Image via WikipediaMy use of the snooze alarm in the morning has become so routine and predictable that my dreams now pattern themselves around the three ten-minute bursts of temporary pseudo-sleep I subject myself to before finally getting up in the morning. My subconscious is become smarter than my waking self. This concerns me.*
Thanks to my relatively short commute on non-school days, I am now roughly two weeks behind on my political podcasts. This morning's Best of the Left, for example, is all about Obama's failure to update smog regulations, a news event that occurred a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, I'm finding it easier to listen to distressing and worrisome news with a two-week buffer between me and the actual date of the news in question. It's like have a time delay on reality. Am I the only one who finds it easier to handle frustrating news when it can be referred to as "recent" instead of "current?"
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The more coverage I see of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the more impressed I am that we are finally seeing a real response to crimes perpetrated against the country and its citizens by these soulless financial power structures. I actually feel guilty for not going down and participating myself.
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A common nugget of wisdom often offered around the workplace is "Keep busy, and the day will go by quickly." Why would I want that? How have we arrived at a mentality in which speeding up the passage of time and hastening our eventual demise is seen as a positive recommendation? I don't want any of my days to go by quickly. Even the crappy ones. We have far too few days as it is to go around wishing a speedy passage to any of them. When your job inspires you to consider deleting hours of your existence as a positive attitude, it might time to reconsider your vocational choices.
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I'm slowly coming around to the realization that I don't drink nearly enough. As a matter of fact, maybe our entire attitude towards recreational drug use is outdated and misinformed. Sure, habitual drug use is damaging to the individual's mind and body, and can have disastrous effects for them economically as well as socially. But these days, the same thing can be said for many of the jobs people are forced to take on just in order to survive in this economic climate.
For every person suffering physical ailments from heavy smoking, drinking, or other drug use, I can show you someone with long-term disabilities due to workplace injuries, repetitive or restricted movement, unsafe work environments, chemical exposure, or simply the constant strain from performing duties above and beyond what would normally be considered safe or acceptable. For every family torn apart by a family member's drug abuse, I can show you a family destroyed by economic realities that force both parents to work, sometimes at multiple jobs, invariably neglecting their children, eliminating familial contact and communication, and creating a weary, negative atmosphere for those rare moments that the entire family manages to assemble as a whole for a meal.
When struggling to maintain an average, modern-day existence has the same long term debilitating effects as getting high, stoned or tight, who is to say which path offers more rewarding results?
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