Stress Test

After college, I was functionally unemployed for almost a year. In the first few months, I was enamored by the world of politics and briefly worked on a struggling campaign, only leaving when I accepted that I was never getting paid.

In that time, I lived off some savings while seeking to turn far-fetched dreams into profitable projects. I was picky with what few employment opportunities came my way thinking that if I could hold out a little longer, something more ideal would come my way. I distracted myself by wandering around the city, bothering my friends, and loitering in public spaces hoping for inspiration to hit. My hopes were becoming increasingly more unrealistic, and my motivation deteriorated. My days were blurred by a lack of structure, and my savings were running thin.

I broke and wound up at a temp agency. I worked a few jobs on contracts spanning a few hours to a few days while splitting wages close to 50/50 with my agency. The work wasn’t ideal, but I felt better knowing money was coming in.

At some point, they hooked me up with a 3-6 month contract in my field with potential to go permanent. I accepted but was nervous that I was locking myself into a career path I had no interest in pursuing.

It felt weird walking into a luxury office building in a suit-and-tie with everyone else in business casual. The warmth and friendliness of the space tore away my preconceived notion that professional environments were naturally stiff and aggressive. I acclimated to the role and came to love it, but more so just loved doing something. I could see the tangible results of hours put in. The boredom that had plagued me was remediated by critical thinking. I took any stresses that came from work with some excitement and a new desire to see things to completion.

I turned permanent 1 week short of my 3 months and have been there since. I hope I never have to leave this job, because if I do, I fear the boredom of my unemployment will consume me again before I find the next one.

To the Point of Exhaustion

At the end of my freshman year, we stragglers regularly congregated in the basement of our crumbling frat house awaiting shipment back to our homelands. In the wet, hot heat of the swamp, it sheltered us with a dust-clogged AC unit and some company on an otherwise deserted campus. We found ways to pass the time, running through whatever couldn’t be packed while exchanging recaps of our adventures, complaining of packing a year’s worth of shit up, and taking guesses at what life would look like that Fall.

One night, as we approached the late-late hours, I put on a playlist of six Gorillaz songs totaling maybe 20 minutes. The only light in the room came from a blacklight we used for parties so nobody would feel the pressure of maintaining eye contact. Our attention faded in and out as mental fatigue started mingling with the pre-existing dread for a long return to more mundane life. I stopped counting how many times the playlist repeated and sat back as the conversation thinned.

Nobody knows how much time actually passed, but we were probably closing in on an hour of no talk when someone finally asked how many times El Mañana had played that night. We had a little laugh and rode out the rest of the night on that playlist, saying our goodbyes as one-by-one we exited for one last somber walk alone back to our dorms.

Whatever was left of my high school Demon Days phase died that night. I deleted that playlist on my flight home.

Socially Inept

Back when my friends and I would regularly host people, we invited D to a BBQ. D was new to the area and was seeing one of our friends, but since that someone was out-of-town that weekend, I thought it would be nice to have D come hang anyway. She didn’t stay long and left maybe an hour after she got there.

I was told later that D didn’t feel as included. The rest of us had gone to college together and had social groups based mostly around our fraternity. We shared old stories, dropping names of people the rest of us knew, and interjecting with inside jokes that needed stories of their own to get. That might have been the first time I was fully aware how much history it took to build that circle and how hard it must be to be dropped off in the middle as a stranger.

I’ve noticed in public, too. Things easily told need a lot more context with others around. Mannerisms we’d become accustomed to were probably strange to people around us. We would sometimes lack awareness of how socially ungraceful we were. We carelessly reinforced bad behaviors and bad attitudes because it provided some sense of relief. It was fun, and still is, but it hurt our interactions with people who weren’t in on it.

We were lizard people, slithering from fault lines, attempting to blend into society. We mimicked college students, learning their ways, entering an unholy pact with a daycare for developing adults to maintain some form of social cohesion and push through the boredom. After stealing the secrets of private education, we’ve shapeshifted our way into the bigger world. We got jobs, changed our diets, and learned how to socialize with strangers.

We are human now, but under this skin are scales.

Shut Out from the Gates of Salvation

A few years back, my cousins and I visited the Po Lin Monastery. Incense filled the sky, bells rung in the air, and trash littered the ground. Vendors squatted along every wall peddling their fried meat stuffs. Cattle played the role of Disney Princesses, roaming freely for pictures while stomping their own shit into the hot concrete. Visitors knelt behind velvet ropes, prostrating before idols half a room away. Offering boxes scattered doorways and floors of temples hoping to catch some cash that would happen to fall out of any pockets feeling particularly pious. The mountain was filled with the cries of those seeking nirvana while the monks traversed between buildings restricted to those of us further from enlightenment.

Somewhere between watching a teary old man looking up devotedly to the Big Buddha and passing a child puking molten garbage on the staircase on my way up to the statue, I felt put off. The emotional displays of faith mixed with the frenzied state of the monastery grounds made it feel like an amusement park, as if whoever was running the place had convinced the visitors to pay their own lift ticket to perform.

Needing to get away from the show, I got cousin R to come with me and explore away from the plaza. We walked the perimeter of the main temple, treading some dirt path along high walls until we found a tucked away stone shrine. It was empty and the only walkway running up to it ran from the locked gate at the back of the temple. The Buddha here was standing and sculpted with more Chinese features. A small pot rested beneath its feet filled with the stems of incense burned that morning. Any angst still in me was pushed out by serenity.

I mulled over a new sense of ironic fate. Out in the plaza, I passed judgment on those visitors minding themselves who felt free to express themselves and wander as they pleased on sacred grounds, but here I was, some guy with no religion, bordering on awe in a place I probably wasn’t meant to be.

After a bit of quiet admiration, R and I went the rest of the way along the path, passing a congregation of stray dogs until we got back to the plaza.  We linked back up with cousin K, who designated himself as photographer / videographer of our trip. We caught up and, remembering what just happened 20-some minutes ago, I suggested we go back to that hidden shrine so K could get some shots.

All three of us went along the dirt path to be blocked by a young bull halfway down. I suggested we keep moving forward thinking it wouldn’t try us, and it threw a few deep grunts against my ego.

We turned back to the plaza, and I left with a new sense of divine rejection.