The Loser
The Loser I've had a lot of time to think about my life and where it's going. Having just gotten back from nerdfest with my friends James, Drew, and Scott, with newcomber Adam, it only seemed appropriate I do what I know how to do best: smoke weed and get high. Now, normally, I would find myself smoking on some choice chronic herb, some of that medicinal good good that those who find themselves lyrically gifted are rapping about it. I didn't always smoke weed and I didn't always think it was a good thing, but, now that the only time I see my girlfriend, who is 22 when I am approaching 30, is when she's low on her BHO concentrates, which has me questioning my manhood to the nth degree. Every morning I wake up and I wonder if this is the day that she'll finally break up with me, I wonder if this is the day that my little house of cards comes crashing down. For the longest time I worked and worked and worked. People told me that I had to go to college, I had to get an education, and I had to work. There was no if's and's or butt's about it: if you wanted to be successful in life, and we're talking facebook successful where you get to share your leisure and fun activities without fear of people judging you for actually enjoying life, there was a formula for success and all you had to do was follow it and not ask questions. Finish up high school and go to college. It didn't matter what degree you got because shoot you'd eventually find yourself in an area you were destined to be in right? Wrong. Not all of us wake up and realize one fucking day we were meant to be some corporate overlord tasked with cracking the whip on the underlings. Some of us just want to enjoy what little time we have left on this floating rock without worrying about what mark we'll leave or how much or bank account will have totaled once we hang 'em up. Honest to god, some of us are so fed up with your bullshit lifestyles being forced down are thoughts that we have to smoke ourselves fucking retarded just so we can experience something other than what you want. It's ok to be numb, it's okay to drink yourself into a torpor so strong you don't even remember hitting your girlfriend or getting behind the wheel, but god forbid a few of us toke up instead of drinking up. But, it's irrelevant. You all made your case. I smoke weed every day, I'm a fucking loser. I've applied to the state, trying to be some kind of analyst for hire, but honestly, I have no interest sitting at some desk all day crunching numbers because someone who gets paid more than me can control what my efforts are wasted on. What if I enjoy my private time and being alone more than I enjoy working in a high paced, pressure laden workplace where I slave away, sacrifice my body and my time, only to be let go or fired when it's no longer convenient for you to put up with me. I've spent my whole life trying to be helpful to people, trying to make everyone else's path on this chunk of mineral a little easier and a little more tolerable but I swear to you it seems like there are some people who not only eagerly put you down but seem to look forward to it or derive pleasure from it. That's now how I was raised, that's not what I was taught growing up, and that's a way of life I don't endorse or encourage: if EVERYONE lived as selfishly as those who get away with it, there would be nothing left to take. Just a bunch of open hands and empty coffers. And it worries me and it depresses me that all these people with influence and power could honestly not give a fuck about any of us. They literally care about their bottom line, their bank account, their holiday beach house they get to vacation to while the rest of us dumb schmucks, slaves in white collars, grind away towards some goal or destination we'll likely never achieve. We have literally decided as a collective community it is better for 1% to get everything and have unchecked power and sway over the rest of us than to question or consider a redistribution of wealth. The 1% has locked onto their earnings with vice-like grips that no ordinary man or woman could hope to pry away; their influence and impact on our culture is so severe that they have us convinced that we live in some kind of dog eat dog world where if I succeed and survive it's only because you failed and perished. I can only climb to the top on the backs of those poor suckers who didn't have the courage, or the discipline, or the conviction that I had so fuck them because they're obviously inferior and weak, right? Is this what we believe as a society? That only the strong and privileged should be heard or allowed to voice their concerns? And it bothers me where we would place blame, where we would draw attention to an incendiary event if only to distract from the real injustices in the world: the American dream is dead and no one gives a fuck. I can work my whole life away, have my money ripped off by some sleazeball in a suit, and while he may rot in a prison somewhere until the day he dies, there is nothing being done to protect or ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. You have people faking to be other miserable people just to gain a slight advantage or monetary gain. People have literally walked down to the post office pretending to be me or other family members, and while they were successful in transferring some of our mail to their residence, we were unsuccessful in doing anything about it. Contacted the post master, called the police; no one gives a fuck about a household of shady individuals impacting another family's life through fraud. No one cares about any of these situations or trying to fix them. We're all so caught up in this mess, it's like we leap from one kitchen fire to the next, too busy to notice it's the whole facility on fire, not just the kitchens. We heap blame. Thanks Obama. Thanks guns. Thanks terrorists. Thanks tea party and absent congress. Thanks media for broadcasting and highlighting all the bullshit race related stories that only serve to cause anger and fear in those that watch your programming. Thanks to social media for poking fun at all the mentally disturbed and addicted people out there, all the other losers. I can rest easy knowing if I want to poke fun at some alcoholic or drug dependent adult, all I have to do is go to reddit and look at the front page. Look at those losers engaging in trivial arguments, running