The Smothered Scream of a Wage Slave

I’ve been thinking today about passions, dreams, goals (all of the things our society sugar coats into meaning success, money, and promotions). What really and truly makes me happy? Well, writing of course. Not the manual writing I do for my job or the editing I do for extra money….ACTUAL writing. Soul bending, heart tearing writing. Writing that stops me dead in my tracks as the muse takes over and I stare, dumbfounded, at the page.

If I were to break it down in a more scientific sense I would say that the higher the percentage of concrete is when compared to the percentage of trees is in an area the lower my productivity falls. Basically, cities suck the soul right out of me. It’s hard to write when I look around and no longer hold any hope for humanity and limited hope for the earth as a whole.

“Poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion.” –Annie Dillard

It’s in and surrounded by nature that I feel at peace. Not so at peace, mind you, that I would only write sappy love sonnets and the like, but at peace enough that my heart isn’t racing in such fear that putting pen to paper is inconceivable. Sunlight helps, as do stars that aren’t diluted by city lights. Crickets (not of the sound machine variety) calm me like no lullaby ever could.

So, I suppose the problem isn’t knowing what I need to be happy and to write—it’s getting what I need. I won’t get it working my 9-5 job (now complete with overtime) in a building with one window surrounded by the most “city like” parts of my city (pavement, too much traffic, and industry everywhere). Yet how do I go live closer to nature and still make enough money to survive in this society?

I really don’t know the answer to that.

“Yes, there is a Nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.” –Kahlil Gibran

My daily schedule is enough to drive anyone insane. I wake up at 5:20am (and it’s dark) get to work by 6am and don’t leave until 5:30pm (when it is also dark). If I want to see daylight at all I need to leave at lunch, where I can get a 30 minute dose of daylight. I get home and all I do is sit, or lay, since I’m so exhausted from staring at a screen all day. Sometimes I try to read, but typically I just fall asleep.

Am I happy with this job? Of course not. How could I be? Yet I sell my life away…

The only semi-agreeable option I know of right now is to go to grad school for my MFA in creative writing. The problem is the school itself is in a city. Yet, at least I won’t be working an office job anymore…

“You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.”
-Desiderata

What the Fuck, Chuck?

So, I decided to take a non-credit creative writing class this fall at a local technical college. I wasn’t expecting much when I signed up, was just hoping for a few good prompts to get me writing regularly again. I was pleasantly surprised to find a group of intelligent people in the class and an awesome professor with a respectable syllabus. We even had homework! (The nerd in me was definitively in heaven).

There is only one problem with the respectful awesome class—and that problem is Chuck. Chuck has an MFA in writing, which at first made me excited to have a classmate that had experience writing in the professional realm. That was, of course, until I found out that he was the gloating type. Not only did he try to take over the class (interrupting the professor and preaching about how she should teach) but he also managed to wave his own book around so that we’d all notice he had one.

The first class period we had a writing prompt where we had to write a list-type thing. Most of us shared ours—I’ll probably post mine on here as an example when I get home. He, of course, shared his. I hate to be judgmental, but it’s all too easy to judge a guy who is obviously judging everyone else. I said a nice comment about what he read because he complimented what I wrote—but his writing isn’t all that good.

Last night was the second class, and true to form Chuck was his own pretentious self. Our assignment was to read a paragraph or two from our favorite author and talk about why we liked them. It was great at first. People sharing from authors I’d never heard of but definitely wanted to read. It was great, of course, until Chuck decided he needed to interject. He started name dropping authors and analyzing what each person said. If he didn’t ‘approve’ of people’s choices he would look obviously annoyed. His comments made us almost not finish in time before the class ended. People in the class were obviously just as annoyed as me. I wish the teacher had said something. The woman across from me was covering her mouth to keep from laughing.

When it was Chuck’s turn to share, his holier than thou attitude continued. He decided to share a poem. He HANDED OUT copies of the poem effectively killing a few trees for his dumb ass superiority complex. The poem wasn’t very good. On top of that he then analyzed the poem like we would in one of my 400 level writing classes in college if it was an assignment. Only, he was the only one analyzing. He talked for over ten minutes about this poem and why it was so great, dropping literary definitions like they were candy in a parade and we the eager children waiting on the sides of the road. (Only we weren’t children and were far from eager to listen to his lecture).

Next week we are critiquing writing people handed out at the end of class. We only have about 5minutes per person to critique. I hope to god Chuck doesn’t get called on. If he does and tries to take up all of my critique time I’m going to interrupt him and tell him I want a few other opinions before my time runs out.