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Changes In Interests With Mental Illness

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Over the years of working with schizophrenia I have had to reinvent myself a few times.  When I was first diagnosed in 2000, I was a wreck.  I pretty much left my dorm room only to go to classes and go to the mess hall twice a day.  I couldn’t concentrate in classes or doing homework for longer than a couple minutes at a time.  I was trying different medications twice a month just hoping to find something that would work.  As a result of these struggles I had to drop out of my pre med major.  I even had to take a semester off from college because I was in danger of flunking out entirely.  After a few months off the academic grind and finally finding some medications that worked well, I was able to return to school be it with a different major.  I decided to do business management because I really knew little about money and business and thought I could find a job in that field once I recovered.  I never did completely recover but I did graduate college with a business degree.

After a year of working in sales I tried my hand at getting a masters’ in business.  At the time my dream was to teach basic economics and personal finance at a small college.  That was before I realized how tough it was to get tenure and that the majority of junior college instructors are not full time.  After two semesters in the program my grades were hurting enough that I lost my graduate assistant job.  I could have stayed in the program but I would have to go deep into debt.  So I left the program.  After my failing to become a college instructor, I got a job in a factory.  It was simple enough work but I couldn’t adapt to the overnight hours and my work suffered as a result.  Two months of this I decided I would put in for a transfer to morning shift.  I was denied so I quit.  It also didn’t help that I was threatened by one of my coworkers with violence because of my mistakes.  A few years later I heard that the factory was shut down.  So many people lost their jobs, probably due to automation.  It made me kind of thankful I didn’t stick it out with that job.

About the same time I failed at the factory, I applied for disability pension.  It took two years to get approved for it, and that was even after I hired an attorney to fast track the process.  Here I was with a mental illness that clearly ruined my ability to work and I was getting to where I was running out of money.  Shortly after I gave up on the factory, I moved into low income housing because that was all I could afford.  I could have moved back with my parents but the mental health care in that rural of an area was quite primitive.  And I was too embarrassed to face the people of my hometown with a mental illness.  Ten years ago there was even less understanding about mental illness than there is now.  Small town gossip is vicious and unavoidable.  I didn’t like living in my parents’ town as a kid because I never fit in and my skills sets weren’t conducive to a farming dominated economy.  I may live in a town of about 40,000 people (which isn’t big compared to many places) but it has far more to offer than my parents’ town of less than 500 people.  I just didn’t want to go back home, admit defeat, and face the scorn of the people of my hometown.  To this day I still won’t go back for class reunions or alumni events.  Too many people just don’t want to accept that mental illness is real.

As a result of having to abandon my childhood hometown, I had to find other means of socializing.  That’s about the time I signed up for a Facebook account.  The majority of my contacts on Facebook are with people I met in college.  I don’t have that many friends from my old grade school and high school days.  I hear from really only one of my friends from my high school days on a regular basis anymore.  One of my best friends from junior high I haven’t talked to in over ten years.  Some of my classmates I haven’t seen since graduation.  But I did enjoy college much more than high school, even if it was a religious school and I was beginning to question the teachings and dogmas of the religion grew up with even back then.  The majority of my friends from college are still in the same denomination I grew up in, but they seem to be understanding on why I don’t attend church anymore.  I haven’t been a regular in church in almost ten years.  It just seems ineffective and pointless.  People have been praying for cures for illnesses and deliverance from  danger for centuries.  Sometimes they get what they want, sometimes they don’t with no rhyme or reason behind it.  I guarantee the early Christians being fed to lions in Roman coliseums were praying like mad, just like the Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, or the people killed in every other crisis.  I gave up on organized religion once I came to realize that if there is a God (and let’s be honest, no one knows for exactly sure), than God was hap hazard in spreading the blessings and curses around.  If my friends and family want to continue going to church and believing what they do, I refuse to stand in the way.  I just won’t partake.

Once I left religion and made up my mind I would never marry, I had to find other outlets for socializing.  I joined writers’ groups, I took part in mental illness support groups, I volunteered at a museum for a summer, I started writing seriously, I worked on a blog with an old high school friend of mine, I wrote the rough outline for what would be this blog, I wrote rough drafts for two novels, I wrote hundreds of poems and even got a few of them published, I self published my mental illness writings and poems and sold a few dozen copies of those through local bookstores, I made friends with fellow artists and writers, I made friends with a few smart and eccentric people even in Section 8 housing.

