Vocationally Bereft
2026-04-20
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I've been feeling half-baked, semi-processed if you will.
A good day is one that's tough to acknowledge for me sometimes. There's a part of me that's skeptical of it, as if I'm always looking for some kind of catch. It's a certain conditioning that many get from the world, that anything good coming your way has to get there at a price. Many don't think the concept of gratis is even a thing, but it's sad to see things that way. I can tell I go through periods of true mental illness because on days where it's not gnawing at me, life feels totally and completely normal. I think to myself, "man, some people get to have basically every day of their life like this? If that were the case for me, I'd easily be clacking away at some Fortune 500 company right now." But alas, I have instead been blessed with the life of an underground internet blogger. Isn't that great?
When I think of a vocation, the idea of writing online is hard to put in my mind. There are a lot of great vocations out there: electricians, nurses, teachers, lawyers, doctors—but for some reason I couldn't put myself into any of those positions. No, I'm too special or fucked up to work a real job, right? I don't know what it is. More than likely, it's because I have a hard time getting up early enough in the morning. I'm definitely not what one would call a "morning person," and sometimes it feels like fate has disqualified me from any basic sense of societal respect. I found myself in a weird position in my early twenties, one where it was up to me to get on that last bus on the way to joining the laptop class of working professionals; you know what I'm talking about—the fake email jobs. My entire education and path was one where the end goal involved those kinds of jobs.
But instead, I decided to go balls-to-the-wall and become a scuzzy bike messenger, bartender, and drug dealer all at the same time. I didn't work a dead-end job. I worked three of them. But you know what? Those were some of the funnest times in my life. From 2017–2020, I was busting ass 14–16 hours a day delivering sandwiches, serving drinks, and selling dope. Life was a constant party, and every day was interesting and exciting. I made great money, better than the salaries of many in the laptop class. But what I've learned after going broke is it's never about the money, but the work itself. I could be making $20k a year or $20 million a year, but the fundamental condition that has to be met is one of personal fulfillment. Is what I'm doing useful? Does it help someone? Do I look forward to going to work every morning? Really, all the other stuff can figure itself out. A dollar can stretch a lot further than one might think, so it's all about making sure that my spending is below my means, and that my means make me not want to shoot myself in the head.
I guess a problem I've had is that there are a lot of jobs that would make me want to do that. That's probably the case for a lot of people, which is why many don't feel happy in their work yet do so anyway because they have to maintain a certain baseline—rent's gotta be paid, kids gotta be fed, that kind of thing. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with either of those things at the moment, so this period of joblessness doesn't take too much out of me. Writing here is absolutely a long-game and wildly risky investment; most don't get paid doing what I do, and I don't expect myself to get paid either. I might try to convince myself it's some kind of personal or spiritual mission, and maybe it is. When I keep asking myself why I write, I can come up with many reasons for it. I write because I like it and I'm good at it. I write because I like to read and want to give other people who like to read something interesting to, uh, read.
I write because I can't do anything else.
I mean, I can do other stuff, but it's more that all of those other things I do can't give me the same satisfaction writing does. Sure, I can be a spreadsheet beast or craft sick pitch decks or sell someone something they don't need, but all those things do for me is make money, and they take more from me than what they give. I'd have to deal with shitty workplace politics or a boss who might suck. More than that, most people in those kinds of jobs actually don't care about what you'd think they care about. Nobody in those environments cares about solving problems or being efficient; all they really care about is their resources and status. To really be successful in those kinds of environments, you have to stoop down to their level; not all the time, but at many crucial times.
And I guess the fact that those people care about that so much makes me worried and sickened on such a deep level that I can't pursue it. Getting a job has never been a problem for me. I'm smart and gregarious enough to land just about anything if I really needed to, but I will not pretend that I give a fuck about "stepping on somebody else's toes" or "breaking company policy" because honestly, I'll just rhetorically shove you in a locker. What I'm about to say isn't a flex, but a problem: I'm too rhetorically savvy for my own good. I'm really good at bullshitting and arguing to the point where it genuinely frustrates other people. Most people are sore losers, and they hate it when a motherfucker just keeps winning, so they play dirty. Even if my intentions are pure and benevolent, I still get punished for doing the right thing a lot of the time. I've had to learn that it's not my fault sometimes and that you gotta eat shit just because.
But dealing with that kind of thing on a daily basis would eventually result in suicide. In a sense, I don't have the resilience to deal with that kind of thing. And hey, I hope that those who do are blessed. We all have different talents and strengths, and while I can be a very self-aware person, I still need to process my thoughts and discover what those are. I am weirdly proficient in artsy fartsy stuff: words, language, music, rhythm; those things help in a lot of ways, and if those ways don't make me a lot of money, that's fine with me. Being poor is awesome. I want to be poor forever. Hanging out with people of eminence? How about I go grab a drink with the homies at the bar and bullshit about philosophy instead.
Maybe I'll find something interesting on the way.
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