venerdì, febbraio 12, 2010

Sympathy for the dickheads

It's been a reasonably psychologically harrowing couple of weeks but I feel a bit better now, no doubt at least in part because of some break time coming up - indeed, some break time right now as I take a bit of comp for what worked out to days of overtime over the last 10 or so. I think I could be a lot more comfortable with the emotional difficulties of life if I didn't have to work ten-hour days whilst dealing with them.

It's been an object lesson - I'm allowed to say that because I know my present situation is temporary - I had a Serious Talk with the Yankee manager about the Antipodean future and it doesn't look unpromising in terms of keeping my job, but it would be different of course. The thing is I have been so busy, so incredibly busy, having to remember and execute a kabillion different work things, and be quite psychologically distressed on top of that - and the combination left me with nothing. Just a yawning and rather unhappy void of a personality at the end of the day. No empathy, no patience, nothing as far as other people were concerned, and actually not too much for myself either. An exhaustion, with nothing healthy or honest about it.

So. It's been an object lesson in understanding how adults turn into these massive pricks. I'd never fully understood before these last couple of weeks - sounds naive or something, doesn't it? I mean I had some idea that being super-stressed on top of distressed fucks you up, but I'd never had my hands on the mechanics of it before. I understood in the abstract that the rhythms of modern life were deeply physically and psychologically unhealthy, but now I know it in the concrete. Headaches. Uncontrollable sobbing. Constant sleepiness. Absent sex drive. Bursts of rage. The Red Dragon has been to visit three times since Christmas.

I don't want to forget this . . . I don't want to ever judge assholes as harshly as I've judged them before. All of this stuff comes from somewhere. Because, you know, things aren't that bad for me - I actually like my job and my F-word and millions hate their job and their partner, I don't have any debt - and I'm already turning into a right turd. No wonder the world is full of utter cunts.

Ah, I don't know.