Life at Reason's Edge: My Relentless and Undignified Fall From Grace and Subsequent Descent Towards Madness
I've decided I'm not content to sit calmly at my aging computer and watch world events unfold around me any more. That has always been what I do...observe, watch, learn - remain aloof...separated from the world surrounding me.
Perhaps that is what differentiates me. I grew up in a place akin to Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Indeed, all the women were strong, all the men were good looking, and all the children were above average (except, perhaps, me). See, early childhood was rife with differentiators...I was adopted, Jewish, an only child with divorced parents, living with my mother and her lower-than-average State social worker income in an affluent area. Everyone had two-point-two cars in the driveway, two-point-zero children in the den, a cat, a dog...seeming perfection to someone such as myself, who stood enviously apart.
All of these things collectively drew a line between me and the world around me...my peers, my family...my world. As an adult who has spent time in plenty of marketing meetings, I've been trained to view differentiators as unique features that set something apart from competing products or brands...those things that make the product better than the competition.
But you know what? When you're a kid, sometimes they just point out why you're different...why you - of all your peers - are set outside of the circle. Why you don't really belong in this group or that group...or any group. You are the quintessential outsider. And at some point it's easier to just stay outside...to become an observer of the human condition...not a participant. I guess that was me.
My name is NOT Everest42.
But that's what you can call me.
And yesterday I was laid off.
I'm no longer a mere observer of the human condition...yesterday I became one of the lab rats, thrust from a world of disassociation into painful reality. And it hurts. It hurts to become a statistic, instead of merely perusing them on the Dkos front page. It hurts to know that I've joined a group I had no interest in knowing so intimately. It hurts knowing I've been looking for other - better - work for so long with nary a nibble. It hurts knowing that the Company which let me go owned my body, the bank owned my home, Facebook owned my creative content...I only possessed the tattered dignity that none of them could take away. Until I was told I could relocate to a part-time position 100 miles away or take a layoff.
I feel my dignity slipping away...evaporating into the uncaring ether. Now another piece of me has been seized...this time by the State Unemployment Office. There's so little left for any of them to take.
And that's so ironic, given that I have always been just a mere observer, with nothing truly vested in the world around me.
Yesterday I was laid off.
Yesterday I joined the world around me.