Sadly several of my old friends in my apartment complex died in the last couple years.  I left my job at the county courthouse once I found out I could live on my disability pension and could get serious about writing.  Several months after I left my job at the courthouse I started this blog.  As the months went on I started getting a bit of an audience.  I found out I have a talent for putting ideas and words into written form.  At first I did this blog only every two weeks.  I was getting a few readers that way.  After a year I decided to post once a week.  I started getting more readers and some feedback.  Found out I was fulfilling a niche in the writing market that many people don’t know exists.

Mental illness is a problem that isn’t going to be swept under the rug anymore.  With more people feeling stressed about possibly losing their jobs to automation and globalization, people my age bracket and younger realizing that in spite their best efforts they won’t have as nice of a house or the job security of their parents and grandparents, and people just being depressed and stressed about the changes and crisises going on that we hear all about because of mass communications, mental health issues are going to be affecting more people.  And I’m writing about life with mental health issues, not having traditional employment, and having to make meaning and purpose in my life inspite all that has happened in the last twenty years.  And I will continue to post these blogs.  I don’t care if I make a dime off my writing anymore.  Most writers don’t make anything off their writings anyway.  I just want these writings to stick around for a long time and maybe make a positive difference for those affliceted with mental illness and their loved ones.

 

Stability With Schizophrenia

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I’ve been on my current medications for about five months.  In that time I was able to avoid my traditional late summer breakdowns.  I’ve also gotten more physically active and more careful about what I eat.  In short I’ve entered a prolonged state of stability that I haven’t experienced in a few years.  It’s a good feeling.

I have been feeling much less easily irritated for the last couple months.  I’m back to a regular sleep pattern.  I am convinced that regular sleep only helps with mental illness.  I tend to be more irritable and have more hallucinations when I haven’t been sleeping well. I have been doing quite well the last several weeks.

I have taken three medications for my mental illness for the last five months.  One of the meds is an anti anxiety medication I take as needed.  It really works to alleviate anxiety but it does make me sleep a lot.  But it was one of those medications I had to take only as necessary.  I haven’t needed to take it for over three weeks.  I have been doing well in terms of dealing with anxiety.  I get out of my apartment more often and am able to run my errands.  I still don’t socialize as much as I had in the past.  Much of my socializing comes online anymore.  But many people’s social lives are based online these days.

In short things have gone quite well the last couple months.  I made it through the summer, I’m back exercising again, I’m eating healthier again, I’m getting better sleep, I’m managing my anxiety and depression better.  It’s going really good right now.  I hope to keep it going.

Change of Season, Change of Mood, Change With Age

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The weather is cooling off, especially over the last few days.  The nights are almost as long as the days now, some farmers are beginning the harvest, farmers’ markets are open all over the place, and I’m getting outside more.  I’ve had my windows open the last few days and I’ve pretty much stopped using my air conditioner.  Yes the change of seasons is upon us.

I for one am glad that summer is over.  Mentally I’m just not very stable during the summers.  And I never could figure out why.  I didn’t experience any true tragedies or trauma as a child.  I was bullied in school but I know kids who got it worse than I did.  I’m thinking many of my problems during the summers stem from dealing with the heat and humidity.  I never did like hot weather.  I like spring in the fact that there are still cool days but not weeks on end of hot weather.  And I like fall because of the cooling weather, the fall leaves, and I’ve always enjoyed fall activities more than summer.  I’m sure that being overweight doesn’t help in dealing with hot summers, let alone dealing with a mental illness.

Mentally I was more stable this summer than most previous summers.  Even though I couldn’t do much with a bad back I was still pretty stable for the most part.  Now that I’m healed from my back I am getting outside more.  I am also eating less too.  I can tell my stamina is coming back, more slowly than I would like but it’s still coming back.  I think that I have made it through the roughest part of the year already.  I hope that things keep getting better.

