RUDIMENTS, pt. 696
(zombies)
There was never much of a
difference between 'doing'
and 'not doing' once I got
involved, almost foolishly,
with the workaday world. In
whatever I was doing, it was
the same as not doing. The
things I had to start to do made
no sense to me at all. Yes, and
believe me, I tried. Working
made no claim on me; I never
could keep my mind on it,
disliked it, could never figure
out why people would do it
for 'money' or pay. I found
no value in it - not in the
dealings with others; not in
the lame use of language and
instructional words (a worse
use of verbiage, I've never seen,
except perhaps in politics).
Concepts, evasions, misrepresenting
things, different ends from the
originated intentions - and all
that for the search of a few measly
bucks to make a salary. The
business world hated me, and I
hated it. Yet, there I was, thrown
like a lamb to the large-mawed
lion staring me down. The most
perfect parallel to the 'business'
of the business world was the
very misuse of the world right
around me. As I said previously,
the old buildings were falling away,
construction and new places were
covering up the old. Right there.
I mentioned already the Blue Bird
Inn, which was right across the
road. There was also, starting
from the near corner, Frystock
Motors - which was an old-line
car dealership; never very large
or vibrant, but it was in place
for many years, with its own
used-car lot across the street too;
now a bank, 'Investors Savings'
or something. Frystock had a
number of iterations over the year.
Nash, Rambler, American Motors,
Mitsubishi, Renault, and finally
Jeep, which was their line when
it all ended. That location, and
the building once next to it, is
now a waste-of-space Walgreens.
When those 'drugstore' chains
began spreading all around, like
Walgreen's, CVS, Rite Aid,
Eckhardt's, and such, it was by
then already apparent, and too
late. The 'dependency' industry
had taken over. The medical
industry and the pharmaceutical
industry ('Big Pharma') had
achieved their cheesy ends -
having most of America hooked
on prescription medicines, toxic
lab-chemical-cares and palliatives
of all sorts. It's only gotten worse
now. When you reach the point of
'medical' as the only growth
industry in a country, you know
it's bad. First off, all they do is
throw up junk buildings - the
most spare and skeletal structures
holding nothing but open space
in a sort of idle, warehouse, walk
through format. They start out strong,
and over time their selections and
inventories begin dwindling, as
they carry fewer and fewer items.
Go inside a Walgreen's someday, and
just gaze around : a bunch of crap
metal shelves, candy, make-up rows,
toothpaste, school supplies, even
remaindered books at bargain bins,
and more. They can't even successfully
keep a themed inventory of what
they're 'about'. Instead, if they can
sell you anything at all, they will,
in a smaller and smaller form of
choice (to lower their overhead).
The game is profit, and if they can
convince you that you're ill, or in
need of some medicine, their local
pharmacy counter - way at the
rear of the store - will take you
over; and you have to wade through
their diminished rows of other
things to get to it. That, my friends,
is not living, and neither is it
caring for the land or place that
you churn up and destroy to make
your own junk palace, in addition
to all the others too. And these
places, by those old names I've
already listed, did it over and over,
and usually at near corners to each
other, in a hideous redundancy to
chase a cheap profit. Do that
crud enough times and you've
got yourself a St. Georges Avenue
of the sort that runs right through
here for about 6 or 7 towns along
the way; repeated, over and over,
the same wasteful formula.
-
At some internal level I felt I'd
betrayed myself, and I realized
it, and it was painful. Yet, there
was nothing else, or little else,
I could do - family, and my
home-owning, had boxed me
into a space I couldn't leave. I
was ready to do my duty, figuring,
or hoping, that somewhere down
the line my chance or exposure
would occur. Fat chance. Nice try.
That's when people get worn down,
burned out, locked in, and ruined.
When you're in the throes of
something, it's difficult to think
clearly, and many options are
just missed, or, actually avoided.
When people begin talking about
the treasure that life is, I think
most of that is a pure idealism at
work. Life is a hard slog, with
many things that just fall by the
wayside. Unfortunately, the way
we've situated society, we've
allowed economics and some
sick delusion of money to take
it over, to rule it and all that we
do. What that does is give a false
pre-eminence to the station you're
born into - what resources you
have or get, the family you're in.
I had nothing, and that was my
box. You can be the wisest,
smartest, most ingenious person
in the world (I'm not), yet
sometimes - not always, but
sometimes - that same box
remains sealed and hides you
within it, or keeps you hid
anyway. It's like a jogger : have
you ever thought, whatever are
they running to? Or are they
just tediously running 'away'
from something and needlessly
'into' something else again? All
the while, going nowhere, they
do the same thing every day.
-
I'd see all this, and still do, most
everywhere I went, and it was
all betrayal to me, - a world
ruined, waters turned brown,
dead men in suits and ties, the
endless wrangle for lucre - and
it is so even moreso now. I'm
sorry, but I'm a thinking man.
I may be a Neanderthal in my
historic, original outlook, but
when I see and saw the descending
scale of all around me, I could
only wince, draw back in, fester
my anger, and removed myself
from the fearsome lot of the
Humankind around me. It's still
like that now. If it were legal, I'd
gladly act the Jack the Ripper role,
for both sexes. Historicism for me
had always meant a stern sense of
self-reliant activity, a resourcefulness
from within, based upon a willingness
to learn, pick up ideas, and improve
from within as well. Not with the
sickening sense of dependency
and entitlement I see so much
of today. I owe you nothing.
I take from you less. Not only are
we, and have we been, underway
with the destruction and ruination
of land and property, but we've,
as well, taken the minds of children
and blustered them with negative
fantasies and stanchions of passivity
upon which to tie and abandon their
egos. Parents now take pride in
growing up zombies.
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