The Grind

I had something of a disturbing revelation on my commute home this evening. It was a little after five, and I was sitting in traffic on Cameron Street near the Farm Show Building, listening to a Duncan Trussell podcast.  I looked at the clock and did a bit of mental math.  Home by 5:30. Probably be in bed sometime between 10-11. That's how a majority of the week goes, right?  You spend the bulk of your waking hours at work, then cram your "life" into a few hours in the evening and whatever portion of the weekend you don't spend working on necessary domestic duties. It hit me, sitting there in my car, that we spend so much of our life toiling away, and so little of it actually living. How did this happen, and who decided this was a good idea? When did we decide that all the bullshit we produce and purchase and worry about until we die with bloody holes in our guts was more important than actually living? Who decided that our souls would in essence be sold before we were even born?  Our childhood's nothing more than a prelude to picking our poison and leading a life of running endlessly in circles, usually making a lot of money for someone else while we worry about paying our bills and caring for our kids and fighting our fellow human beings for the scraps we depend on to eke out a living. Who decided that spending our mornings idling on smog choked highways to chase a few bucks was progress?  Who decided that getting a few minutes a day to choke down tasteless food before returning to a windowless cubicle was acceptable? Whoever he was, rest assured he wasn't one of us.  He wasn't someone who misses the sunlight and the caress of a warm breeze while he sits under artificial lights and tries to convince himself that he's lucky to have this opportunity to spend his life toiling away just to get by. No, he wasn't one of us.