Only a day in and I'm already questioning my commitment to the project. I'm not entirely sure what to write about tonight, but I'm committed to writing something and so...viola. Trash posting.
My job is generally frustrating me lately, especially tonight, which has been oddly busy. I have found over the course of my over twenty years of hospitality business experience-a fact that will forever torment me, wasting as much of my life for capitalist nonsense-that people are, in fact, getting worse. The attitudes, the entitlement, the rude comments.
Make no mistake, it was never good, but it definitely was not always as bad it is now. I blame society. I blame politics. I blame capitalism and dramatic wealth disparity. The wrong people got money.
I've been actively trying to do less social media viewing, with mixed results. Nothing good comes from looking anymore, and yet it just continues. I suppose that, without social media, I would have no idea what is going on with anyone I care about, not could I whine about how much I hate social media. But it seems relevant to the increasing frustration with dealing with the general public. And it is this increasing frustration that has led to me to being little more than a hermit, doing nothing with my free time besides watching movies and occasionally sleeping (which seems to be less and less lately), which probably is something I need to change.
This also contributes to frustration with the job. My days off are effectively useless for anyone who wants to, say, date or at least go to a goth night or some sort of social function in an effort to be more connected to the world. Which I don't want to be, really, because my job makes me hate connecting to the world. Because the world suuuuucks.
I recorded one of the two (soon to be three?) podcasts I do every week today, Insane Troll Logic, which was about episodes of Tv's Angel and, while it is always a good time recording with Maggie, I often feel mildly guilty because I don't always bring the energy I hope to, which is how I feel today.
Don't get me wrong, I consider any episode of a podcast in which at least one good idea is expressed is a successful one, and we had at least that tonight, but that lack of energy comes from the job (and distractions from the other guy who is always loud and gross that also lives in the apartment I do-for some reason I hate referring to him as a roommate, even though technically he is exactly that) and my lack of sleep and the general awkwardness I feel connecting with someone-even someone I love as much as Maggie-and so...guilt. It's a difficult thing to feel, but it at least is something I can identify the cause of and cope with, which I suppose is a good thing.
It does all tie together, though, in the idea that I need to figure out what my plan is for the immediate future. I had committed to standing still for awhile, needing to regroup and rethink, but that is wearing thin already due to the aforementioned irritating, isolation, and general lack of accomplishment I've felt for some time.
Obviously lateral job changes aren't really an option. I know that from experience. Without a major change of venue or medium, it would just lead to a temporary shift in mood but little else. I probably need to get out of Cleveland, or find something outside of hospitality, and a new place to live, and all kinds of nonsense and it's a lot.
I feel like I've sung this song before.
Eventually, I'll figure it out. Make the right changes, truly understand exactly who and what I am now. Maggie and I were talking about the character of Angel tonight, and I've always identified with him and his deep-seated existential depression, guilt, and self-depreciation, but tonight's conversation brought me to other levels of his (and perhaps my own) identity. We talked about the arrested development of Angel as a character and how, despite his advanced age, he really is starting from scratch in his journey of self-understanding. Maggie attributed it to his immortality (he has forever to figure this own), and she's right, but there is also an element of how Angel hid himself from the world for over a century, never really working to better himself. It wasn't until his involvement with Buffy that he ever took stock of his own life and what it meant, leading him eventually to strike out on his own in Los Angeles.
As a result, Angel (at least where he is in the narrative where Maggie and I left him) is struggling with his first major set-back, resulting in his developing a rather petulant and self-important stage, lashing out and isolating, that will eventually humble him and get him back on track.
It always bugs me a little when I'm talking about a character and realize I'm kinda talking about me. And this is not the first time this has happened.
I have barely come to acknowledge that I even have a journey ahead, that I have never entirely understood myself or my place in the world, and am only getting started in my own voyage of self-discovery, like Angel. And I gotta figure that out. Hopefully without the voiceover narration (it's kind of a crutch). I'm not egotistical enough to believe I have any grand destiny or anything, but maybe I, too, have a chance at being a real human again. It hasn't been a century since my former self was cursed with self-knowledge, but it feels like it, and it feels even longer than that since I felt like a real person.
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