The problem with a having a job a monkey can do is that occasionally, as the severely conscientious citizen of the world that I find myself to be, I begin to feel terribly guilty about the skyrocketing monkey unemployment rate--the natural progression of which is wondering whether or not I should walk out and recommend that nice chimpanzee we saw in OKC. He looked almost as bored as I am. But then, watching grass grow might be slightly more intellectually stimulating than what I do, and quite a bit less stressful around the beginning of the month.
My job, in ascending levels of frustration with few notable exceptions, is like this:
Reports.
Customers.
Coworkers.
And then I go to school, home, restaurants, grocery stores, et. al.; with the same blank expression I have seen for years and never understood til now. I do not think about politics anymore. I do not stop to stare at trees. I do not feel my old righeous outrage. I am numb, dead, tired, disconnected, apathetic about all the world except for what I can see. I count calories religiously, I remedy my hostility with a gym membership, I lay myself down in a coffin of light and for exactly nine minutes there is silence and I stare into that place where worlds existed out of time, pristine streams of consciousness flowed with new ideas, fresh buds of thought lay unopened on tree limbs, but now there are no worlds, no streams, no trees. There is a great gathering void.
And this, I think, is the worst thing I could have imagined when I could still imagine.
