By Maria Padhila
Discussion of relationships and sex often comes down to whether you’re doing what you want or what you think you should be doing. Likewise discussions of parenting, jobs, art or how to make coffee, come to think about it. I have been hammering on this one to the point of tiresomeness to a lot of people I know, and struggling myself to free myself from the obligatory and make every move according to my own motivation, but I still get caught.
I know from the start that there are places it’s not likely ever to work; I’ve made a devil’s bargain with the “jobby job” as some of my interesting artist acquaintances call it. There, I’m just committed to whittling away what’s actively abhorrent and destructive and getting to what could somehow be rewarding or at least helpful to someone.
It takes an extraordinary amount of energy, and that could be what’s behind the burnout I’m experiencing now. To do the jobby job, most of us have to do it and at the same time try to spread something besides venom or despair — that’s a second (or third) job in itself. Many people who visit this site are of the opinion that lying and compromising one’s Self for the jobby job is just as bad as doing so for a relationship. I would like to be of that opinion, but I’m too sensitive to the consensus reality that most people subscribe to: “We don’t have that option. You don’t understand. We can’t just quit.”
In other words, I’ve got a kid who’s addicted to dance lessons. And eating. And then there’s the health care thing: set up in the United States (as are the standards for conducting business of all sorts) to be based on the fallacy of moral hazard, which says that humans can’t be trusted not to turn into monsters who will eat and fuck indiscriminately until every bit is gone and never clean up after ourselves, if we are not made to Pay Our Way to The Man with every breath.