Dear diary,
Why do I spend all my time reading and writing? Why watch old films, whose entire cast and crew are now long dead? Why sit asking these questions with my scroll and pen, instead of standing up and heading out into the chaos . . . striding forward to claim my portion of existence . . .
How does everybody live on the outside of the world! All young persons thirst for a real existence for an object,—for something great and good which they shall do with all their heart. Meantime they all pack gloves, or keep books, or travel, or draw indentures, or cajole old women.
Emerson wrote that in his journal on 9 July 1833. I myself have worked at packing gloves and keeping books; but even traveling is beyond my dare-grade. Drawing indentures, I’m less sure of – I guess that is a type of clerical work, copying out legal documents . . . And cajoling old women: that, to me, sounds like the height of swashbuckling.
At once I agree with the idea to leave the sidelines and run out onto the field, to join the game. But not only is it nearly impossible to escape from our modern cells of isolation, it must be admitted that there’s a type of brave exploit that is wholly contemplative: Mental adventures surely are important. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a sin to “look upon a woman with lust.” (Matthew 5:28) Don Juan scored a large number of conquests, but I guarantee that his is nowhere near the total that I have committed in my heart. And of my friends who travel in reality, I know one who visited two foreign countries last year; but two trips are not enough to satisfy me: I desire to live in a hundred places, and a new place every day. Plus, the time spent on airplanes is totally wasted; I need to walk everywhere that I go, and meet all new people on the roads of my journey, and marry princesses and fight crime and learn black magic.
Plus the world does not have an outside. Or if, as a game of language, we call certain activities “outer,” then the “inner” actions are also part of the world: What’s wrong with the world’s interior? I like it: it’s brazen.
The world is all one surface, like a Klein bottle. So, when you merely imagine, say, a nuclear bomb exploding, you cause real abortions to happen somewhere in spacetime. Galaxies croak. That’s why people make such a big fuss about positive thinking. Don’t think negatively, they say. But what this type of person does not understand is . . .
I don’t want to say that positive thoughts cause negative results and vice versa, like the controls of certain spaceships that veer straight upward when you aim the steering column down; but I have no knowledge how or if these things truly work; and my hunch is that the mind’s influence over reality is more complicated than “bad thoughts make bad deeds while good make good.” (Also ignoring for the nonce that the terms good & bad are objectively meaningless.) So, although I cannot with a clear conscience endorse the purveyors of positive thought, I would rather avoid encouraging people to bask in imaginations that are hateful; therefore, mostly due to my anxious superstitions, I stamp my approval on positive thought.
But I wanted to write about social action. I wish that my parents would not have allowed me to work at such a young age in jobs that are menial and demeaning – fast food, car wash, unloading freight trailers, the eyeglass factory – because these experiences led me to conclude that the best tactic in life is to avoid as much of the world as is possible: to hide oneself and remain invisible. Coast under the radar. Detach from the grid. Go underground. Be absolute for death.
What if I could change my mind, like regular people? What would I do?
Last evening, my sweetheart was telling me about how her parents begat four children and then, when the two eldest kids were of school age, instead of helping his children plan for college, the dad himself began to go to college. Moreover, the kids were told “You may not attend the free public school, because that is ungodly; you must instead pay your own way through private Christian schooling; and you must figure out how to pay for your own higher education as well; because any extra money that we possess is going towards your father’s tuition.” Then their father eventually became a nurse; but, by that time, all the kids had already left home; so, none of his earnings ever benefitted the children. My sweetheart worked her way through college and became a music teacher. Her older brother joined the United States Marine Corps. Her younger brother has an office job at a police station. And her sister is a mom of countless children: as many as the stars in the sky or the sand upon the beach (and all are homeschooled with a Christian curriculum).
So, what about me? What should I do, now that my time is up, and my life is over, and I failed to attend college or find a career? I can’t keep writing feral scriptures that shall dominate the future.
JOB LIST:
A rundown of all the jobs that I shall do
from now until the rest of my life on earth.
First, I will become a Science Researcher. That’s my top choice. This will entail measuring the size of apples and oranges, and comparing them, and then writing a report concluding that they are good.
After that, I will become a Clinical Social Worker. People will come to me with all sorts of anger issues and despair from living in poverty. And I will say to them: “Calm down! There’s nothing we can do for you! This is the United States of America!”
My next profession shall be an Environmental Data Analyst. I will test the temperature in swamps. After I’m covered with a thick layer of green algae from working underwater, I will walk down the street to my neighbor’s swimming pool and take a dip; then, to dry off, I will roll around in their flower garden.
Drats, my wristwatch is beeping – we know what that means: It’s time to change my career again. So now I’ll become a Renewable Energy Engineer. Then I’ll work my way up to some higher posts in Military Services. And I’ll become a Diplomat, a Banker, a CEO, and then a Doctor.
My claim to fame, within the medical profession, will be that I . . .
On second thought, I will not distinguish myself in any way, when I serve my stint as a General Practitioner: I’ll just be a regular guy; keep my head down, don’t rock the boat.
For my fifth job, I will find work as a Mental Health Counselor. That will be fun. “Stop eating fire!” I will yell at my patients. “Don’t kill your mom and dad!” And I will keep a sock filled with sand, which I will use to bap the heads of people, when they bring me their house-pets: “I’m a counselor of men, not a veterinarian,” I will proclaim.
For Job Number Next, I will seek to become a Pilot. Either of a gondola or a float in a parade. Maybe also I’ll try being a Hurricane Hunter or Skywriter. I will need no training for this.
Then I’ll work as a Lawyer, of course. That will be my longest career. I’ll do that from the age of 49 all the way into my mid-77s.
At that point, I’ll shift gears and become a Marriage Counselor. As soon as new clients enter my office, I will hand them my bill and say: “Just get a divorce.”
And, lastly, I’ll enjoy a brief career as a Flight Attendant; then, after flying to the Bahamas, I will begin my final vocation: Psychoanalysis.
NOTE: I will never retire. I will die on the job. My last day shall go like so: I will place my patient under hypnosis, instructing him to re‑live the moment from his childhood when he happened to walk into the bedroom of his parents as they were swinging from their chandelier without any clothes on – and, at this instant, I shall expire; thus leaving his parents hanging like that with their startled child aghast at them forever.
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