Escaping the Gerontocracy

No one is coming to save us.

I hit a rough patch over the past few months, mentally and physically. I did what I always do: shook up my life and reawakened the soldier within.

Of course, life’s hardships come in threes. I broke up with my girlfriend, my car got repoed, and one got lost to the aether. Most people would have spiraled into a drunken stupor or given up. But I felt the warmth of familiarity wrap around me. I smiled and hit the Reebok Express. I have walked 30 miles, worked 68 hours, and lost 15 lbs in the past week. I find myself neither hungry nor wanting to sleep. I just walked 5 miles home after a 10-hour shift, and I am wide awake. I sit here and stare at this screen, hoping to be productive and create something that will touch the lives of enough people to gain more subscribers. My bills are all paid up again, and I am awaiting a phone call to go pick my car back up. The truth is, though, that I am not even sure if I want it back. I am rather enjoying picking flowers on the way home and finding myself loving the walk and the sunsets and sunrises I see each day, as I eat as much as I can fit onto my plate at work.

I have found that I am often better under pressure than I am when I am comfortable. Maybe it is a lifetime of hardships, violence, and struggle that has acculturated me, and I can’t enjoy peace. Like some strange institutionalization, but without the bars, walls, and razor wire fencing.

There are moments when the sun rises, and the oranges and pinks fill the horizon, when I find myself longing for another, but I soon remember the pain and the reality of what things are, and come to my senses. Those moments of loneliness are dwarfed by the love of the ride and the feeling of uncertainty. The feeling of not knowing what tomorrow brings, but excitement for what could be. I walked through the Bass Pro parking lot, checked out the boats in the discount corral, and told one of them I would be back for it. That’s my favorite feeling. The waves of the river lapping against the hull as you lie back staring into the night sky, waiting on a catfish that may never bite the bait. Anchored out, closing my eyes, surrounded by the smell of the sun’s radiation and two-stroke oil.

What is the point of life? To work till we are nearly dead fucking the same female forever? Watching as she is slowly poisoned against you by her boomer family members, friends raised by boomers in a boomer world with a boomer culture? To live long enough to see yourself become the villain? Not because you are the villain, but because you are too busy grinding to defend yourself? Being left with a handful or fewer people who will stand by you? This sounds like cancer.

A world made into efficient interactions with people who used to enjoy your company and come and knock on your door as a kid, just to hang out with you. The world the boomers have created from the glut of cheap energy, which has allowed for their atomization, has left us unable to interact with others on a human level.

I have become a ghost. I find myself wary of even telling my children my birthday for fear of reprisals. The paranoia left by years of ducking and dodging the consequences of this gerontocracy has destroyed my life. I hear around my parts that I died or went to jail for some reason. I enjoy this fact. I am now free to move about the system without worry. When you are already dead, no one can seek vengeance. Your penance has been paid, and the boatman has already collected your debts.

I find myself seeking out others with very little family or history following them. When I am around normal people with a family structure, it bothers me. I hate having to interact with a genuine family structure. Most times it is run by some matriarchal figure whom I want to please and keep happy, but me in a relationship is like a honey badger in captivity; I will find a way to fuck shit up and run off.

Just so y’all know, this is therapy for me. At 43, I am still figuring myself out.

A man said know yourself. I think that is important. But I also think it is important to know how to live with yourself and how you interact with the world.

My children do not have to deal with these same issues because they have never known the hardships I have. My daughters will be a problem, but they have a mom and a dad who love them and are in their lives. The younger generations will be supported and loved. We won’t stand here and treat our children like our parents did.

The idea that you raise your children and then feed them to the system, I think, is dead among most people under 50. There is still the Gen X cohort that needs to be woken up about this. Even the most ardent libertarian retards have come to the point where they are looking at corporations as some of the most evil things in the world. The corporations that decide to replace workers at all costs and act like they owe nothing to the people who built them have turned society against them.

I am torn about the mentality of making money vs being a good human. I know how to make a billion dollars, but I don’t want to. It means harming hundreds of thousands of families and communities across the country. Any programmers out there, hit me up in DMs. I have a project I am willing to share for a 20% cut. I think it needs to be done responsibly, so small operators can eat and transition.

Anyway, I am getting tired. I think I am going to end this here. I hope y’all enjoyed.