A Sense of Urgency (or The Real Reason Black Men Don't "Get Ahead")

So I'm at work and I basically kill it every night. Sure I'm a little hyper. Sure they probably think I fire a couple lines into my brain before my shift. Whatever, I don't care all that much. One thing that happens in the disincentivized environment is that the only reward for a days work is the satisfaction you personally derive from putting in a solid days work becomes its own reward. That and the paycheck.

Where was I? Oh yeah... I'm trying to keep this tight... so I basically go in to work with the perspective: I am going to destroy my work load today. I see everything that management does as a direct challenge to my capabilities and every single work day is staked with taking their expectations and ramming them down their throats. "So you think I'm going to struggle with X or Y, well check this shit out: I'm gonna set X on fire with how pro I am and Y is gonna get put in its place like a redheaded step child and go tell its friends about how badly I kicked its ass and its friends will rue the day I show up to work 'cause its gonna be on from the second I walk through that front door."

Which brings me to why black men, aged 18 to 40 will, by and large, never get ahead. They're way too busy trying to convince everyone that they're unruffled. It's beyond "too cool for school" or "too cool for pants that fit" or even "too cool for rules." It's this projection of well in hand that, more than anything else, fires flares of stupidity in all directions. Well, not even that. It's not about being on time, or late, or clothing, or rules, or education. More than anything else it's this projection of such super lensed self consciousness that is so tightly clamped around their throats that you just want to shake them and scream "will you wake the hell up!?"

Maybe it's a symptom of the layers upon layers of stereotypes that are, essentially, the new slavery. Growing up beneath that burden and governance can turn the most capable human being into a club footed clown. I feel bad for them. Well alright, I'm getting loose again and dropping a lot of "wells". Let's refocus. I'm training this kid and the equipment I'm trying to explain to him is located in a lot of different areas and we have to keep criss-crossing to see the things that I'm trying to teach him about and so much time can be killed walking too and fro so I'm walking at a little better than my usual clip. I walk like I need to get somewhere unless I'm just getting lost for the sake of forgetting the world. Time is short already, without adding in the burden of having to stop and explain everything I'm doing, so I'm making tracks and this guy is just lagging.

I have no idea why. There's no one else in the area except him and me. There is no one to judge him or make fun of him for walking fast. There's no one to make fun of his pants if he tightens them up so he can actually use his gotdamn legs for ambulating. Is he worried that he might get made fun of later or that I'm made fun of for moving so quickly and speaking fast and sure? I have no idea what his problem was. I get where I'm going and the whole time I'm thinking, well hell if he would make an attempt to keep up I could explain more shit to him en route instead of having to do it all onsite. So I get there and I have to wait for him to come moseying along.

I'm all for taking time where time is available, but for the love of God when you're on the clock will you pull up your fucking socks for once and act like something more than whatever the hell you fucks are into is worth showing up for? No, I don't always want to be at work. No, I am not always buzzing at 100 miles per hour. No, I am not best friends with management, but fuck my life if someone is paying you to do something then do it right and do it on time and fuck image. At some point you have to just say to yourself "I do not care what the rest of my peers think of what I'm doing because THEY DO NOT WRITE THE CHECKS THAT BUY ME FOOD OR (insert whatever thing it is that sustains your well being).

I don't know. I guess I'm venting. I'm sure there are exceptions because I know some of them. But until we get over this weirding thing we're socialized and typed into we are going to have a black history month that says to the rest of the world "hey, we do stuff sometimes too."

Idiots. Give me two of this guy I'm training and I'll have half the output I need. Disappointing. I'm sure he's a great kid too. But personality by itself does not get shit done.


///Goldfrapp - "Deer Stop" pick them off, one by one. There is no urgency among them.

P.S. it really is just sad how self... self... what's the term... self reciprocating? I sware it's like an entire segment of the population is involved in this recursive loop. I'm no social climber, but how is it that the things I view as standard are viewed among them as exceptional, strange, and ridiculous. So mad. Retards. When the world ends, they're all going to die like lemmings. Worse than lemmings. Like deer before intelligence. Why is intelligence so eschewed???? I need to relax. No I don't. Obviously it's not just them, but I feel among them this weirding thing is most rampant, rooted, and disgustingly viral.

Upcoming Projects Outlay and Fewer Made Up Words

As much as I love reassembling language, I'm going to try and cut down on the made up words, no matter how functional they are to me. There's just something about the ring of things like legister, and healspan, and gastronaut, and dreadlot that color things in my head, but make no sense outside of it. I'm not saying they won't come up at all. I'm saying I'm going to try and keep a lid on it (as much as I'm going to try and cap my typing to more reasonable lengths of chained thoughts).

In other news, I'm still trying to work in time for Bits. It's daunting because there are more than thirty short stories that are unedited that were at one time fully edited and since I'm left with the unedited versions by redoing the edits I'm essentially going to end up with stories different from the ones I came to love once I edited them. It's like leaving for work and coming home and all the furniture is moved and because so many things are moved and they all existed relative to one another you can't begin to put things back where they go because by placing one thing you are essentially displacing everything no matter what that first thing is so you get comfortable instead in your weirded home and the weirdness becomes acceptable though deeply irritating and depressingly better than the peak fear of resetting the changes, but ultimately you're rushing toward a breaking point where the peak of the fear of completely inverting the reality and order you originally wanted to induce is broken by the critical mass of foreignness settling daily. So I'm going to do it. There is no way I can't. In short, it's a trap. A glorious trap.

I don't know when my days off will fall week to week so I think I may just settle on Wednesday mornings as Saturdays are dedicated to sewing my realities back together after days of cutting sutures and vision bleeds. That's longer term.

Shorter term outlay:

Finish paper robot and mail it to Boulder.
Go get computer in mid-March so I can do design again without cramping my hand on a mouse using crappy windows xp paint programs.
After I get computer, finish novel on the computer (no seriously, it was 2/3s done... I don't like it, but I told myself I would do it so I have to finish it so I can get that monkey off my neck and get the bullshit devices out of my body and then actually do one I want to do).

I guess that's it. Oh wait-

Need to build a target to punch. My knuckles are way too soft.
And need a big ol' scroll of paper to tape to my wall so I can draw on it and write things.
And then the list of bull required by living on my own like a trash can. And chairs. And a desk. And a lamp.

And of course more poetry. But the kid has been absent. I don't know where the whimsy has gone. The climate in the factory has turned a bit gritty and I want more than anything to be able to write and rhyme about the stars in my sky between the leaves of my dreams of the gray sand castles and tide pools on the shores of a warm hell. It's just hard to find sometimes without a guide. I'll keep looking though. It's strange sometimes. With the bridge gone and slipping across into the unreal only to find the city is abandoned and you're alone to wander the concrete blocks turned over to the trod and glass eyed streets and on slipping back you are quarantined for contamination and failing inside for particulate poisoning and mutation is flowering in your cells, but none of it was supposed to be and was somehow more real than imagined. I wonder sometimes if I did drop acid would anything change. I'll know someday. Till then, there is work yet to be done.

///Goldfrapp - "Utopia" It's a strange day. No colors or shapes.