Essential jobs and an epidemic of loneliness

Pandemic global lockdown and community house arrest day: unknown. Its all the same day now. One endless, repeating day with no measurable, concrete end in sight. Only greedy lunatics in charge of the administration and the resulting PR spin, and a country divided into 3 parts. I have an esssential job and an epidemic of loneliness.

The working poor who have no meaningful choices or options. The comfortable rich who benefit from, and are protected by, the labor and exposure to life and health risks of the working poor. The folks who have convinced themselves that their Bible and the End Times prophecies exempts them, or their most precious loved ones, from being victim’s a pandemic virus so to Hell with it, end the quarantine and let’s have a damn apocalypse party … because the economy!

Needless to say, I sleep less now than I was sleeping before. Which is to say that I don’t really sleep at all if we were measuring this as rest and deep, peaceful sleep.

If this keeps up, I am going to be a Madame Tussaud’s wax figurine.

I have been listening to Seth Godin on Youtube videos and podcasts. He was an accidental find and I wish I had accidentally found him much sooner. He’s a maverick. If you are the kind of person who is interested in being exceptional, not mass appeal average, or you have a special place in your psyche for the highest expression of art (representing something meaningful without restraint or need for mass approval) you will love Seth Godin too. He reignites the word “possible” for me. More than anything else, I need to know what is possible, not just a possibility these days.

School classes have ended for this semester. After the first day of photography classes, our class was moved online in response to the pandemic. I have no idea what I have lost in valuable instruction as a result of this. I can tell it is alot. Technological, hands on courses like this do NOT translate well to online learning. And, this appeared to be a fantastic instructor with a lifetime of experience to share.

And my sewing machine broke and can’t get repaired until non-essential business are up and running again. I was starting to make custom masks for folks. I could just scream in frustration these days. I don’t dare ask “what’s next?”

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The value of essential workers.

I have an esssential job and an epidemic of loneliness. I am fortunate because I managed to secure a part time “essential service” job before the pandemic broke loose everywhere. The wages are insulting for anyone who has to pay to keep a roof over their head and basic necessities in life. But it gives me an opportunity to leave the house and interact with people and provides some kind of predictable (although paltry and offensively insufficient) income moving in my life that I don’t have to beg, lie or manipulate to get. Some mental health and survival staples are covered with this so it helps.

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Sainthood is not for cowards.

Seth Godin says that it doesn’t matter how you feel, it only matters that you do it. You can’t get better without actually doing it so don’t worry about writing badly. Just keep writing and eventually, you will stop writing badly on such a consistent basis or you will stop writing altogether and then it won’t matter. I suppose the same could be said for content creation but I won’t lie, I am struggling with managing my energy and mood levels these days. Most of the time, it is all I can do to get out of bed and face the day without wanting to immolate in protest like the monks in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I should ever have that kind of courage and conviction that they did for this kind of act.

We are not horrible creatures by nature. We have the capacity to be inspired, generous, kind, altruistic and generous; our unselfish love and support as an act of power and trust that we have these kinds of resources to share and it will multiply in our generosity.

We love generous, joyful, kind people for exactly this reason. They remind us of the power we have to act in Divine ways; even when the selfish and self serving ways would be easier or more convenient. They remind us that life is better when shared. And sharing is not a judgmental sport or a clique’ based activity for “members”. Sharing is multiplication and division. We multiply our joy this way to increase its effect and we divide our sorrows to decrease it.

Everyone loves a generous soul because sharing your last few cans of beans with us when you are already struggling with a bare cupboard is a far greater act of courage and character than throwing pocket change at us because you feel like you are obligated to for appearance sake.

Cowardice and selfishness go hand in hand. Just look around you. If one exists, the other is there reinforcing it.

I am no saint. I don’t see myself as a tower of courage or a canyon of unselfishness. I struggle with trying to live up to my principles, every day. I struggle with it because there is no immediate or obvious reward for it. And frankly, lesser people with more conniving agendas and far lower bars of standard for their definition of decency or success always seem to do better because they just don’t care if you think they are shitty human beings. Especially if you aren’t a member of their club (or tribe, they call it right now). But this is what I do because this is all I feel like I have; my self perception myself and entirely too many nights of insomnia wondering how to get out of this dark hole in my life without becoming someone I don’t like.

Now, we are all in this same mental Rubik’s cube together because of a virus as we try to figure out who we are, and who we need to be, to be able to live a life worth living.

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How to gaslight a traumatized person: 101

The meme response sounds like someone who is new to the experience of the magnitude of disruption, traumatic threat and/or overwhelming stress of exceptional challenges to the ability to think past survival from one day to the next because so much is out of control or uncertain.

Remember your feelings right now

for the next time you feel confident that you can pass judgement and the withhold the asked for support from abused domestic partners, homeless people and folks with mental health issues in crisis. This guy is everyone who ever told an abused partner to “just leave”, a rape victim to “fight back”, a mentally ill person heading for crisis to “you’re being ridiculous” or a homeless person in winter “I am not helping you buy alcohol” ( FYI, alcohol warms the body where extended exposure to warmth is unavailable. That’s why St Bernard rescue dogs in the Swiss Alps are always shown with tiny kegs of hard liquor strapped around their necks)

Selfishness and fear are the two key ingredients in being a horrible human being. History confirms this.

Naturally, decisions based on selfishness and fear will always be the wrong ones, unless you are a lower life form.

It may not seem like you are winning the game of life right now. It is hard to not feel like you have somehow been singled out for punishment for not being smarter, better or more special to be in those exceptional places of comfort right now because prior to this you were living a luxuriant lifestyle by comparison, to begin with. We should all be so lucky, right?

But we aren’t and many of us are here to do actual work in the world that keeps the world moving forward. Progress is made on the backs of the working poor. Those pyramids didn’t build themselves and the industrial revolution was fueled by the slavish labor of children and impoverished adults who were not in the elite classes. Where we were once slaves to the whims of soil, seasons, weather and natural cycles to live, we exchanged our farming hoes for work boots and began building modern, mechanized civilizations instead. We are all part of a greater evolutionary process and there is not one job that is better than another. They are all necessary and that makes them all important.

But today, and for many days now, my contributions feel trite and unimportant. There is no respect for any of the various types of work I do even though there is unrepentant demand for all of them. Some days, I struggle to find joy to share with folks in my content. Other days, I just struggle to remember what day of the week I am on and how to find the energy to search out motivation to do more than watch well written entertainment on video or drink to sleep (or both). I find myself watching the news like you would stare hypnotically at a car accident you are passing along a highway. You know there is no benefit in looking but you can’t help feeling like you should know what is happening.

I care and I don’t know that it has any value at all in this world anymore. If you are still here reading or listening to this now, I am guessing you care too. We are not horrible creatures and we don’t have to be. Selfishness and fear transform us into that. For now, I suppose it is enough to believe that someone, somewhere, out there feels the same way too and we are not really alone and on our own in the darkness.

Like Seth Godin says, it doesn’t matter how you feel. It matters that you do it. And you keep doing it until you get good at it or you finally stop doing it and do something else instead.

No matter how futile it feels, push on with your positive contributions. And keep doing it until you see daylight again.

Every little bit matters.

I am going to work on some escapist content now. Thanks for listening.

If you just want someone to talk to who can be sensitive while being sexy and won't judge you for wanting to mentally escape or be a little one again while she plays the only adult in the room with you, you can call me. As long as there is no violence or degradation in it, we can go there hypnotically or through role play and conversation. We all need a mental safe space to escape to. I am here for you.

Call me. https://morelovelessnoise.com/hypnosis-and-hypnofetish-mind-control/