7/17/22 - Jittery Zeitgeist
quick momentum reset
“And it’s a beautiful thing / to my people who keep an impressive wingspan / even while the cubicle shrink.” —Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass
Hello! It’s been a while.
Blessed are they who find a small group of workmates to bond with over mutual despondence. I believe this is true in almost every industry, but I find it is most intense in marketing.
The clients I was dealing with: a life insurance company, a bank, a couple of conglomerates who needed believable sustainability reports (the trick is to vamp about their greenhouse gas reduction efforts). The clients my comrades were dealing with: much the same, and others, whose agendas looked like less than nothing in the face of a corrupt Commission on Elections, and the looming shadow of the country’s vilest dynasty securing the presidential seat. What’s a deadline to a mob, what’s a mob to a king?
We detested the work but we aspired towards quality, and in that way, constructed a simulacrum of justice. There was a measure of dignity to that, and that’s how it was for a while. And then we got tired.
When one of us was let go due to some vagaries from upper management, their departure set off a chain reaction. In a group chat sequestered from other threads, we popped off and grumbled and grouched, and we plotted our leaving. Most if not all of us could stomach the reality of working in corporate in order to live and eat and pay bills, sure. The myth of upward mobility whets certain appetites, and the relative comfort of working fully from home instead of forcing a hybrid setup has its benefits. Even then, patience ran thin. A series of fuckass salary delays hammered the nails into the coffin. It was vindicating to see the main work chat fill up, over the course of a couple of months, with continuous pings of “Hey guys, this is my last day…”
We briefly considered unionizing—it would have been the heroic thing to do. But we looked at the options before us and decided the ship was sinking faster than we could seal all the leaks. Sorry! My booksmarts are, regretfully, not as radical as my heart.
I’m between jobs right now, starting a new one in August. It’s good. Negotiated for a 30 percent increase of the salary I had previously. Yesterday I attended a pre-employment medical exam in Makati. If they found a lump somewhere, they haven’t told me.
What have I been up to the past few months? Grief! Grief grief grief. The Babadook lives in my basement and gets three square meals a day plus conversation. I’m 29 now. I’m at an age where I can emotionally self-tranquilize so fuckin’ effectively that I can slip into a fugue at will. I’d make an excellent nuclear reactor.
But joy. Joy also. The love of my life and I celebrated three anniversaries, I moved into an apartment loft near Pioneer Street, my poetry manuscript is pretty much done, and I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons very regularly, on my Gandalf shit, cane to the sky. (I’m also TikTok-ing lmao GIMME A FOLLOW the content creator industrial complex is RUTHLESS)
I recently watched a short campaign called Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, set in the world of Critical Role before and during that world’s apocalypse event. It’s a tale of tragedy, systemic failure, and the wrath of gods lining up with the naive ambitions of hubristic mortals. (It’s a short campaign as far as most actual play shows go, and I highly recommend it for anyone who’s already into D&D or wanting to get into it.)
I can’t even begin to explain the level of skill required from the DM and the players to collaboratively tell a story of tragedy, a narrative where they know everyone loses. What do you do in a position like that, when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the story begins and ends with fire? You stem the loss of life, tell the people you love that you love them, crack a few jokes when you can, and form lasting bonds with people who look at the same shit you’re looking at and go “I fuckin’ hate it here.”