What I've Learned from Corporate America and the Polyphonic Spree

This is a bit of a trap. This going to work everyday and letting the concerns of the corporate host I thought I could siphon from affect me psychosomatically. How dare my insomnia's source be the contents of spreadsheets and the goings-on in conference rooms. Of course, if I could satisfy myself with bread and circuses I might not feel outrage at the exploitation, might not feel woodenly hollow at how I spend eight-plus hours each day, might not have this desire to envelope my brain cells in smoke. And the anxiety associated with pretending to care. And I used to balance this nonsense with bachanal, you know? Used to fling myself out into madness because I knew I had the metabolism to still wake up earlier than everyone. Through drug-nausea and nihilism and dread and fatal joy and blatant disregard for gods and masters I could always get my hands to stop trembling and pull things off. And gradually I learned that I could live with nothing but a floor to sleep on and good friends to share drinks with and incendiary books to read and the occasional frenetic typing. Now knowing that I bought into an expectation cultivated to support a lifestyle I resent. The reasonable success and latent career-path potential poising people just like me to have comforts and eat healthy and marry rationally and purchase real estate and attend church in my brand-new car. But I'm fantasizing about hitch-hiking, poring over pictures of Antarctica, writing agreeably, considering homelessness . . . quoted from my journal circa ecstasy ingestion: "who would want to be successful in their bullshit anyway?"

And so last night, on a half whim and free VIP passes, I ran downtown to see the Polyphonic Spree. Twenty-some odd robed maniacs belting out orchestral odes to life in general. A feeling in my chest like humanity is worth all this. Like even if we destroy this place and cut each other's throats there are at least still finite moments where we are beautiful. That even subliminally enslaved, every cell is a masterpiece and every gesticulation a refutation to the truism that there is no meaning. And so Generation Edge is justified in its apathy. Let these bastards destroy it, we never wanted a part of it anyway.

In two months I'm going home. All the way. And I'm going to watch the sunrise over the dawn of man and laugh hysterically that I have ever been worried.