I'm tired. I'm tired of having to be some indefatigable robotic superman who still manages to prepare and eat four square meals a day, just to survive, let alone get ahead. I'm tired of having to work harder every year and secure a raise just to stay stuck in the same place. I can either find and hold down a job OR manage my personal/private life, not both. The very idea alone is wearisome to me. I've tried. I just don't have the energy, stamina or time. I ended up with burnout and complete lack of will to live, in a psych ward for a month. Yet, that's what's expected of me, because other people somehow manage, because that's somehow normal and just what people do (because reasons nobody can/will elucidate). Fuck normal and fuck them! I'm not other people; I'm my iconoclastic, mediocre, useless and weird self. I can't even afford to feel bad about it or defeated. That takes/wastes too much time and energy, which is a luxury I don't have.
Sure, I want to be better, to be somebody else and have nice things, but it's just not going to happen. I'm too old and fundamentally broken. I don't fit this world and I haven't for almost my entire life. There are sacrifices I have to make. Anything that isn't paying me to do it to the extent that I earn a living (and then some more) from it has to go out of my life. As much as it pains me, the cryptosphere is one of those things. Relationships, personal growth and having my house in order are some others, since making money by any means necessary (including being completely mercenary, ruthless and immoral) is what's more important under duress of Capitalism, at least right now. Besides, once I achieve that (assuming I ever do, which seems highly unlikely), then it may be possible for me to afford to pay people to provide most of the other things and thus free up my time somewhat. if it supposedly worked for Donald Trump and every cold-blooded suit-wearing corporate psychopath I've ever encountered, why can't it work for me? Screw my morals and principles; they're only standing in my way and holding me back from reaching my potential!
Dating is possibly one of the worst things I ever did because it was a huge eater of my time and ultimately came to naught. I'll never get back those years of my life, maybe never make up for the lessons and skills I didn't learn because I was trying to make myself and someone else happy to no avail. I've always prefered my own company, anyway. Sure, I get lonely sometimes and it eats at me, but if that's the price I have to pay to stand on my own feet and have my own life, then loneliness is freedom and loneliness is fine (to very loosely reference John Crosby AKA VAST).
I'd like to claim that I persist because I choose to, but even that's not true. I tried to get out, in various ways (including suicide and earning crypto by various means), but I failed. The harsh reality is that I'm simply not good enough at it. Ultimately, I cannot leave the current system that's set against me, no matter how desperately I want to and put effort into that. (Success isn't proportional to effort, but ability.) It's not my choice to make as to how or when I go. It'll come when it comes. The only real choice I have is to choose how I'll be abused, exploited, traumatised and under-appreciated (and find a way to cope with all that). That's not much of a choice at all, is it? So it's back to work I go, if I can only find somewhere that will have me for longer than three months at a stretch (which is when my cracks are evident). At this stage of my life, that seems like too much to ask. Again, it's not up to me, but it never has been, really. It's definitely not something I want to do, but something I have to do. Unfortunately necessary evils and all that ...
Please don't misunderstand me here. I'm not going to stop writing on Pub0x or elsewhere, because it's one of the things that keeps me sane and makes my life worthwhile. I'm not even claiming to be taking a break from it, because I know I won't, but I do know I'm not benefiting from it financially when I consider how much time I put into it compared to what I get out. (All the code I've written never did give my life fulfillment, meaning or purpose, just a lot of money I didn't deserve. Right now, that's what I need.) I'm just facing the harsh reality that my writing is simply not going to earn me enough that I can live off it. It never has, which is too bad, but such is life.
People think that they can do nothing to help, so they do nothing. They give up without even trying to find out what it is that they can actually do. Doing a little, no matter how insignificant or pathetic it may seem, is certainly better than doing nothing. It doesn't have to be some grand act or gesture if enough people do it.
Taking the time to read, leave a tip and encouraging comment almost every day may seem like a small thing, but it isn't to me. (That's why I need as many people as I can get to not only read what I write, but also tip. It's why I always tip what I read here, no matter how small. Unfortunately, I find that I reach the tip limit before I run out of reading material.) Thank you to those of my followers who do that for me, possibly have done for almost every day that I've posted something over the years. It shows me that you still care and believe in me, haven't given up on me (even when I've wanted to give up on myself and Pub0x, although I must not). No matter how bad things get or how down in the dumps I might feel, I must not give up hope or stop trying to change my situation and make my life better, no matter how many times I feel defeated by setbacks or the enormity of it all, how difficult it is for me to rise above. CPTSD and toxic work environments be damned. If you can afford some of your time to read my posts and tip or encourage me to keep going, then I cannot afford the luxury of wasting mine on dwelling on negatives or feeling sorry for myself.
That is why I'd best get back to finding work, since there ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees and I've got bills to pay.
Until next time, Snark out!
Thumbnail image: Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz on Pexels
