What's on my Mind...

or a lesson in anxiety

What a question to ask an overthinker, am I right? What’s on my mind? The TL;DR version is somewhere between nothing and everything all at once. The same as it ever was.

It’s really cold out today but it was in the 80’s last week. I think: I tossed a single use plastic into the trash can at work the other day instead of the recycle bin. I’ve failed my 5th grade science teacher, Mrs. Loving, who planted tulips with me outside our classroom window and always went out of her way to cut plastic six pack rings she found in the trash. I remember years later at a hotel where I saw a custodian remove a single bag out of the combo trash/recycle bin and how it all went down a garbage chute. I remember that no one seemed to care.

I paid nearly $500 on my utility bill this month… a service that usually ranges under $200. I think: This is terrifying! This means summer may cause a $1000 dollar bill that I wont be able to afford and survey says, it’s gonna be a hot one. I think about Data Centers and their gargantuan use of resources and my inability to do anything that matters about it. I think of A. I. and the cute little picture I have of me giving my dead mother a hug. The amount of people online who want to burn me at the stake for causing the fall of our ecosystem with this use is sort of staggering. It’s also staggering, how many of these same people demand a full array of all media to be digital and on demand at a moments notice from “the cloud” at any moment they wish. I don’t think they understand that “the cloud” and “the data center” are the same guy wearing different masks.

I just filled up my gas tank and goddamn, it was $3.50 a gallon. $80 just to fill up, how the hell am I supposed to get to work? I think: This is the third or fourth or fifth war in the Middle East since I was born. I’ve lost count at this point. I’ve lost interest. I’m burned out. I think: of people leaping from the burning remains of the World Trade Center on live television while I tried to practice typing in a computer class in tenth grade. The teachers never looked away from the screen bolted from the corner wall. I remember going home and watching the news on MTV that day. All of the channels were news channels that day. All channels demanded I knew everything at all times that day. It never really went back to normal after that.

I started a SubStack, in earnest, a month ago. I think: “Hustle Culture” is a scam that has permeated into all aspects of our lives. I can’t even have a conversation with my friends without feeling lazy because I didn’t podcast and advertise it and try to make pennies on the dollar for it. An everlasting offer to the gods of the algorithm; my relaxation… my joy for productivity… for empty promises. Constant motion with no movement. I turn on the television and instantly pull out my phone to work on emails, return texts and to keep moving. As a kid, I loved sharks. As an adult, I became one. If I stop moving I will die.

I sit down at my desk at my day job, my main job of many. I think: I’m going to die here. All roads lead to that end. Ten hours a day for 5 days a week… adding up to the promise of retirement. That’s only 65,000 more hours to go until I get to punch out. 65 million years ago the last dinosaur punched out just before a flaming ball of fire descended from the heavens and demanded a re-do. The dinosaurs vanished. The sharks kept moving.

I think: What will happen the day I stop?