I know that I need to act, yet I’m weighed down by tons.
This morning, I realized that I’ve been disguising my lack of faith in others as a lack of faith in myself.
The occasion for this minor epiphany was the announcement on Twitter that I’m lonely, and I followed that up by hinting that I feel trapped.
The most visible part of the problem is that I live in Lawrence, Kansas. It’s a wonderful place to live… unless you’re thirty-five, single, and childless. Then you have nearly nothing in common with nearly all of the people you meet.
If it’s good enough for William S. Burroughs to die in, it’s good enough for me to live in for a while.
When in 2004 I told my friends and family that I intended to move to Lawrence, the nearly-uniform response was, “what the fuck’s in Kansas?” There was a woman in the picture at the time — a detail which, like many of its kind, illuminates a sad and ignoble story — and I was originally hopeful that I could get a job with the local paper. That didn’t work out either; at the time their online presence unit had no need for someone with my combination of skills, and more importantly I made a poor impression on my contacts.
I got a fair ration of crap from people here, too. In my own time and place I attended the University of Missouri for three years, the same University of Missouri that was panned by blue t-shirts emblazoned with “Muck Fizzou” across what then seemed like every other chest. Even so, the WTFs and raised eyebrows I earned were not on account of my curriculum vitae, but instead because I moved here from Portland. Everybody wondered why I would leave Portland, forsaking it for Kansas of all places.
What I could not adequately and casually explain was that Portland is a pretty toxic place for me.
It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be okay.
Those were the last words that I spoke to my mother.
I had stayed up until 5:30 in the morning, then gone to sleep. I was roused by a telephone call from Grandma, who told me that I needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. As I took the train to the hospital an hour later (damn schedules) it seemed as if I was seeing out the window through a camera, rather than my own eyes.
I went to Mom’s room in the ICU, emotionally distant and tired; Grandma was briefly suspicious that I was drunk or hungover. And there was Mom, who was by this time (and so quickly!) barely more than a lump on the bed. I’ve never been able to shake the impression that she held on until I got there.
I was watching her eyes, cloudy with narcotics, stroking her hair, and waiting. It was precisely 2:30 on a Friday afternoon. For all that I bitch about being lonely now, and even though I have been desperately lonely far too often in the past, that moment rates as my loneliest so far.
The waiting ended quickly. The loneliness didn’t.
There was nothing I could do to stop it. I will go to my own death believing that there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.
…To stop it, or to stop a long list of awful things that Mom put herself through, or was subjected to, throughout her life.
Lawrence suggessted itself because of a number of seeming coincidences, and because it was a Midwestern college town — an environment I knew.
It must be said, though, that my point had little to do with any appeal that Lawrence held for me, but was instead about getting far, far away from home and getting over myself.
I have a hard enough time controlling myself, much less anyone else.
Six years on, I’ve figured a few things out. I know with some confidence that:
There are some solid listening skills underneath the loneliness.
I won’t lose my temper unless I feel cornered or ambushed.
My patience is limited for the games people play in the absence of actual things to do.
I have the last word about the extent to which I am damaged.
Most people don’t give a shit most of the time, and it’s probably better that way.
For all that, I’ve spent an awful lot of time being lied to and generally jerked arou
“A Deer in the Headlights”
“A Deer in the Headlights” —by Ben Henick, 23 June 2010
All three pieces are a kick. Reading them in rapid succession, as I did yesterday afternoon, is a kick in the guts. The article about jobs-in-general particularly evoked from me a visceral response.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer
The sense of entitlement to profit that I raised a few days ago is evident in every talk about compensation I’ve heard about, or participated in, in the past several years. It seems to me like the vast majority want labor for the cheapest they can possibly obtain, while remaining content to throw handfuls of money at senior management and holders of equity — even ones who, as it turns out, contribute little or nothing.
It always seems like the same old story: hire somebody with the basic minimum of proven ability in order to get away with paying them as little as possible, train them up to the minimum needed by the organization, fire the ones who don’t take comfortably to that scheme at the instant they’re identified, and work the others to the bone until they burn out.
I believe that on some level, most people recognize that this is going on. However, I struggle to understand why. It seems axiomatic to me that people who feel valued will work harder, yet the trend moves toward every possible effort to remind people that they’re replaceable and ought to get the best out of things while they can.
Compassion vs. sociopathy
The only fact that adequately explains this prevailing state of affairs is broad, unwitting subscription to the system cobbled together from the amoral rants of a mildly nutty Russian emigré. On balance that would not be so bad, except that like that ethos’ nemeses — Communism and Christianity — “Objectivism” works a hell of a lot better in theory than in practice.
I see two deep flaws with this ethos, deepening my my confusion. First, we can’t all be Howard Roark; lots of us lack the temperament requisite to that outcome. As much to the point, if we all could have and act upon that power, civilization as we know it would rapidly descend into barbarism. One man’s clear thinker is another’s cold-hearted sonofabitch, and the latter type is awfully good at inducing conflict.
Second, human beings possess and act upon compassion compulsively; the ones who habitually refuse or fail to do so are (rightly) called sociopaths. We all recognize that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and communities tend to raise the minimum when given the chance. Cutting loose that weak link instead… goes a bit far.
Meritocracy
The happy finish of the labor market’s neo-Nietzchean race to the botom can be found in two virtues that are compatible with all of the belief systems in play: honesty and fidelity.
As it stands, the realities of social (im-) mobility leave some with first-class tickets, and consign the rest to steerage barring both outstanding luck and superlative effort. Furthermore, there are no guarantees that anyone who manages to climb their way out of steerage won’t be shoved back down by some vindictive asshole.
Rewarding honesty and fidelity in the workplace — and penalizing those who lie, cheat, and habitually cover their asses — would go a long way toward making the labor market a better place for everybody.
We have the technological capacity to discover and promote out of steerage quickly the ones who’ve earned it, as a matter of course. We can do the reverse for those who feel most inclined to rest on their laurels. Why don’t we?