unhappy. Weep weep, my sister died of lung cancer. Hey yo, tobacco
farmers, I'm onena you! Sen. Bullshitter, D.-Tenn. See, maybe you have
to live in New Jersey to appreciate the mendacity factor in politics. I
once heard a speech by (the late?) Jack Anderson, 1974 sometime, when he
repeated "You can't trust 'em, you can't trust 'em." And he was right.
> Upon reflection:
>
> 1) We tell our truths to one another.
Depends where and under what circumstances. If you are in a business or
academic context, you join Lear's Fool and fain would learn to lie. It
is a survival skill. The danger is that if the lying carries over into
real life--what happens between human beings, not coworkers--then there
is no hope for a social contract.
> 2) We don't read or hear those truths in any of the news sources.
I subscribe to Media Matters and now delete it unread. Same as
TruthOut. I am tired of shrill, screaming, left wing car salesmen
telling me about who lied to whom and how we're all getting screwed. I
KNOW we are all getting screwed, I KNOW what Limbaugh and Coulter are, I
don't need daily reminders. In the meantime I have watched the TV news
maybe 10 times since leaving my wife in 1997. I can't change the news.
And I don't particularly care about it. I refused, consciously, to
watch footage of the 9/11 attack in New York, and saw film of it only by
accident a few months ago. I witnessed the thing up close and personal,
why do I need to hear some anchorperson telling me what I'm seeing?
> 3) We sometimes hear those truths on television in sitcoms or talk
> shows or comedians' words.
I don't watch sitcoms. The last TV I watched was Sunday night, Martha
Stewart's version The Apprentice. It was a hoot..
> 4) We trust very few people.
With good reason? I don't know. I certainly do not trust the people
for and with whom I work. I think of Yeats' Irish airman: "Those I
serve I do not love," something like that. In my department I am the
house n-word. This is probably a career truth revealing itself to me,
but it revealed itself to me here.
> 5) We wish we could trust more people.
Maybe. Trust is often discovered in absence. It is often the product
of neurosis, i.e., it is misplaced. You cannot know until you test it.
> 6) We need to work to eat.
Sadly, yes. Dumpster-diving has never been part of my survival toolkit,
but that could always change. See below.
> 7) We require respite from cynicism.
God, yes. I've already been told once this week that I am negative. My
"retort" is "No, I'm realistic." Both things may be in tenuous balance.
> 8) We therefore drink, cheat, eat too much, look at porn, beat our
> children, pick on our spouses, pick on our parents, pick on our
> siblings, behave as if our coworkers/bosses/ employees were mental
> midgets and emotional aberrants, do drugs, drive too fast, bet on
> horses, disconnect from our work, watch television, listen to talk
> radio, get in the car and go anywhere to do anything to get away from
> hopelessness, sleep, kick the dog down the stairs, hide.
While some of this has nothing to do with me at a daily level, I
nevertheless get the point. Activities substitute for life. Activities
are an escape. Chemicals are a substitute for activities which are a
substitute for life.
> 9) We know what we need to do, but we cannot manage the energy and
> focused concentration to do it.
I need to quit my job or maneuver them into canning me so I can collect
unemployment until I'm 62-1/2. I am a coward. I will not do what I
must to bring that about (it would not be hard) without someplace to
go. So instead I--and many more like me--Deal With It. A man I worked
with here, who also drove in from the Jersey Shore, found a perfect
escape. He died of his 2nd heart attack last Friday. He was two years
younger than me and looked old enough to be my father. He was a
(recovering?) chainsmoker and very likely drank a bit too much. The
perfect employee: no retirement package, just croak. I work for and
with profoundly selfish and detached people. Maybe that is how one
prospers in American business, i.e., by unconscious viciousness. I am
underpaid, underworked, overcommuted, and overpressured by people for
whom It's All About Them and Eff You. But I cannot do that. See the
above on dumpster-diving, but add to that health insurance.
Why do you think I am drawn to writing about murderers and social misfits?
> 10) That is because it seems to require that we give up every bit of
> our life as we are now living it and commit to . . . . . . . . . . we
> don't know quite what.
We commit to Service. Not to others who suffer with us, to support
them. We support to serving people not worthy of our respect much less
our work. I know: who am I to make that call? Answer: who am I *not* to.
> 11) We appreciate those who listen to us because they are our own
> personal saviours.
Agreed.
> 12) We appreciate others for every help and courtesy, no matter how
> "insignificant."
You got it.
> 13) We are waiting.
What happens when we stop waiting, when we're tired of waiting? "Damn,
I guess the train's not coming after all." When you are thrown back on
Nothing what do you do?
> 14) We have immense talent, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, ability,
> skill and gathered resources---and sometimes, with other people's
> help, we recognize it.
Yes, and sometimes you have to ignore the seductive voice of How Great
Thou Art and follow our own compass.
> 15. We want to use what we have.
>
> 16. We want to fulfill ourselves.
>
> 17. We want help.
>
> 18. We want to help.
All of this, yes. The social "contract" requires that we accept
deliberate thwarting of ambition. Personal ambition for one's
life-goals is "abnormal"; allowing it to be thwarted in the name the
almighty paycheck enables chemical abuse, sexual depravity and addiction
as escape routes, and Sucking It Up And Dealing With It. Life is
supposed to gain meaning from meaningless, Mickey Mouse work. My work
was meaningless when I made over a hundred grand, it is equally
meaningless now. So it's only peripherally about money, it's about
having the soul fed.
How many people have souls that starve?
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
W.H. Auden
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