I have noticed a few changes with my mental illness over the last few years.  I can tell that things that used to bother me real bad don’t bother me as much.  If I had dealt with a problem a few years ago, I’d be angry for an hour or two.  Now I’m over such things in only a couple minutes.  I’ve become more accepting of the illness now.  I’ve accepted that I’ll never have a great career or a family of my own.  This used to bother me real bad as recently as five years ago.  Now I’ve just accepted it and planned accordingly.  Since I see that many of my friends are having problems at their jobs and marriages, I’m actually thankful in some regards that I never got to go that route.  I have the problems of a mental illness but I don’t have the problems of a stressful job and hectic married life.  I have a mental illness but I don’t have as much stress and pointless drama as my friends.  And I love it.  I don’t have much money or prestige but I do have peace of mind.  I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

End of Summer

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It’s Labor Day weekend in my country.  Many people are going to the beach or having their last party of the summer.  I decided to stay home this weekend.  I don’t like fighting crowds.  It has been a tough summer for me.  Summers are usually tough because of mental illness problems.  But this is the first summer I’ve had in several years that really wasn’t that hard in terms of mental illness.  This one was tough because I hurt my back and spent two months healing.

I’m finding it hard to believe that fall is practically here.  I do pretty well in fall.  I have most of my problems with mental illness in the summers.  There is definitely a seasonal aspect to my illness.  I’m looking forward to the cooler weather and the beauty of the fall leaves.  While I didn’t have the mental health problems this summer I’ve had in previous years, I didn’t get out to enjoy the summer much.  It was a letdown of a summer that stretched for longer than normal.  I’m not sad to see summer end.  I’m ready for cooler weather.  I’m even ready for snow again.  I’m glad that I was able to make it through this summer with fewer than usual problems.  Perhaps my problems with schizophrenia are starting to decrease with age.

Resolving Lingering Problems

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Found out I’m getting my new carpet in the apartment next week.  I have started rearranging and cleaning my apartment so the work can go faster.  I still have another day or two of work before the place is ready to go when the work crew gets here.  I imagine I’ll have to vacate my apartment for a day or two while work is being done.  But I have needed new carpet for years.  Hopefully this can get done quickly.

I am now completely adjusted to my new medications after being on the new plan for four months.  I definitely feel a positive change in my mental health.  I am slower to anger and less apt to fall into depression.  I have fewer hallucinations.  The only time I have hallucinations is when I’m under high stress.  I don’t just go out and wander nearly as much as I used to.  While I am doing better mentally I did gain a lot of weight after hurting my back.  Too little activity and too much comfort food.  Since my back finally healed up a month ago I have recommitted to eating healthier and getting more exercise.  I have given up sugared drinks and most unhealthy eating out.  When I do eat out, it’s usually sub sandwiches or wraps at a deli.  I’m still rebuilding my stamina after two months of inactivity.  It is a slow and frustrating process.  When I was rearranging my apartment I had to take more breaks than I am used to.  It’s going to take a long time to get back to where I was before my car accident I think.

Speaking of car accident, I got my settlement from the accident a few days ago.  I put most of it into savings as I pretty much already have most of what I want.  I did buy some used books from amazon.  They were some books I had my eyes on for awhile but was waiting until the settlement cleared.  These will be my fall reading.  I got lazy about reading when my back was hurting.  I’m only now starting to get back into the reading routine.  My car is still running well even though I still don’t drive as much.  I guess since I became more content with my life and what I already have, I haven’t felt the need to go a lot of places and spend a lot of money.  Buying books on amazon is the most frivolous purchase I have made in months.  I just no longer feel the need to own a lot of things. I’ve been a minimalist for probably two years.  It certainly makes it easier to clean my apartment and keep track of things.  I am glad to no longer have to deal with clutter and junk.  I refuse to be like those people on ‘Hoarders.’

This month of August has involved tying up loose ends and resolving long standing problems.  I’m scheduled to get my carpet and blinds replaced.  I got my settlement from the car accident.  My back is healed.  I’m back to exercising and eating healthier.  I made it through the hottest parts of summer with fewer mental health problems than previous years.  I’m adjusted to my new psych medications.  I’m back to contacting my friends and family more often.  I’m making a regular thing out of this blog.  I’m thankful for the messages I get from you readers.  I know I’m not always diligent about responding to everyone who writes to me.  But thank you everyone who has read this blog and thank you everyone for the words of encouragement.  Maybe I am making a positive difference with this blog.

 

Breaking Up Routines With Mental Illness

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Went to the family acreage for two days over the weekend.  Helped the family with some odd jobs but mainly relaxed.  I was needing a couple days out of my hometown and out of my apartment complex.  Two days of a change of scenery allowed me to realize just how much I missed this summer with back problems.  I’m only now getting some of my stamina back and adjusting to the warm weather.

