The state of exhaustion February 11, 1985
I spend much of my time these days in the state of
exhaustion, somewhere between New Jersey and insanity.
Jerry, the latest fascist boss at work, decided he doesn’t
want me to leave.
Things were so much easier under Phil when I could come and
go, and still be assured I had a job to come back to if I later changed my
mind.
I went through this back in December 1981 and managed to hold
out until early 1982 when I realized I could not make a living off my writing
and decided not to starve.
I mistakenly assumed I could sell my literary efforts to the
world and somehow the world would sustain me.
I ached to do what I do best and needed more time to focus
on producing novels – some of which I had started when I was unemployed. I
still envy those few months when I lived the artist’s life unencumbered by an
empty stomach and terror of eviction.
Writing is a slow, cumbersome process and as physically exhausting
as baking donuts, so impossible to do both at the same time.
Fotomat, with its long hours of waiting, seemed like nirvana
to me – except for the fact that I could not pay my bills with its meager
salary – the principal reason I gave that up and went back to baking after
having bounced three checks on my Fotomat pay.
I have high hopes for the underground newspaper Michael, and
I have put together. We even got some free publicity through Michael’s
girlfriend, Dorothy, who works for the Paterson Evening News.
Still, with most of my salary paying for printing costs, I’m
hardly better off now than I was working in the Fotomat booth.
We hear a lot about slavery and little about the wage
slavery most working people endure, not merely paying their own way through the
world, but bearing the burden (through their taxes) of others who do not pay
their fair share. We get talk about how wealthy people skirt their taxes, when
many more who profess to be poor burden us even more.
We, who will not or cannot milk the welfare state, go on day
in and day out doing what we do without thanks or recognition, without hope of
escaping our labors. We do not have the same confidence that a safety net will
save us if we tumble out of even the most pathetic jobs.
Now, the new manager wants to keep me when I need to find a
way to leave, I should have set a time limit when I came back.
Management thinks I will change my mind about leaving, and
perhaps believes I have no options.
Yet each exhausting night shift here makes a good argument
as to why I need to leave, convincing me when my shift ends in the morning that
I must go or lose any chance at a creative life.
Again, this differs from how I felt back when I worked for Phil,
when I got addicted to an ample paycheck, and assumed with my few dollars
stashed away I could make the leap from donut maker to bestselling author.
The underground newspaper drains my resources, even when it
promises to inspire my creative side, and I stumble through each shift like a
zombie, desperate to find a third alternative between literal starvation or thriving
as a starving artist.
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