Sunday Night Ennui
7:15 pm
I'm rushing through my dinner on a Sunday night, so I have time to finish up one of two submissions due tomorrow. The TV happens to be tuned to a channel showing a documentary on Krakatoa, the site of the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. It's something I don't need. Watching the re-enactment of lives that ended more than a century ago, I can't help thinking of my own mortality. Contemplating the destructive power of nature, I can't help feeling like an inconsequential statistic in the endless speadsheet of history.
I can handle this sort of thing when I'm relaxed and reflective; not when I'm feeling the life squeezed out of me. I need to regain control. I need to feel I matter. So I quickly finish up the last few bites of my dinner and dash into my room, locking the door and turning up the radio. Surrounded by things no older than I am, I once again become the centre of my universe. Looking out the window, the calm electric lights of the neighbourhood remind me there is nothing else in this world but the here and now. Every cell in me awakes, and I get back to work, ready to face tomorrow.
11:30 pm
And so it goes: over 3 hours spent on a submission, with three appendices included. It's the most productive I've ever been on a weekend. It also raises the question, however: why do I even need to be productive on a weekend? I didn't sacrifice people time, leisure time and housekeeping time just for fun. I did it because I'll be too burdened and badgered at work if I didn't. I'm not complaining about my job--most desk-bound corporate jobs are like that these days. I'm just wondering why it has to be so.
I think about Karl Marx, who wrote on the alienation of workers in capitalist societies, and how a man should ideally have the freedom to be a hunter in the morning, a fisherman in the afternoon and a poet at night. I'm also feeling faintly nostalgiac about my days of autonomy as a student. I stop and wonder why my life--indie scene, prospective band and all--only began after I graduated and stopped having time to live. Oh the irony.
I'm rushing through my dinner on a Sunday night, so I have time to finish up one of two submissions due tomorrow. The TV happens to be tuned to a channel showing a documentary on Krakatoa, the site of the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. It's something I don't need. Watching the re-enactment of lives that ended more than a century ago, I can't help thinking of my own mortality. Contemplating the destructive power of nature, I can't help feeling like an inconsequential statistic in the endless speadsheet of history.
I can handle this sort of thing when I'm relaxed and reflective; not when I'm feeling the life squeezed out of me. I need to regain control. I need to feel I matter. So I quickly finish up the last few bites of my dinner and dash into my room, locking the door and turning up the radio. Surrounded by things no older than I am, I once again become the centre of my universe. Looking out the window, the calm electric lights of the neighbourhood remind me there is nothing else in this world but the here and now. Every cell in me awakes, and I get back to work, ready to face tomorrow.
11:30 pm
And so it goes: over 3 hours spent on a submission, with three appendices included. It's the most productive I've ever been on a weekend. It also raises the question, however: why do I even need to be productive on a weekend? I didn't sacrifice people time, leisure time and housekeeping time just for fun. I did it because I'll be too burdened and badgered at work if I didn't. I'm not complaining about my job--most desk-bound corporate jobs are like that these days. I'm just wondering why it has to be so.
I think about Karl Marx, who wrote on the alienation of workers in capitalist societies, and how a man should ideally have the freedom to be a hunter in the morning, a fisherman in the afternoon and a poet at night. I'm also feeling faintly nostalgiac about my days of autonomy as a student. I stop and wonder why my life--indie scene, prospective band and all--only began after I graduated and stopped having time to live. Oh the irony.
posted by The Empty Signifier @ 12/11/2005 11:45:00 pm
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