This has been a tough summer physically.  I hurt my back and I couldn’t do much of anything for two months.  As a result I’ve gained 15 pounds since mid May.  This definitely isn’t what I planned for this summer.  While it was boring to have to spend all my time at home it wasn’t as tough mentally as I would have thought.  Besides the one day when I had a breakdown on two friends I really haven’t had any major flare ups of the mental illness this summer.  I think that the changes in medications I made in the spring have helped in that regard.  It helps that I am intentionally avoiding stressful situations and people.  I still don’t watch much news on tv or internet.  About all I watch on tv anymore is live sports.  During the Olympics I watched more tv in two weeks than I did the last four months combined. I wouldn’t have cable if it didn’t come with my apartment.  I just don’t watch much for regular tv anymore.  Almost everything I want to watch anymore is online.

I can tell that fall is almost here.  The weather isn’t as hot and the nights are getting longer.  The nights are getting cooler and school has started.  I feel like I squandered this summer since I couldn’t do much.  But I’ll just have to make it up this fall.

 

 

Experiences With Mental Illness Blogging

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I’ve been doing this blog for over three years.  And I absolutely enjoy every minute I spend blogging.  I enjoy it more than any traditional job I ever had.  I enjoy it even more than the classes I took in college.  I don’t have to be forced to write about mental illness.  I would do this for free.  I am doing it for free unless I get any kind of advertising revenue or sponsors.  I wouldn’t refuse any money that comes my way even though I am not delusional enough to think I can get off disability pension from blogging.  I have been doing this blog for three years and not made a cent off it.  In my twelve years of overall writing I have probably broke even between selling print on demand books and what I spent advertising my blog through Facebook.  I don’t suppose many people can claim they have a passionate hobby that almost pays for itself.

After spending several years with selling only a few dozen books of mental illness essays and poetry I really had no expectations with this blog.  I didn’t know what kind of a following I would have or even if I would have a following outside my mother and a few friends.  So I set up shop with a free blog site and started writing blogs about what it is like to have schizophrenia to people who can’t imagine it.  This isn’t the first blog I ever did.  A friend and I did a blog several years ago.  It never gained more than a couple hundred views because we were unfocused and not posting regularly.  I did a blog about my poetry for awhile before I found out I wasn’t much of a poet and there really isn’t a great demand for average poetry.

After examining what I liked to read, what I was good at writing, and what I gained good audiences from, I decided three years ago to focus on writing about my experiences with mental illness.  That’s when I gained more than a few readers.  After years of experimenting with styles and genres, I came to the conclusion I do best writing nonfiction essays from the first person point of view.  I had written rough drafts for two coming of age type novels both from first person view.  They didn’t really hold together and I later found out for fiction novels that first person is tougher than third person point of view.

Once I found my niche and style I had a few visitors coming in with every blog post.  After it became a weekly posting I had a few more visitors.  The thing that helped me gain more visitors was posting often.  A blogger simply can’t build any kind of audience by posting only once or twice a month or only when the creative muse moves them.  Most of my favorite individual youtube content creators post several times a week and have for several years.  I’m not at that kind of proficiency, but perhaps I could be if I keep posting material.  I think it helps to get a body of work of several dozen postings at minimum so that search engines can find your work easier.  As of now I have had close to two hundred postings over the last three years and a little over 9,500 visitors from 90 different nations.  There are bloggers (and youtube stars) who get that even on bad days, but I’ve been working at this for only a few years and haven’t done as much advertising as some people.  Being on a limited budget with a disability pension I have to be choosy about what kind of advertising I do as it still costs money to get truly noticed.

Early on in the first several months I got some audience from following other bloggers and leaving positive comments on their articles.  I left nothing but positive comments.  If I didn’t agree with a particular post I just didn’t comment.  I didn’t want to gain the reputation of a troll or troublemaker.  Having a good reputation on the internet is more valuable than gold.  I got some following from following other bloggers and I tried to direct some of my readers to bloggers who helped me out.  But leaving positive comments on other blogs, following other blogs, and trying to refer traffic to other blogs helped me out in the early months.

Even though I have a few years of blogging experience and some following I don’t consider myself established by any means.  I don’t think there can be anything really established as far as the internet and the current information revolution goes.  I was learning as I went when I wrote my first words twelve years ago and I’m still learning new things even today. I was a bit frustrated in the early years when I would get rejection notices in the mail several times a week.  I was also frustrated in the early postings when I wasn’t getting more than a few visitors per post.  But looking back on it, I see how rough and raw most of those writings were.  I’m glad they didn’t get published.  And I’m sure in several more years I’ll look at some of the things I’m writing now as rough and unpolished.  It’s a continuous process that never ends.  I hope to always keep improving as a writer so I can better explain to people what living with a mental illness is really like.

