A condição humana - especialmente verdadeira em dias de chuva como hoje

Thursday, 18 October 2012

People simply empty out

In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a writer. 49-year-old Bukowski did just that, and in 1971 his first novel, Post Office, was published by Martin's Black Sparrow Press.

15 years later, Bukowski wrote the following letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full time employment.

(Source: Reach for the Sun Vol. 3; Image: Charles Bukowski, via.)

8-12-86

Hello John:

Thanks for the good letter. I don't think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don't get it right. They call it "9 to 5." It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch. Then there's OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there's another sucker to take your place.

You know my old saying, "Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."

And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.

As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can't believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: "Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?"

They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.

Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:

"I put in 35 years..."

"It ain't right..."

"I don't know what to do..."

They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn't they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?

I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I'm here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I've found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system.

I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: "I'll never be free!"

One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I'm gone) how I've come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

To not to have entirely wasted one's life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.
yr boy,

Hank
 

Saiu daqui essa verdade incontestável.  

Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby

Depois de ler esse artigo, estou toda gee gee gee.

They smile with their eyes apparently.

Twenty Something Ways to Know You're Twenty Something

Gente, eu sou muito um produto da mídia, amazing..

 

1) There is a nagging suspicion in your brain that there’s something missing. Not missing as in “Shit I lost my cell phone.” But missing as in, you wake up in the morning not really sure of your path in life, if this is really what you want to do, and if this perpetual hangover is really how life is supposed to feel.

 

2) Your finances are constantly subject to new “budgeting” attempts, new excel spreadsheets, new financial plans, and yet never really seem to accumulate as quickly as your friends say theirs do.

3) Your friends’ jobs are all better than yours

 

4) Your friends’ apartments are all better than yours.

 

5) If you’re single you are worried you’ll die alone, if you’re in a relationship you’re constantly worried if “this is the one” and otherwise you’re newly engaged and everyone else is jealous but you’re worried about becoming a divorce statistic. Really though, everyone just lives with each other.

 

6) One night stands seem way less appealing than they did approximately 15 months ago and you’re not sure what changed (except your unexpected new devotion to hygiene).

 

7) Your hangovers last 3 days, but you love dark and dingy bars. They make you feel artistic.

 

8) Your hangovers are no longer just a headache but defined by ‘booze blues’ and ‘shameover’ symptoms (re: what am I doing with my life?!; oh my god why did I drink so much?;) and losing your wallet/phone/coat/pride no longer seems as funny as it did when you were 20. You find yourself staring teary-eyed into the mirror at your smudged eyeliner wondering if this is really what you should be doing with your time. Then you slowly, and quietly whispering, start singing yourself a Celine Dion song.

 

9) Suddenly staying home with a bottle of cheap vino, a blanket, a tear jerker, and your cat seem a substantially better way to spend your Saturday nights then standing in line waiting to spend $100.

 

10) Oh yah, now you stand in line because bouncers don’t find 20-somethings as attractive as just-turned-19’s.

 

11) Your head suddenly feels crammed with numbers:

 

a) Cell phone bills

b) Student debt payments

c) Monthly income

d) Booze costs

e) Coffee costs

f) How many centuries it will take to afford a house

g) Etc.,

 

12) You remember a simpler time. It included such heart-warming and moral shows as Breaker High, Saved by the Bell, Fresh Prince, CITY Guys, Wishbone, Ghost Writer, Captain Planet, and the Smoggies. A major part of you suspects that your morals and values were shaped by the lessons in these cartoons. Another major part of you suspects the lack of morality in youth these days stems from their inability to watch the same programming you did.

 

13) You have thoughts that start with, “Kids these days… When I was a teen… In my day…. When I was younger…” and other such statements you never thought would come out of your mouth.

14) You start parenting your parents.

 

15) You remember a time before the internet. You remember when your family got its first computer. You remember, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?,” “Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM,” and the first Apple computer on the block. You also remember the evolution of social media because you were there for it all. BBS – ICQ – MSN - Yahoo Chat – Forums – Chatrooms – Email – Facebook – Perez – Twitter – Blogs - ?

 

16) You find yourself sad sometimes because you actually feel like the Internet’s become a bad place.

 

17) Everything is solved by brunch. 20-somethings love brunch. Post-break-up brunch, post-night-out brunch, before-flea-market brunch, before-shopping brunch, happy brunch, birthday brunch, gossip brunch, ‘wanna go to brunch and catch up’ brunch?

 

18) Time goes by quicker than ever before, for an unknown reason, and the more you try to slow it down the faster it goes.

 

19) Going travelling versus paying off your student loan versus buying property is a serious legitimate conversation in your head. Backpacking is as legitimate a rite of passage as college/university.

 

20) You have a niggling suspicion that someone lied to you and that your twenties are not the huge party previously assumed.

 

21) You are also starting to suspect that the rumours going around about your thirties being the REAL party are just a ruse to get you through your twenties.

 

22) You’re favorite saying is, “What am I going to do with my life?” This is usually followed by self-assuring statements that you’ve done a lot more than most people, you’ve got memories if not experience, and that’s really all that matters in the end because YOU won’t have regrets.

 

23) You find yourself making lists more often because your forget more things: to-do lists are your new bible.

 

24) There’s something about HBO shows, like unreal shows that seem real, and you HAVE to watch them every week. This is especially true if the shows involve vampires, drug dealing moms, drug making teachers, doctors, or police/fire fighters.

 

25) You suddenly understand what people meant by, “Generation Why.”

 

Daqui..