Something ruins everyday…

As cliché as it is to comment on, experiencing the passing of time in quarantine is difficult to get accustomed too. I still leave my home once or twice a day to consume drive-thru food that has more long-term health effects than the virus we are all hiding from. I am fortunate to have a job that I can complete from home and is still in demand in a collapsing world economy. Besides staring at my work computer from home every weekday, my life in quarantine has become void of routine.

Instead of creating a new routine to become more productive and better myself, I have wallowed in my filthy 660 square foot house passing the time by watching movies, playing video games, and napping. This has left my psychological well being more vulnerable to minor inconveniences and the general annoyance of a meaningless existence. My vulnerability to such things was already too extreme, but for the past two months in quarantine it has evolved into a never-ending cycle of anger and self-loathing. A cycle that has accelerated in frequency and itself has become a routine.

I have begun reading again to try to stimulate my brain and maybe even spark a creative streak. I started reading Scale, a semi-autobiographical novel written by Keith Buckley, the lead singer of my favorite band. I have read this book twice before but I believe a book as dense as this one can be read many times before absorbing everything it has to offer.

While reading I came across a beautifully nihilistic line that I immediately added to the note in my phone labeled “cool shit.” The line reads, “Our existence was accidental, and we can do nothing about that now except enjoy our senses as they explode before vanishing.” That sentence perfectly encapsulates the motto of this blog and how I want to live my life. Our consciousness should not exist, but since it does we might as well maximize our experience before our meaningless life ends.

Admittingly I was reading during work hours, but I had completed my urgent tasks and was closely monitoring my inbox at the same time. I was still comfortably nesting in the thought of the line when I received an email that triggered the familiar cycle of anger and self-loathing.

A weekly “contest” via email is conducted by a person whose job title painfully reads “Employee Engagement Team Leader.” A job title that is so disgusting and cynical that its existence should be evidence enough that capitalism was a mistake. This woman’s main responsibility is maintaining the morale of the employees and to keep them “engaged” in their work and the company itself. The uselessness of her job is even more apparent while working from home as she can’t force us into the copy room to mumble happy birthday to a mid-level manager or coordinate a pot luck where the participants must wear the jersey or clothing of their favorite sports team for entry into the luncheon.

Last weeks contest involved poetry, details I only know as they were in the subject line of the email that I deleted without reading. Today the winner of the contest was announced and as I clicked on the email to delete it, I caught a horrifying glimpse of the body of the email in the reading pane. There was an image of Yoda wearing an N95 mask with the stylized writing “May the 4th be with you, 2020” in between two light sabers.

I hit the delete button on my keyboard and leaned back in my chair clinching my eyes shut. The idea of making May 4th the official day for Star Wars worldwide due to the fact fourth sounds like force is one of countless reasons that humanity is long overdue to be exterminated like the dinosaurs.

I began envisioning the people in the office who start most of their in person conversations with “I saw on facebook…” chuckling to themselves as they saw that image or waving their spouse over to their desk to look at the funny meme the Employee Engagement Team Leader copied and pasted from google images. Finding amusement in a play on words for the most soulless exploited mainstream movie franchise is a sign of a person who has never contemplated their infinitesimal standing in the greater universe.

How dare they find something that menial and basic charming? What horrifying series of events occurred over generations led to this repulsive image?

I then began to hate myself for getting so worked up over something like a Star Wars boomer meme. I genuinely hate the people who only listen to top 40 radio, watch network TV sitcoms, and own more than 3 Funko Pops. They are so blissfully ignorant that they can find humor in something so fucking stupid and played out, but is there really anything wrong with that? I can say with almost certainty that they enjoy life more than I do.

That cycle of becoming infuriated at the overwhelming lack of self-awareness of 99% of the world population followed by the self-loathing of becoming that irrationally angry is how I now measure the passage of time in quarantine. Instead of taking the advice of the line from Scale I have slipped into a mentally destructive circle which I am sprinting laps around like a stock car at Daytona. I think I have time to speed through one more lap before I say goodbye to this day.

Written while listening too:

Elder – Lore

Witchskull – A Driftwood Cross

Bone Church – Acid Communion