 

 

Dealing With Physical Pain And Mental Illness

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I’ve now been fighting severe lower back pain for a week.  I went to the chiropractor on the first to get my back worked on.  I get to go back in on Thursday for more work.  I hope I don’t have to have many more appointments.  Medicaid will cover only so many chiropractic appointments per year.  I’m working with the same place that rehabbed me after my car accident last fall.

Since I can barely walk now I’m moving from trying to lose weight to just maintaining.  As bad as my back hurts I won’t do any exercise for awhile.  I’m thinking this could be a very long process.  At first I thought two or three days of ice and ibuprofen would be all I needed.  The back isn’t healing as quickly as I hoped.

Naturally this has me slightly depressed and mildly irritated.  I was anticipating being outdoors and walking in the park everyday, just like the previous two summers.  Summers were when I lost most of my weight.  I also decided that I won’t be able to sleep in my bed anymore, at least not until my back completely heals.  I have a recliner I can sleep in.  It is so much easier to get up from sitting down than lying down.  When I was in the chiropractor’s office on Wednesday morning, the chiropractor and I had a tough time getting me off the work table after I laid down on my back.  I felt bad for the poor lady.  But I suppose she’s seen far worse than what I had.

The back pain is more bearable now that I’m not having the auditory hallucinations.  Haven’t had to deal with those for a few weeks.  I’m still not very comfortable with driving as I do tend to be more irritable in traffic than I should.  Fortunately I haven’t crossed over into road rage.  If I can tell it’s not going to be a good mental health day I avoid driving unless it’s absolutely necessary.  But the lower back pain is going to slow down my leaving the apartment and running errands.  Too bad because I need to go grocery shopping in a few days.  The store I normally shop in is a really large store.  I love walking through the isles and seeing the huge variety, especially in the overnight hours.  Since the back is hurting bad, I won’t be able to enjoy that for awhile.  I would hate to think I have to use an electric cart for my shopping.  I mean I’m not that old even if I have a birthday in two weeks.

As I’ve been out of commission for a few days I’ve been spending most of my time at home.  I usually play computer games, watch youtube videos, and check in on friends through Facebook.  I’m starting to get a little restless as I’ve been doing this for several days.  But it’s a restlessness I can do nothing about as my physical health is suffering.  I think this isn’t going to be an easy recovery.  It’s a shame I have to start falling apart physically just about the time I’m getting my mental health in order.

 

Ongoing Readjustments

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I’ve now been working through medication changes for over three weeks.  I see my psych doctor again next week to see if there are any other adjustments that need to be made.  With the newer setup I am noticing changes that are requiring adjustments to the life I had carved out for myself over the previous two to three years.

I now don’t need as much sleep.  Most nights I can get by on six to seven hours and I’m more likely to sleep through an entire night.  I used to wake up at least once in the middle of the night every night.  Even before I became mentally ill I didn’t sleep all the way through a night.  While I am a little slower to get going in the morning I have no other problems with my morning routine.

I read much more again.  For over a year the books on my shelf were gathering dust simply because I wasn’t reading.  For me not to read means something isn’t right.  I haven’t ever needed encouragement to read.  Instead I had to be encouraged to put down the book and socialize.  But I ordered three books through amazon this month and read one of them already.  I have read parts of several other books too in the last few weeks.  For months before this current medication change I would do only audiobooks or educational programs on youtube.  But I’m getting to where I want to read again.  I even went to the library today for the first time in almost a year.  Kind of odd being a writer and not spending time in a library, but that was my reality for most of the last year.

I’m even watching more tv but playing fewer computer games.  Normally I wouldn’t celebrate watching tv.  But for months I found most tv mind numbing and stupid.  I found it so annoying I couldn’t stand to have it on even as background noise.  I still find most tv shows dumb but I don’t find them irritating.  I still haven’t brought myself to try to watch cable news.  But the press only presents bad news because that is what we as humans are drawn toward.  I think we pay more attention to bad news or threats because it is hard wired into our genes.  I don’t watch the news, haven’t for years.  If there is anything I really need to know I’m going to find out, cable news or not.  Besides almost no one I know under age 40 gets their news from traditional sources.

