Text and Hubris

I find myself facing my own words and that, as any purveyor of text will tell you, is never a good thing.

What do I believe? Most of all, in who do I believe?

Two years ago, I set myself upon a path. At the ripe of old age of 32, I returned to school. My goal, at first, was simply to expand my knowledge and to add to skills I already had. This seemed like a good idea. Sitting still is the fastest way to doom in any industry and that is especially true of the tech industry. I attended class and I took online classes and I excelled. I forgot how good I could be at school.

I also forgot the danger of school. The fact that, if you let it, you will find yourself confronting your own beliefs and re-evaluating where you are going. As I continued to progress along my path, I was forced to face the simple fact that I hate what I do for a living. There is no mistake here. I detest everything about what I do. There is nothing of value in anything that I do and that is pathetic.

I originally chose to work where I do because I love technology. I love the tools of communication that now exist. I love that we have the capacity to create and design new forms of expression in less and less time and that we are always pushing the envelope. I love the wonderful synergy that is developing between the old and new forms. I love being a part of that. I love the creative power of the people who create these products. Best of all, I love the creative opportunities these tools make available to me, personally. I love that I have the opportunity to create in such a vibrant time.

I am a creator not a sustainer. I love words, I love media. The vast creation of all that crap that fills Youtube is both daunting, disgusting, and absolutely wonderful to me. Genre, style, and form is irrelevant. I love it all. I want to be lost in it and to be a part of it.

I sat in a lecture last night for three hours with an incredible instructor. As I sat there I saw my life stretch a long and winding trail filled with rocks and pitfalls both before me and behind me. I saw that I could really do this. I could actually succeed. I could descend into this world and I could succeed. Everything aspect of my heart, body, and soul wants me to.

Yet, I am afraid. I am afraid to let go of where I am. Though every day I come to work is a physical and emotional pain, I am unwilling to let that security go. Those my health has diminished and my weight ballooned (both of these are directly attributable to what I do) I still refuse to leave. I have these voices, these terrible, logical and wise voices, that tell me that I have responsibilities to attend to and that I should not risk poverty for their sake. These voices are strong and well informed. There will be many a hard year were I to leave.

It is here that I face my own words. It is here that I am forced to confront my own statements. Statements in which I believe in, but which I find myself unable to implement. I know that it is better to be poor and doing what I love. I know that a risk now could pay off even better and that if I was able to dedicate myself, 100%, to what I want I would succeed. Beyond that, do I really want to side with those who take the safe path? Those who choose regret over action?

Yet, this is exactly what I am doing.

So, this blog now has a purpose. This is Text and Hubris. This is the last refuge for that part of me that is willing to risk. Here I will chronicle my escape and my reasons for it. If it falls, it means that I have fallen. It means that I have given up and resigned myself to the hell in which I currently live.

May it never fall….

“Why do you complain?” he asks. “You have all that you need and more. You know that there are those who would kill for the security you have and yet you squander it.” He sighs, frustrated, “Your complaints are so petty.”

I nod. His severe face is a study in practicality and I feel foolish for even airing my complaint. He is right. Who am I to complain? People are starving and dying by the millions all around me and all I can think to do is complain because I am unhappy. It is petty. I can already feel myself resigning to accept what is.

It is at those moments that a small flame sparks as it always has. This small flame that seems so insignificant that it often escapes notice is the core of me. The final remaining vestige of the soul beneath. He lashes out in a sudden almost vicious rage and I turn to face the counselor.

“No,” my voice nearly a whisper, “they are not petty.”

“Oh?” he looks down at me. “You are egotistical enough to place your dissatisfaction on the same level as starvation or death? Perhaps, you are more arrogant than even I imagined.”

I took two steps forward marching towards him as that little flame roared within me. “I believe that death comes in more forms than you imagine. I believe that a person may work for 30 years inside a corporate shell and be dead for most that time. I believe that the one of the greatest crimes is to squander your skill and capabilities in the mindless pursuit of profit. I believe that the world is a better place because of art and literature and that they share an equal playing footing with science and technology. I believe that a body may be fat and full and still hollow and empty and that the starvation of the spirit is a far greater danger than that of physical body. I believe, most of all, that each should follow their passion. The farmer should farm. The builder build. The scientist discover and the artist create.”

I was raging now, my voice rising in a crescendo of righteous anger. “No, sir, I do not consider my problems more pressing than many of those around me, but neither are they petty or trite. The petty are those who cling in abject desperation to the company tit seeking solace only in their own financial well-being.”

“I have been hungry, sir. I have in my life been forced to face nights without food. I am doing the same now. The food I seek is meaning and purpose, the sustenance of the soul. We are starved of it and I, for one, intend to eat my fill once again.”

An¹ initial response to Indara’s Lazy Society:

I am becoming more and more convinced that in order for our present society to operate successfully, the majority of its members must be infantilized. It is the only way for the corporate state to maintain control. By artificially lengthening adolescence, the corporate state creates a society that is dependent upon it. Those products which are deemed “good” and “acceptable” are determined not by an individual who is considered too young to adequately comprehend value but instead by the very same corporation whose function it is to sell the product.

This is the world in which we now live. We do not cook, we do not produce, we consume. We are told by our corporate parents that this consumption is good. From an early age we are taught that we must consume to live and so we do. Since consumption is survival we happily attach ourselves to the state and the corporation in order that our consumption can continue unabated. We enslave ourselves to the very apparatus that perpetuates this condition.

The truly terrifying prospect in all of this is the totalizing power of the corporation. Your description of college as a netherworld is incorrect only in that it does not go far enough. Colleges have become little more than agents of the corporate state. They are no longer places for the education of the populace and academic rigor. They are, instead, places that produce able functionaries for the corporation. This is precisely the problem with our current situation. Those things which act as antidote to the corporate state are inevitably assimilated and become a part of the state. As this occurs, the people become disillusioned and eventually accept that everything is subservient to the corporation. They are, therefore, not only aware of their position but convinced of its inevitability and its correctness.

I should clarify that this position is not a Marxist one. It is, in fact, in accordance with the very essence of Capitalism. As we have repeatedly seen, corporations must undermine Capitalism in order to survive. They rely and grow by centralizing resources under a singular control. They only recognize the individual by his or her role within the context of the corporation. While certain class structures remain at the highest levels there is often little difference between the worker and the supervisor and they can be moved within the corporation at will like cogs in a machine. By appropriating the identity of a human being, corporations have become the dominant structure of the state and of society. Their homogenizing and infantilizing effects are not specific to a single corporation but are a condition of the system. While you are, most certainly, right to mourn the costs to Humanity and to the Arts (the value of which I shall address in a later commentary), so too should your brother mourn the centralization of capital and the diminished competition that remains at the heart of capitalism. While neither Disney nor Marvel is blameless, the purchase of Marvel continues the trend that, sadly, illustrates the system.

^{1. An initial response is heavily influenced by the conditions of the time in which it was produced. Depending on future developments, it may undergo significant change.}