into each other and yelling at one another indiscriminately. How we all laugh at the people who are weirder than us, different than us. These miserable fucking people were probably born that way, right? They probably wake up every day, look in the mirror, and tell themselves, "You're a fucking loser, and I love you just the way you are. Never change." And how funny it is when they don't change and continue to display the same erratic behavior and speech. How funny it will be when we lock them up and pay for their "wellbeing" and "upkeep" as they rot away in some state sponsored prison or mental health facility. God it's so funny, here's some more money so you can make sure it never stops. We love to lock these problem people away and tell the state it's their problem, since we don't know how to deal with them. But they're people too. They may not own a fortune 500 company, they may not star in the latest Hollywood blockbuster superhero movie. They do, however, wake up every morning, just like you, brought into this world by someone else without ever choosing to be who they were or who they were born to, but it's so much easier to think of them as some kind of lame, Darwin-award candidate, right? It's all fun and good until it's someone you know or love that it's happening to. I've suffered from anxiety my whole life. I never asked for it. I didn't ask to be abused by my brother who was sexually abused by our neighbor. I didn't ask to be his target for his anger and his frustration and his confusion. When he came at me with a knife one day after school, threatening to stab me and kill me, I didn't throw a hissy fit to my father who came home just early enough to stop my brother. I took my grounding, I went to my room, and I thought about what happened. My brother went crazy, acted out violently against me, and I was being punished. I've lived my whole life the only way I know how: to do for others as I would have them do to me. Sometimes I fuck up and say something stupid, or mean, or disingenuous. When I was a kid, I remember doing something violent that made me and my friends feel absolutely horrible and ruined any fun we're having; it was then that I realized I have to control myself, control my emotions, and even though I feel like my girlfriend doesn't give a fuck about me, that you don't give a fuck about me, that I could overdose on my valium tonight and no one would even notice til maybe the afternoon, I still feel some sort of obligation or sense of duty. No, I'm not married, no, I am not gainfully employed at some job with a future and a career. I'm stuck at home, living with my parents who are kind enough to feed me and provide a shelter over my head. This, to me, is a complete lack of success and a daily reminder of how "far behind" I am, of all those people posting "we're expecting!" notices or going to bachelor parties or investing in property. No, all I do is masturbate and smoke tree, occasionally "nerding" out with my friends, which entails sitting around a table, rolling dice. They're fun stories and I love being a part of them. Part of me wishes I could just transfer the stories from spoken form to written and share them that way, maybe even make a little money off of it, but that same part of me wishes I would just speak my mind and share what I'm really feeling. Well, here's what I am really feeling: I am a fucking loser with no future and no goals. I want to provide for myself and move out from under my parents' influence, but with every application sent, and every day that goes by where I don't hear from an employer, that I don't hear from my girlfriend, that I don't hear the universe call out to me and tell me, this is what you're supposed to do, idiot, not THAT! But the universe is quiet and unassuming. The universe is full of choice and consequence. It wants me to choose my own path, it wants me to take responsibility for my own successes or failures but I am so scared of being a failure, so scared of being that mentally handicapped piece of shit no one wants anything to do with that I am frozen in fear. I question everything, even if writing this will be productive or another long exercise in the futility of my efforts. Well, I have written in what seems like months so at least something positive happened today even if it wasn't what I planned or had hoped for. All I really want is to be appreciated for what I bring to the table and not looked down upon for being different. Every job I have gone to, my sensitivity, my proneness to panic attacks, is often looked at as a weakness or a pitfall. Oh, he'd be the perfect employee, if only he didn't do THAT. And that kind of realization is so heartbreaking and debilitating. I work my ass off and it's never good enough because of how normal I look and how hard I try to act/behave normally, even if I am having a full blown panic attack, it always seems like it's in my best interest to just shut the fuck up and weather the storm without telling people how painful and excruciating it can be.
Well even though I am semi buzzed, I am sensing some tightness in my wrist so I guess I should wrap this up. I am sorry I am not what you want me to be, I am sorry I don't have a wife and kids and the house with the white picket fence. I am sorry I am flawed and don't live up to your standards for what makes a successful human being, not a successful capitalist. Maybe it's for the best that I am poor as fuck because if I was rich, I probably wouldn't understand the plight of the poor man just as it took me some years to appreciate the struggles the folks in the mentally fatigued community deal with; these folks often live their whole lives as shut ins or addicts/alcoholics because a life that harmful and that negative, as hard as it may be, is still easier than admitting to those around you who you are and that sometimes you need help. It's ok if we build handicap ramps to help those in wheel chairs, but god forbid we start considering what we can do to make those folks with problems you can't see a little easier to deal with. I apologize if this comes off as abrasive or hostile but, once again, I am so fed up with the double standard we have for health that I feel like it would be irresponsible of me to just stand back and watch it all play out. You can vilify me, tell me I'm some kind of burnout junkie. I know I'm a loser, but at least I'm doing something about it.