I’m to where I actually want to socialize again.  I am finding myself leaving my apartment more often during the day and for longer periods of time.  I have found a writers’ group that meets twice a month at my local library.  I’ll go check that out next week.  I’m even toying with the thoughts of getting involved in my old writers’ group and mental illness support group again.  I haven’t been involved in either one for two years so most of those contacts are rusty and dusty.  But I don’t suppose it would take too much to get back in.

I’m also on the lookout for writers’ conventions in my home state.  I used to belong to the Nebraska Writers’ Guild.  But I let that membership lapse about two years ago.  Looking back on things, it seems like most my socializing and extra activities fell apart around two to three years ago.  I had my last round of medications changes in early 2014.  The meds I went on then may have helped me lose weight but I lost a lot of social skills and mental stability.

I have not worked on a regular basis for a few years.  I’ve done jobs for the family and temporary work but nothing I had to regularly go in for awhile.  At this point in my life my confidence in my ability to do good work and navigate workplace politics is gone.  If I could navigate the workplace I would be open to going back to work fifteen to twenty hours a week.  It is definitely a blow to your pride and ego to know you did extremely well in school only to get mental illness that won’t allow you to hold even a minimum wage job.  I wouldn’t mind going back to work if I thought I could handle it mentally.  It does get boring at times not having a routine and not feeling connected to anything.  That is why I have zero patience for any one who complains about their job.  Not having a job is worse than having a bad one and not being able to support yourself is even worse.

I actually get bored not having anywhere to go and not having many friends nearby.  I didn’t used to get this way for months.  There would be days I was just content to not leave my apartment at all, especially in the winter.  But I actually want to socialize and be out among people again.  I might even have to go to the movies again just to be among large groups of people again.  I have almost forgotten what that was like.

Being more easily bored, wanting to socialize, wanting to join a writers’ group, reading a lot more, and even toying with the thought of finding a part time job are some of the changes I am trying to manage after three weeks of a medications change.  These are adjustments to my previous lifestyle and they are good adjustments to have to make.

 

Trying to Understand the Workplace With a Mental Illness

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I will give you a head’s up.  This is going to be a serious rant.  And I am going to, at least for this post, stop holding your hand and give you feel good platitudes about the life of a mentally ill individual.  This is a rant that is long overdue.  So here goes.

As a grown man afflicted with a severe mental illness, I readily admit I do not understand the thinking and actions of normal people.  I never have, even before I became mentally ill.  Seriously, there are things you normals do and complain about that seem insane to me.  But since that is the norm instead of the paranoia, delusions, crippling depression,and hallucinations of schizophrenia, the complaints and senseless actions of the normal are not construed as the manifestations of mental illness.

Today I would like to discuss the world of the workplace.  Ever since I was four years old and old enough to listen in on grown up conversations, I have heard adults complain ceaselessly about their jobs.  I’ve heard you complain about how your boss is an idiot.  I’ve heard you go on without end about how incompetent and lazy your coworkers are.  I’ve heard you complain about how unreasonable and demanding your customers are.  I’ve listened to you gripe about how bad government agencies and regulations are hampering your business and productivity.  Since my parents were health care professionals, OSHA was one of their favorite whipping boys. I have heard you normals complain about how mind numbing and soulless your job is. And I have definitely heard about you normals complain about taxes.

Ah, taxes.  Kind of appropriate so close to tax deadline here in the U.S.  You complain about how you pay too much in taxes, how the rich pay too little in taxes, and I have sure heard you complain about how people on disability and unemployment don’t deserve what they get in tax payer funded programs.  As if throwing these people in jail and asylums would be any cheaper.  And to line the disabled up in ditches and kill them is absolutely unethical and uncivilized.  I have heard you normals complain for thirty  years about how bad your jobs and lives suck. I for one am absolutely sick and tired listening to you normals complain about your jobs.  KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!!! And I have to this very day never once heard even one of you idiot normals formulate a plan as to how you were going to get out debt, start that potential dream business, leave that abusive husband or codependent girlfriend, or how you were going to make sure your kids do better in their adult lives than you.  You are the primary reason your life turned out the way it is.  You are the reason you stayed at that dead end job in that dead end town just like four generations of your forefathers.  For once in your life complain about how bad you suck and actually do something to make sure your life stops sucking.  The facts are your job is lousy and your life is lousy because you settled for lousy.  Stop settling, start making great plans, or shut the hell up.

