Everyday another boulder

There are days when I think the Myth of Sisyphus is no myth. It is reality. Office work is Sisyphean. As is bureaucracy in all its forms.

Sometimes I manage to roll the boulder up the steep hill and without a moment to rejoice, I find that I am at the foot of another steep hill with another boulder.

Would that I had an anti-gravity beam.

Gentlemen, can they rebuild me?

On Monday, I woke up to a day off. I sat on the couch, opened a word document and then tried to reply to an email while watching TV, playing minesweeper, chatting on IM, text messaging, talking on the phone and thinking about the real life things that I really should have been doing: laundry, cleaning, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, looking for jobs, writing a song, practicing, and reading a book.

I realized at some point that in the flurry of whatchamahoozy, I was not doing anything.

Oddly this is what my days at work look like if you substitute office wage slave tasks with all of the things listed above. It's not clear to me that I am getting any more accomplished there than I was at home.

This is why computers will take over the world. They are, increasingly designed to do things in parallel and run tasks in the foreground and the background.

Am I struggling to reshape my brain and behavior to keep up with the technologies that were supposed to take the struggle out of my life? IThe Luddites would assure me that this happens a lot. Then again, perhaps they were only designed to increase my productivity leaving my struggle intact.

Maybe I should focus on partitioning my brain:

Work / Other

Today we listen to the Shins and soak in the sensation of the chest cavity expanding.

"The gutter may profess its love,
Then follow it with hesitation,
For there are just so many of
You out there for rent

A stronger girl would shake this off in flight,
And never give it more than a frowning hour,
But you have let your heart decide,
Loss has conquered you,

You've won one too many fights,
Wearing many hats every time,
But you wont win here tonight
[...]
Oh girl, sail her, don't sink her"

-The Shins

In my ongoing desire to retain a sense of wonder about the world, I am mocked by those smarter and more world-weary who find me to be too easily impressed. But I think that it is they who have overinsulated their souls with experience and facts, who have stopped paying attention to the response of their hearts to what is all around them.

Let yourself be moved by a perfect shade of blue, calling out to you, or three measures of music that make your skin tingle.

It might very well be that the best way to make sure that people pay and properly report their taxes is tap them for appointments in the cabinet.

On the other hand, I breathe a sigh of relief that these are the biggest bones they can dig up.

SK (whoa.) SKH when preparing for his three month tour of Asia said that he didn't speak the language in any of the countries that he would be in. He said that his smile and his beard would be his ticket to the world, opening doors and winning friends.

I don't have a beard but I do sometimes wonder if I essentially wander through life with my smile to see me through.

Other times I wonder if it's the miracle bra.