“Hate is a lack of imagination.”
Graham Greene
Thursday
When you are indifferent to something there is no pressure.
The interview went well. It was more of a conversation than a grilling.
Di and David have arrived. A stop over on their way to Europe. It is always good to see family.
When you decide to leave a place you allow yourself to see all its faults. You immerse yourself in them, they consume you and it makes you feel wonderful to know that you will be gone from all that you cannot stand—a deliberate suffering so the escape is so much sweeter.
What happens if you need to change your mind?
“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
Carl Jung
Friday
Gym.
Pieces in motion. Things to consider.
What do you sell your happiness for? Is there a figure?
There is an offer on the table to live somewhere beautiful, but we break even. Stay afloat. We don’t lose money, we don’t make money.
The counteroffer is to live somewhere we hate. It is a big number. And that figure accumulates year after year. Building and building. Bigger and bigger.
This is The Grind. This is how it works.
The counteroffer is ripe in richness, but it also comes with prestige—the big show. Once you are in the big show, well, you can live in that wonderful place of your dreams, but in the big show. Making the good money, in the good place.
But…
You have to do your time.
Three years. Three years in the big show, in a place you hate, raking in that big show-prestigious-big money.
Future happiness.
This is The Grind. I am the mouse on that treadmill.
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.
Anais Nin
I read. We watch an episode of Slow Horses. Excellent series.
Saturday
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle
Gym. I am walking back from the session and I run into Karthic. He organised our place in Dubai when we first arrived.
Small talk. He has not seen me in over a year – “What happened? You used to be a big gut. Big mass. Big muscles…”
Fuck you, Karthic. We can’t be friends.
“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”
Fredrich Nietzsche
We are heading to our favourite Turkish restaurant for lunch.
I kill some time reading.
Di And David have an early start tomorrow so we catch up with them this evening.
“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”
Walt Whitlam
Sunday
“As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.”
Noam Chomsky
Emotions fluctuate when decisions are on the table. The luxury of having a decision is something to appreciate. Some don’t get the privilege of choice.
Regardless, the excitement becomes anxiety when choices get weighed. Thinking and overthinking. A tipping point where anticipation turns to stress.
What is the right choice when there is no clear correct path?
All have merit, all have issues.
And then, from nowhere, a fourth offer lands and anxiety becomes excitement again.
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort sometimes”
Aeschylus
I get my lunches ready and read Moby Dick.
Work tomorrow. One more week before we fly to Europe for a few days.
Dreaming of Prague already.
What if we don’t come back? Would the world end?
we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
outdated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.Charles Bukowski