I admit what I have told you is harsh.  But you know what, I am harsh only because I care and love the human race and want to see us go on and keep doing cool things.  We have done some pretty cool things as a species already.  Cooking meat over fire, writing, the printing press, basic education for the young, fire arms, astronomy, mathematics, the steam engine, space travel, the internet, anti biotic medication, robotics, etc.  We’ve done some pretty cool stuff ever since we parted ways with our monkey relatives.  Having purpose and goals to strive for is what drives our species. Monkeys didn’t develop a cool civilization or make great inventions because they didn’t have any purpose or goals beyond mating, eating, and flinging manure at each other.

Having a goal and a purpose is a complete game changer. It isn’t just the brilliant scientists and engineers that need to have the purpose for their lives.  I often think you normals complain about your “mundane” jobs and your current situations only because you have no goals or purpose.  But your job working in a heated office or working with advanced tools on a construction site are anything but mundane.  Such jobs either did not exist or were much tougher even fifty years ago.  And yet here you are complaining about how bad your job sucks and your coworkers are lazy fools. Oddly, some of your coworkers would have the same complaints about you, especially if they saw you at your worst. You, for whatever reasons, killed your dreams as you tried to settle into something safe and secure.  In the early 21st century, being safe and secure and not rocking the boat is death.

I never got a chance to chase my dream of being a medical research scientist.  The schizophrenia killed all chance of that.  Some consider me a failure or a nonhuman because I can’t work a job for my living.  I hear too much of this outdated Puritanical nonsense about ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat’ or ‘by the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread.’  What an idiotic stance.  We are now to where most of our manufacturing work can be done by machines.  It won’t be the multinational sending thousands of jobs to Asia that will be an issue. Soon most manufacturing jobs (even the ones in Asia) will be done by robots.  And many new technologies will replace many old style business models.  Google ‘3D printing’, ‘robotics’, and ‘automation’ if you don’t believe me.  There are even companies in both the U.S. and China experimenting with building inexpensive housing units entirely with gigantic 3D printers.  Shoot, it won’t be long before most telemarketing and customer service call centers will be handled by computer programs.  So will bookkeeping, accounting, and many insurance and finance jobs.   Did those autoworkers in Detroit or steel mill workers in the Rust Belt suddenly become worthless nonhumans not deserving their daily bread because machines can do their jobs faster and more efficiently? Nope.  Will the armies of customer service reps, tax preparers, bookkeepers, finance workers, and other white collar workers lose their status as human beings because they are unemployed because machines will be able to do their jobs?  No.  Does a man or woman only have value because they make money?  Not a chance. Seriously, there are over one billion people on this planet (mainly in Africa, rural Asia, and Latin America) that live on two dollars a day or less. You couldn’t buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s for that. Are they less worthy of their lives because they don’t have much money?  Certainly not. I think these people are quite resourceful and creative to stay alive on such low wages, especially the ones who don’t have debts.

A job does not give a human value.  Never has and never will.  Neither does the size of a person’s bank account.  I know that flies in the face of generations of protestant work ethic and the mentality most Americans have in identifying themselves by what they do for money.  I cringed every time I was asked ‘what do you do’ when I first meet someone.  What do I do?  I breathe, I sleep, I laugh, I cry, I lust, I love, I play Skyrim, I watch baseball, I hallucinate without drugs, I eat Chinese food, I write, I ask questions, I learn, and I am a great friend.  But I know you want to know how much money I make so you can categorize me and rank me.  But it’s quite tactless in America how much money someone has (which is odd consider how much money is revered in this country).  Maybe the upcoming shakeups our civilization will experience within the next twenty years will force us to reexamine how we identify ourselves.  With so many people most likely being without paying jobs because machines and computers can and will do the jobs better, we will have to stop identifying with our jobs and stop condemning those who don’t have work.  We may have to take drastic actions to keep civilization from descending into chaos.  Desperate hungry and homeless people don’t make rational decisions.  We may even have to completely overhaul or tax and social safety net systems.  We may even have to resort to the whole universal basic income to keep the economy afloat and keep civilization functioning.  I love civilized life and not just because I’m bad at hunting and fishing.  I believe civilization has accomplished some cool things, led to billions of people with billions of talents being born through the ages who wouldn’t have been born had civilization never happened.  I want to see this thing keep going.  And things won’t get better by people believing a person has value only as far as they can earn money by their jobs.