Mother's Day

As per usual, today was another excuse for my family to gather together and share within ourselves ten large pizzas, how we ended up fitting them all inside of us  I still cannot recall. All in the name of Mother's Day, we headed out onto the freeway and placed the phone order as we drove.

And as per usual, something shook me today. One bridge in the freeway overlooks a large memorial garden, where tombstones lay in commemoration of some we have lost. Not my family though, not yet. But what struck me was looking at hordes of family members wearing black, stopping at tombstones and placing large bouquets of flowers. Little people who the idea of death is still abstract to, big people who know it too well and older people who are expecting it at any moment gathered on a piece of land underneath the freeway as we passed, unappreciative of just how good it is to be alive with people and eating a lot of fresh warm pizza.

And the fact is that I do not live my life to its fullest potential. I still sit here in my little 'everything will be okay every time' bubble and thrive in it when in reality everything is not okay. I need to push myself away from thinking critically about partaking in any activity that will prolong my stay here and push myself away from the abstract thing that is death so that I may live until my time comes. Today reminded me of that. I have my mother, my sister, my entire family, and I still choose the glow of the computer screen over them. I still choose watching videos and looking at pictures of people doing things rather than doing things myself.

I think most people are like that nowadays, though. People have become too afraid to take risks because they feel it is better to observe them being done by somebody else to avoid the pain that may come with the flip-side of that risk. There was a time when I was eighteen that I took so many risks, when I look back at them now I think of the person I was as a totally different character, someone so foreign to me. But that was when I was happier. I had a sort of freedom in anything that I did, but I had to stop it all because it was eating away at me as well, the fastness of it all, the scum that I met along the way, and capitalism knocking on my little door telling me that its rent was due.

So I have turned away from risk to acquire a different form of reward, a reward given to my mind and my pocket. I still need to reward my body, though, and that will come with the rewarding of my mentality. I keep reminiscing to that scene today. Everything can fall away so quickly. It can slip away so fast, the strongest of arms cannot hold on, this entire facade we call 'life' will not be lenient when it wants to leave us, no matter the impact we make. It was not lenient towards Abraham Lincoln. It was not lenient towards Mother Theresa. It was not lenient towards Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, nobody. It does not accept any deals. It does not offer mercy to those who have offered it their entire lives. It does not respect any legacies or any endeavours. It wants your soul and there is nothing to do about it but enjoy it while you can.

The reason why I cringe when I think of a career is because you are paid for your time - time can never be bought back. Yes, work at McDonalds for three years as a manager, get paid thousands, that is fantastic - but all you did was swap three years of living for three years worth of money, a mere thing that the government has crafted in order for us to swap things. Even if you are not residing in a third world country, even if you are rather powerful, you are being exploited, and the exploiter is mankind.

Appreciate all that you have right this very moment. Stop all sources of exploitation and sit and listen to yourself breathe for a bit. You exist. You are temporary. So is your mother. Or your sister. Or your aunty. Or your grandma. Or yourself, if you are a female. Or any male. Everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Another Day Day. Go. Live.

Working Nine to Five Just to Stay Alive

Perhaps that is the most true lyric in Beyonce's new album. It applies to capitalistic life, to the notions which dominate our lifestyles and the ways in which we go about our days.

If we do not collectively waste away ourselves for the betting of our economy, then we are overlooked. Other than in a dating situation, we all are like fish in the sea. And there are plenty of us. Except, we are like a school of fish. It not rare for a fish to fall behind and hide in an anemone, away from the school, yet that fish will not survive to their potential on their own, or at least they assume so. If one does not follow the capitalist way in a capitalist state, they are expected to fall behind, and that they will in contrast of the possibilities. If you think about it, working nine to five is not the worst case scenario in someone's life. A worst case scenario would be that of working nine pm to five am, at a gentleman's club, as a woman.

It is one thing to walk in high heels for long hours, the feeling of which I will never know but that I always will know about, and it is another to have to wear them as you are performing an activity over a long period of time. That is not all strippers wear, though. Although they wear the least amount of clothing, they wear a burden on their face which is heavier than most burdens carried. This may not be the case, as this piece is heavily based on general assumptions but one finds it difficult to think otherwise and the grounds on which I base these assumptions are realistic enough to be believable.

I will not delve into this case any deeper than I already have because I am aware that people have to do various things to survive, and that is where my argument turns towards, the things some people do in order to continue flowing through a capitalist economy. Had there been no strippers, there would be less lawyers having to separate women from desperate men or vice versa seeing as heterosexuality is no longer the only accepted form of sexual desire, and alcohol sales which work to reduce the attendee's nerves would plummet.

That is not to say that I condone the availability of strippers, nor that I condone what all non-monogamous people crave - it is to say that working nine to five is detrimental to one in all cases. Working for hours longer than nine to five generally ensures that once the worker is finished, they are finished for the day. Nine to five jobs, on the other hand, have the tendency to be time consuming after they are allegedly over for the day. Take teaching, for example. I am only a teacher in training and now I never get headspace.

Teaching is rewarding though. I suppose then I shall conclude with if the nine to five job is honestly worth it, and worthy of the hours spent before and after those hours, not taking into account the pay, then I am happy to have to stay alive in that manner.