From liking to disliking work

I used to like my job.

I used to think it fulfilling – stimulating, challenging, always keeping my brain on its toes (that’s when I feel most alive – by keeping the brain active, ever-expanding, forever learning new things). It was interesting – and no matter how difficult it was at times (think: working unpaid overtime for months on end, high levels of stress, inability to sleep as a result etc.), I still went back for more. I actually thought that’s what I wanted to do not only now, but in the longer term.

Since then, the new, exciting, forever-learning aspect has become old and as a result, not interesting. Days are now defined by a tired wariness – cramming in far too much boring, non-interesting stuff into the confines of the working hours.

It seems that this is the rule, not the exception – most people dislike their job. I however do not accept that ‘this is the way it is’. What a waste of one’s life it would be!

Disliking work is good. It’s a driver for change, and for claiming back what is yours.

Life = bringing the self to the place where it can be free.

Gerhard Richter exhibition and a Homeless Girl

Image by cliff1066 via Flickr

I went to the Gerhard Richter exhibition that I’ve been wanting to go to for ages, and which ends on the 4th January. While there, I was aware of my somewhat outsidery-status due to the number of  ‘toffs’ around (the upper middle-class, or maybe the educated, cultured class. I’m neither here nor there and don’t feel I belong with either).

I thoroughly enjoyed it and made some notes on my phone (copying from descriptions etc.), such as:

All his paintings, no matter what their subject matter, are about the materiality of paint. The squeegee did not allow him complete control over how the paint was applied. He greatly prized the objective element that chance introduced into his work.

Without going into too much detail, I liked the fact that his work is about materiality, and that he wants to remove his ‘personality’ (or rather, subjectivity) as much as possible. To be able to work with materials and create something that is however not about you, or your suffering, or your subjective experience. Quite the opposite of, say, Tracey Emin’s work (who incidentally had a major retrospective at the same gallery in August).

So, there I am wanking my mind with thoughts about art and objectivity, and how this is what constitutes good work (i.e. Richter’s approach – materiality, getting rid of the subject), and on my way home a 17-year-old homeless girl from Glasgow asks me for directions to Leith Walk as she was looking for a night shelter there. She’d come from Glasgow where her 22-year-old boyfriend had thrown her out, via Livingston where she went to see her mother, a junkie, who didn’t offer any support but instead asked her daughter for money to feed her habit.

So I walked her to the top of Leith Walk, chatted about irreverent stuff (my being German, she had taken German at school etc.), while inside my heart was breaking. I thought about the wanky art stuff, and its irrelevance, and how the whole strife for objectivity doesn’t really communicate anything to the great majority of people. How removed it is from the actual real materiality of life. And how we tend to forget that it’s a fucking luxury to be able to think of such subject matters as the ‘materiality of paint’ and get turned on by removing subjectivity from our wanky self-expression.

Going to Work is Like Going to School

I’m growing fonder and fonder of the 9-5 routine (even though it’s more like 9-6 in my case). My work isn’t too far from where I live (about 5-10 minutes by car), so I just take myself there, do what is relative fun most of the time, then go back home and have a relaxing evening where I do what I want (no one to put any demands on my time other than a cat hehe).

It feels quite nice and reminds me of a time where I didn’t have any responsibilities, i.e. childhood. Where all you ever have to do is go to school from Mon-Fri (and every other Sat.) and the rest of your time you can do what you like. A state where the mind is free of worries and where ‘work’ is in one place, and the rest of your time (when you get home) is yours.

I haven’t really felt the stress ever since I got back from my holiday. The situation / context of getting stressed is still there (too much to do, too little time), but I have just been focusing on what I’m doing in the present, without ‘worrying’ about the stuff I can’t do. There’s no point. If I can manage to iterate this way of thinking for a few more weeks, I’ll be fine 🙂

lenina’s BIOS

lenina has settled in to a quiet life at the moment. She is happily content and tired in the evenings, goes to work happy, gets back home again. No watching TV, and keeping any potential intrusions at bay.

Right now I like to switch off any unwarranted demands on my attention. TV is gone, devices on which people may contact me are either switched off, put into silent mode, or just ignored 😛

That is the beauty of twittering and blogging, and, writing my diary. I just OUTPUT, but the channel the other way (INPUT into me) is greatly reduced just now. Not for friends and such – there’s always a line open for that – but for the great masses in general, and for the general filth that is the Media (mostly TV, crap films, crap music).

It’s quite relaxing in fact. I feel the same way whenever I’m in Italy. Only I always thought that you have to put yourself physically into a place where noise is absent in order to enjoy the absence of noise.

I don’t think that’s true any more. You can just switch the noise off, wherever you are.

Italy Holiday: Day 10

Image via Wikipedia

Today was yet another slow one, to the point of being confronted with myself. Help 😛

I went for a walk, thinking of the Cure – song, ‘The Top’

this top is the place where nobody goes

I walked up a hill and really was all by myself. Taking my journal (the one I had also taken to Shetland) and wrote down some stuff! by! hand!

Not sure whether I was really close to myself and in touch with my true thoughts, or in some sort of regression brought about by being contacted by some guy via wer-kennt-wen who I used to snog and cuddle with (not shag though). A very pretty punk boy, and me thinking of how I used to snog all these cute boys/men even though it’s 15 years ago. I even w***ed one of them off in some field in a village, the warm c*m all over my hand. I wasn’t even drunk at the time – I just used to do all sorts of things as I was hungry to learn.

How it was really all quite cool, and handwriting combined with the message from this guy, and being in the country (as opposed to in a city where I usually live) brought back this younger, deeper version of myself. I don’t think I’m that deep these days, since I hardly get time to actually reflect and really think. I don’t mind not thinking, though I do miss it. These days my brain processes stuff, but I’m not deep. The ironic thing is that I don’t mind, since I’m no longer deep (it’s a bit of a catch-22). If I had time to be deep, I would mind. Maybe having no time is how people are switched off into compliance and acquiescence with life – who knows.

The good thing is that I can get back there (back from mere processing of information to thinking and reflecting) as today has made me realise – for the first time in what must be 8 years or so 😐

If nothing else, I’ve got today’s handwritten journal entry and this post to prove it 😉