oh now I get it
Correspondent:: Zapanaz
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 16:28:52 -0800
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People work because the social structures imposed by the work
"community" give them something to hide behind.
I was in the grocery store, discovering Smart Bacon, and I noticed
like I do every year that I really like people more during the holiday
season. I'm always like "where did all these cute women come from?
Why do they only come out around the holidays?" But going a little
more observant I realized that I kind of liked everybody more, I just
notice the cute women more because, well, I would.
And I started epiphanying. Of course these aren't all a bunch of
people you've never seen before, they are the same people you see
every day. They are just -different-. I don't really buy off on the
"spirit of the holiday", "season of brotherly love" thing ... sorry
... it's just a little too airy to really be something that affects
people, and anyway, how many people do you really know who really get
majorly filled with "christmas spirit", in that sense? I mean,
actually walking around thinking "now is the time to love my
neighbors!"
Nah bullshit.
So that was when I had my little epiphany. People are different
because they are out of their work mode. People have to act this role
every day, and at the holidays they can stop playing it for a while.
They actually get spontaneous and act like THEMSELVES. Or who they
imagine themselves to be or who they want to be or whatever. They've
been officially given the nod that they can get out of the work mode
and so for just a couple days they will be themselves. And when
people are spontaneous and themselves they are interesting. Trying
and failing is infinitely better than not trying at all.
And what a FUCKING WASTE. Going all year with a stick up your ass
being this asshole personality who seems like the right role to play
for work, sufficiently serious and official. Only being who you
really wish you were, or trying to be, a couple times a year when the
big dogs give you the nod.
And then I realize that it isn't a side effect of the unfortunate fact
that they, the normals, have to work. It's WHY they work.
It really is a perplexing question to me, why exactly we have to work.
Bob Black may be anathema to Subgenii, but he really did write some
very good stuff in the direction of simply expressing that question.
And others have asked it to; why, exactly, after thousands of years
developing technology and social structures which are, supposedly, to
make our lives better and easier, do we all find ourselves working
even harder now than ever before? What was the turnoff we missed
along the way?
But it seems obvious enough to me, people have a compulsion to work.
At different times it comes up in conversation, the idea of never
having to work again, and humans always tell me the same thing; that
they'd go crazy if they didn't work. I guess I do have the subgenius
gene or something, I could never make sense of that. I know I would
go a lot less crazy if I didn't have to work..
For whatever reason, people have this NEED to work. A bizarre
compulsion. And because they have this disease, -I- have to work too.
The disease sustains itself in a subtle way, when we invent some new
technology which is supposed to save us work, inevitably, somehow, the
job market shifts so that more jobs are created. Like personal
computers at work. All those bazillions of hours they are supposed to
have saved, why isn't everybody just having to do less work? Because
we MAKE work. Because we can't NOT work. We. Fuck that. THEY.
But looking at all those hyoomins at the store, it all made sense.
People are afraid to be spontaneous. They're afraid to be themselves.
It's a lot like the fear that prevents white men from hitting on
women, it's less painful not to try at all than to try and fail.
People don't know HOW to be spontaneous. Because they never PRACTICE.
They don't have the foggiest idea who they would be if they didn't
have somebody telling them who to be. The "them" that comes out in
rare moments like the holidays is always in there, a subgenius
struggling to be free, but most of what normals have for a real self
is a confused amalgam of pop culture ideas which has managed to stick
to them like a melee of sticky notes.
The normals who tell me they wouldn't know what to do with themselves
if they didn't have work, I realize, are telling me the exact truth.
They would have no idea WHAT TO DO if they didn't have a job telling
them to do it. And in turn they would have no idea WHO TO BE if they
had nothing to do.
Work gives them a risk-free way of being somebody. If they SUCK, then
that's OK, because they're JUST DOING THEIR JOB.
A WALL to hide behind.
My fucking "Bob", that is so unbelievably pathetic. That is who a
normal is, and all they are. They are their jobs, it's as simple as
that. Jung said that in the fifties but now I think I see what he
meant.
oh well merry x day subgenii I am going to my normal family's for dead
jewish guy day and get very drunk and make an ass of myself. FOR
"BOB".
