I know this because so many of you tell me how hard things are for you. I know that many of you have lost your jobs. And for most Americans having a job is really important. It defines who you are. It's the first question we ask each other. Though really that question is just an attempt at understanding our place in the social hierarchy. But Americans don't like to think about class. We fool ourselves. We call everybody middle class. I think Bill Gates says he's still in the middle class.
You probably had a job until 3 months ago. But now you are living off unemployment, or aybe you are working from home and have had to take a pay cut. Maybe your job isn't as glamorous as the food clerk at your local grocery store. You aren't "essential." People don't thank you for your service anymore...they only thank me. And maybe you are having a bad time about that.
Don't fret. At least you have a choice. Most of us going to battle against the virus have no choice. WE go to work because we can't stay home. I didn't have much of a choice, how long do you think I could stay home making near minimum wage? A choice of ability to stay home could save my life. I've had cancer, my cancer was in the blood as they say and it damaged my heart and was in my lungs. It left it difficult for me to climb stairs. I need to go see a cardiologist, but who can afford that too? So if I get this I'm probably a gonner. I'd definitely trade places with you if I could. Also, kinda tired of being thanked by my customers without masks anyways. Not that I get gratitude that much anymore. You are all ready forgetting who is doing what. You are so damned bored that you are losing your minds. You equate social distancing because in this pandemic with an intrusion on your rights. Well, last time I checked, the right to live is first. So take precautions when you are out there and you might just end up saving my life.
The Self Help Guide to Surviving the Pandemic:
AS a guy who had lived his whole life in a perpetual state of boredom let me provide some self help for you. I know how it feels to have a job that no one respects, or how it feels to not have a job at all. Honestly this is just pride on your part and you can let that go real quick. If you take a shit in your pants on the front line charging a machine gun, no one really focuses on the shit. No one gets embarrassed easily. They are just trying not to die.
So instead of focusing on what you don't have: A girlfriend, friends who respect you, a car, the ability to make your monthly mortgage payment, focus on the things that you do have. Like that box of expired jello pudding snacks in the back of your pantry. Those things don't really expire, so if you have some milk, you got pudding!
Don't worry about your social status, it's totally coming back! In fact I would harken to say that class will be a bigger and badder thing in the near future. The USA is finally going back to it's European roots and get a bit classy. Meaning educated and rich people are going to be looked up at even more and the poor and the dumb will be stuck in dangerous and old fashioned jobs where we get coughed on by possible carriers.
Americans in general can't wait to go back to mistreating clerks and the little man. Most grocery store chains have already stopped the hero pay. Only consumer outrage has them backtracking and offering bonuses. So I guess the second thing you could do is write an e-mail to the store you purchase your groceries from and request that those heroes get paid. It will benefit you in the long run. If you're rich, you will keep the tide of lumpenproletariat from tearing down your city. If you are an unemployed bum benefiting from the extra 600 dollars of emergency money, you don't have to feel as guilty. Though you should. Because it is possible that your bartending job is going away forever and you will have to start work alongside me.
[As an aside WTF are strippers going to do? How many of you can really move your craft over to camming? Do you just go to prostitution? Won't that be even more dangerous that it was before? Also, how much do you charge?]
How do I deal with the boredom though?
When you are broke and as socially inept as I am you have to watch a lot of TV and read a lot of books. But I have noticed that boredom is less about the lack of things to do and more with the lack of connection to something bigger and to other people.
If you are lucky enough to have a spouse or a partner then stick to them like glue. They should be your guide in how to get through this. Take care of your kids. Visit your granny. Wait take that back. Call Grandma. Don't visit her, you'll probably kill her if you go see her! Wish her good luck too.
You might take up playing video game playing. I don't play them. As a 50 year old single male who played Dungeons & Dragons and regularly visits forums on how to "pick up chicks" I figured why not just go full nerd and vegetate on some video games. I do like war tanks after all. I have spent two weeks worth of vacation trying to decide if I want to spend $150 dollars on a starter gaming PC. I could use it for E-sports games and better word processing for this blog! I have checked out Facebook Marketplace, E-bay, Craigslist, you name it. I am watching all kinds of videos on YouTube telling me how to put together my own system. I know the differences between SSD's and SSHD and HDD. See this google search for more info:
Oh, another thing you could do is start a blog! You could do one about how your hot wife likes to sleep around on you and how your spouse's cheating on you actually turns you on. Maybe go deep into your childhood and try to explain why you need to revisit your parents infidelity. I'm sure it would make for some good reading. Might even save you a trip to the psychologist!
To sum up:
You aren't bored. There are tons of activities to do. What you miss is your connection to your job which provided more for you than just a way to earn a living. It provided things like your place in the society. It told you who you could bully. It gave you social interaction satisfaction. It left you on solid ground. You did not have to question the proper place of people and goals in your life. Today you are left wondering if all the people you didn't care about or need are more important than you are. Maybe you are just a useless banker that does nothing but make pretend money for rich people who don't need it.
But the pandemic is pernicious in other ways than just wrangling the air out of it's victims, leaving them gasping for air, alone, coughing and sputtering , their last spastic movements searching for comfort. It also provides the possibility to get rid of whole sections of people who you define as useless. Get rid of the poor, the sick, the needy. We will send the poor to the grocery store for us. We will cut off their unemployment and raises. We won't worry about senior living facilitates, because then we can gut Social Security. We won't provide treatment to the addicted or places to live to for the homeless. We will let them congregate out of necessity and then, "Let nature take it's course."
That course you wish to steer is history one you have dreamed about for years, ever since you came across that old WWII book in your grandfather's basement. It was supposed to explain to you that draconian autocrats who use genetics to wage 'a war against the weak' are cruel. But you really liked the idea. You fancy yourself a survivor. You fancy yourself, "one of the strong." There would not normally be much support for this idea among the inhabitants of a strong middle class society with a respect for law and who had social norms that defended the weak. But these aren't normal times. We live in times where the diseased attack the healthy just through tthough their breath. 25% unemployment has hastened the arrival of a great mass of useless LumpenAmericans.
The middle class has died. Who is left? The takers and the makers. The makers only need a small group of people to tend to the grass cutting or the nanny making. The makers cry out, "Let the Robots come! Let the Poor die! Let the sick fall over in the street, I will leave my house through helicopter cars, and I will be whisked away from protests and street crime by automated driving heuristics. I have no need for my fellow man! And when I do, I command that you go out to the farms and the dirty cities and leave your masks behind! Remember your freedom!!!! Remember A billion Bangladeshi wish they were you!!"
No comments:
Post a Comment