Money is an all-pervasive driver to these markers of despondency, but so is a futility at striving after the signposts of a successful existence. It is as if I have decided that I will have a life of pseudo/bashful/unjustifiable/pitiable materialism while compulsively exploring the pseudo-ism, bashfulness, unjustifiable-ness and pity of that desire through every waking moment.
Being a father definitely has something to do with everything I feel, but there again the escape-clause inherent in that admission is almost an invitation to forsake blame for a very real state of dangerous personal turmoil while not redirecting that blame to another on account of her inability to accept responsibility for the condition because of her current dependency. In other words, a cop out.
The job I have these days is a natural agitant, of course - menial, repetitive, devoid of meaningful social interaction and devoted to and sustained by the very consumerist ideal that I naturally recoil from, at least during those times when I do have a choice about it. But it pays the rent, and in doing so sustains a chance at fulfilling that ultimate goal of creature comfort and bragging rights encapsulated by a future photograph of a happy teenager wearing a mortarboard and graduate gown while posing next to a late-middle-aged grey and/or balding man in board shorts and unmarked white t-shirt who is, in turn, posing next to a red Ducati Monster in bright sunshine, smug grins all around.
Life is short, they say. Four Palestinian boys on Gaza Beach yesterday probably hadn't heard that from them.