--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover
that your high school class is running the country."
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Correspondent:: kdetal@aol.com (kdetal)
Date: 26 Dec 2004 00:23:26 GMT
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Zapanaz wrote:
>But it seems obvious enough to me, people have a compulsion to work.
>At different times it comes up in conversation, the idea of never
>having to work again, and humans always tell me the same thing; that
>they'd go crazy if they didn't work.
Yes, and people often retire and then they die. Sad circumstance. Failure to
understand anything of importance, ending in death. That said, some people do
this with conscious awareness because it *is* their choice and their
fulfillment, but not most.
> I guess I do have the subgenius
>gene or something, I could never make sense of that. I know I would
>go a lot less crazy if I didn't have to work..
>For whatever reason, people have this NEED to work.
People have a need to feel fulfilled. This is transposed into many unsuitable
things that they can pretend are fulfilling. Then every once in awhile someone
freaks out or causes a scandal because the internal dissonance between their
pretense and their actuality disrupted their state of denial.
>But looking at all those hyoomins at the store, it all made sense.
>People are afraid to be spontaneous. They're afraid to be themselves.
>It's a lot like the fear that prevents white men from hitting on
>women, it's less painful not to try at all than to try and fail.
>People don't know HOW to be spontaneous. Because they never PRACTICE.
I find lack of appropriate times and people available for such practice.
Its not that you can't do it, its that the consequences of doing such are
usually undesirable. Gems are people you can be this way around without
repercussions.
>They don't have the foggiest idea who they would be if they didn't
>have somebody telling them who to be. The "them" that comes out in
>rare moments like the holidays is always in there, a subgenius
>struggling to be free, but most of what normals have for a real self
>is a confused amalgam of pop culture ideas which has managed to stick
>to them like a melee of sticky notes.
I am whatever I can get away with, based on whos company I am in. Usually it
is not much. THAT is the shame. That some of us who DO know who and what we
are, are crushed by mob ridiculousness.
Of course some don't play that game, come what may. More power to them.
Of course, some of these also are actually crazy. It can be a fine distinction
between those who have cast off social bonds out of fearlessness, and those who
have cast them off from inability to play within them at all. Both of these
types interest me though. They are at least entertaining and often a learning
experience on some level.
>My fucking "Bob", that is so unbelievably pathetic. That is who a
>normal is, and all they are. They are their jobs, it's as simple as
>that.
Some are also their "family". But yes, it's the same thing.
I find it a hard environment, relating to people on the level they exist on. I
do it. I work. I have friends. I enjoy them for what its worth. I enjoy
interacting as much as it is possible. I communicate on the level people will
allow or have the ability to comprehend.
That said, I also find it more enriching to concentrate on the commonalities
among people, all people, rather than the differences. It is the only thing
that keeps us all alive. I look at it like, if someone is thirsty, all that
matters is if the other person is human enough to give them some water.
Really.
But I am always looking to find someone with some fire behind their eyes.
--
I do what I want. That's why I always win.
Correspondent:: HellPope Huey
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 21:17:40 GMT
--------
In article <20041225192326.16116.00002832@mb-m02.aol.com>,
kdetal@aol.com (kdetal) wrote:
> But I am always looking to find someone with some fire behind their eyes.
Check the back of their head for a hole and some smoke before you
engage them on a level you think might yield a positive outcome.
"Cookin'" brains lively, smoking skull bad.
Also, the wrong kind of fire in the eyes might be an indicator of true
evil rather than the potential for an amusing relationship. If you can
read by the light of them in a dim room, RUN.
I know these seem like basic things any Yeti should know, but before
you can launch a head properly, you must instantiate your own. A
refresher course is rarely a bad idea, unless you are Ed Gein.
--
HellPope Huey
People applauded rather than throwing fruit.
I take this as a good sign.
Infinite goodness
is creating a being you know, in advance,
is going to complain.
- William Peter Blatty, "Ninth Configuration"
"Does the noise in my head bother you,
bother you, bother you, bother you?"
- Loop Guru, "Loop Bites Dog"