Ok – I have been pondering this for a while. Most people won’t understand why I am going to write an article about this because most people were raised differently than I was. Most kids, I think, get jobs, as kids, unless perhaps they are raised by drug addicts. I was raised by “old money” alcoholics – people on the outskirts of the 1%, so I was raised to believe that I was special-er than everybody else and therefore was just going to get everything I wanted forever. I was going to marry the right dude and I was just going to float along in wonderland. This was unfortunate, because it did not turn out that way, which is part of the reason that I am 52 with a Masters Degree working at a supermarket. There are other reasons which I won’t get into, besides the economy, which is in the dumper, as we know. That is a factor but it is not an excuse.
So, that being said, in order to work at the supermarket, I had to do a lot of work spiritually to ready myself for it. I had to get a new meditation practice. I did the Silva Method from teh book You The Healer, by Jose Silva because it was regimented and has a lot of potential for growth but also has a quick-fix kind of nature to it, which is what I need right now.
Sure – people reading this article could roll their eyes and think – “grow up whiner” or whatever – yes – think that all you want, but nonetheless I had to ready myself spiritually for what I was going to be asked to do and feel and think in this situation at age 52. What I am saying is that kids that do these sorts of job as kids are a lot better prepared for living than I was. And I have quit most jobs like this much sooner than I have quit this job. I have quit this job (not yet, mind you) only after I got another one – and the one I got might be just switching seats on the Titanic – but we’ll see.
My parents – my mother in particular – oddly was not raised by old money. She was raised by 2nd generation immigrant parents and worked her whole life as a public school teacher. My father, although he lived off an inheritance for part of his later life, also worked as a journalist and freelance photographer, successfully. He was the old-money dude. He went to the family Ivy League school. All his other kids went to Ivy League Schools. I am the only child of he and my mother. The family are members of Skull and Bones from way back.
My brother, the oldest of the twins, went to the family Ivy League School and became a lawyer and is fairly successful although not a super rich lawyer. My sister and my other brother are both losers like me. My sister was homeless in her car for many years and is what I saw as my future if I did not make a change because she thinks she is a prophet and believes that the Galactic Federation is going to “reset” the planet “soon”. My brother has not worked for 30 years, is on anti-depressants, with a large wine collection in the basement, at age 65 – another Ivy League graduated lawyer. His wife is a workaholic librarian who worked for an oil company and was the bread-winner. Needless to say – not happy campers. My sister cleans houses, house-sits and sells other people’s stuff and skims off her mother’s money. I thought of myself as an amazing artist for many years with a lot to say as well. I am an amazing artist – but as I have said in other articles, when it comes to the marketplace this does not really matter. I had to live as a couch-surfer for the last 6 years to come to this.
I have had over 30 “jobs” in my life. I have worked retail, legal, office, owned my own cappuccino cart, done graphic design, tattooing, been an illustrator, vended on tour with a band, and been a fine artist and taught college level graphic design, painting and drawing and taught privately. I have gotten fired often, because I make faces of which I am not aware and have a “tone” in my voice. Last year, I was in southern California, staying with my niece, daughter of my sister. I overheard her on the phone on speaker talking to my sister and I heard “the tone” I use – I listened in horror at the two of them talking and heard the “entitlement” tone that is “me” – that was IT. I decided then and there I had to change that about myself. Where that came from I don’t know – but it is not just “me” it’s my family. I have to kill it – it has to die. They sounded haughty and disdainful – I had never heard myself although people have suggested I videotape myself and then I will change. I am sure this is why I have been fired 30 times for my “attitude”… plus the sarcasm does not help…by the way.
So, coming from that scenario – here’s what I am learning about “work”. Work and the practice of “work” creates a space in the brain where I learn to “do” things that I don’t have to want to do and don’t have to like to do, but I just do them. For 4-8 hours per shift, I do things that I have to do whether I like them or not – liking them or not liking them, feeling good or not feeling good are irrelevant.
And perhaps I can and will take this a step further to say that I am in service to others in doing them although with Perilous Path, I don’t think that is actually true and that is why I think it is relevant to discuss this. With regard to Perilous Path, I am not in service to anyone really because Perilous Path itself and how it does things cuts off it’s own nose to spite it’s face – so the things I do in that shift actually harm everyone – they harm the people I am selling to, they harm the owners of the company, and they harm the planet. Perilous Path’s procedures are based on fear, so my time is spent doing things like “counting the cigarettes”. This action is irrelevant because it’s purpose is to keep “us” from stealing the cigarettes. So when I get reprimanded for not counting the cigarettes properly, I don’t really care because it is not going to help Perilous Path for me to count the fucking cigarettes over and over – because the whole purpose of counting the fucking cigarettes is to ensure that on my shift I am not stealing the stupid cigarettes.
I am not good at counting, and I told them this from the onset. The only reason I can do it now is that I don’t take it that seriously. I do it once or twice. If I do it more than that I am going to get a different answer every time and I am going to go nuts. Then I won’t be available to do my job.
However, because the rest of my life has meaning, I am able to continue doing this “job”. I had to ask myself though, why? What the fuck could I possibly be doing that would benefit me and God – and that is when it came to me that I am creating a space in my spirit for doing something because you have to do it and having liking it or not liking it having no relevance. That is important to develop in order to be a whole person.
I think back to the days before we were industrialized. Farmers had to labor in the hot sun day in and day out growing food. I think comparatively this work would have had a lot more meaning than selling Gatorade and Lotto Tickets to the “public”, but spiritually it is probably synonymous.
We cannot escape the purpose of living. We can “civilize” living all we want but I think what God and Nature provided for us here was a better option all around because in working with nature it caused no harm and only caused betterment for all.
We have to learn the things we have to learn regardless of how we learn them. Perhaps the dry rocky soil hand-tilled with a make-shift hoe gives back the same kind of emotional response that a guy on a cell-phone who throws a $10 bill on the counter and says “Ten on 3” and turns on his heel and walks out – as above so below – and it is my spiritual job to be nice to the guy and not send him RUDE back just the same as it would have been to continuing tilling the ground – because you gotta eat… but spiritually the ground-tilling operation provided the same character-building that receiving rudeness and returning it with kindness provides.
That’s all for now.
yougetshownthelight 