States of Matter

One of my also-recently unemployed friends, in a commiseration text exchange, shared that she had a stress dream where her hard-earned work skills had atrophied and she couldn't contribute to her group effort at Dream Work Inc.* In this case she had a dream job, but only in the extremely literal sense, which was being imperiled by her apparent diminishment in value as a person as measured by her level of productivity in both volume and quality. This is perfectly consistent with the lowest-level vibration of an undercurrent animating all of late-stage-capitalist American culture. This is also what constitutes a nightmare.

I of course do not feel this way about myself, because the contribution I'm making is happening right now, as I type this squawking missive into the void of The Current Internet, a contest of infinite sound-board fart noises canceling each other out so that all that is audible is a kind of very noisy silence. Not this though, this blog is actually important, not because I am writing it per se, it's just that my intentions are pure. By that I mean I don't have any kind of sponsor for this work that I'm doing here. This isn't really an integrity thing, or to put it a kinder way to myself, I don't know if it's an integrity thing or not because no company or brand has had the foresight or clarity to try to tempt me with any kind of lucre, filthy or otherwise. But if you check back in the first paragraph, you'll see that I am currently not working, so, you know, integrity on its own doesn't keep me in the lifestyle to which I'm accustomed (Slim Jims and cable internet). Papa's gotta eat. If you want to pay to watch me do that, ask me again when the streaming service bills are due, we'll see where my integrity is at when faced with the prospect of missing the last few episodes of Invincible.

I've never really been the type to associate my worth or my identity with my work, but I am an American after all, as embarrassing as that's been for the last 10 years or so. But in these past few days since my active working phase at my previous employer was suspended by loving mutual agreement last Friday, I do find myself somewhat formless and dissipated. I know in the past when I'd saved up the leave hours to take a noticeable chunk of time off, the start of it was both thrilling and confusing. The anticipation of being unshackled, if only temporarily, resolved into an almost ecstatic headfirst plummet into the extreme, almost pornographically hedonistic indulgences of sleeping in and not going to meetings, but it took almost a full week to learn to actually relax.

Though the circumstances now are exactly the same in terms of the day-to-day outcomes of vacation (if an email has been directed at me, it has not found me "well" or "at all"), they are occurring without any kind of structures on either side (vacation start date, vacation end date, regular work both suspended and awaiting), so it's... shapeless and weird. Work isn't my identity, by I do feel lost without it so far. Not my specific work, but just the basic compass orientation of routine to give time focus and direction.

To be clear, this isn't complaint, just observation. A huge majority of people would change places with me, not having to work for six months while still getting paid full salary and benefits. So I'm not bragging either. There's a larger grief and cloudiness to these early days than I anticipated. I assume when there's some more reps in this new space, it'll be clear that it's the people and relationships I built over 20 years that are causing the hole that needs filling rather than a fixed quitting time and a series of tasks to complete. At least, Jesus Christ, I hope so.

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*wholly and legally distinct from DreamWorks Pictures and/or DreamWorks Animation, two very real legal entities (with real lawyers on real retainer) I in no way wish to misrepresent here nor claim to be a spokesperson thereof. Unless neither of them actually exist anymore. That's how worried about this I am, I can't even be bothered to do the Wikipedia-level due diligence to see if they got private-equity-absorbed out of existence in the, like, 30 years since Shrek came out.