Author: Humans Are Weird
There’s something completely demoralising about getting rejected for things you don’t even really want, but tried to get anyway.
Rejection. I’m not used to it. The word barely makes sense to me. I mean, I grew up as an only, Greek, male child, who was good at academia – and, despite my hefty torso, at sport. Solipsistic entitlement – it’s in my genes. What’s worse, I got A’s without doing any work. I won tennis matches, though I could barely run. Sure, I got bullied a lot. Kids picked on me. Called me names. And I was a loner; a ‘quiet achiever’ (who was casually victimised on a regular basis), as they say.
Rejection. What is this nonsense?
Even when things went downhill, when I contracted that fucker of a disease known as chronic fatigue, when my first real tumultuous and long (so fucking long) bout of depression hit me – both waves of paralysis turning up at my doorstep at fifteen-years – I still did all right.
My grades plummeted, and my tennis ‘career’ was called to a meeting in the sewer pipes. But I still managed to get into law school. I didn’t become obese. And I even kept playing tennis and staying fit, inasmuch as it was possible, defying doctors orders and predictions and cynicisms and shit.
Lately though, things haven’t been so kind.
See, I’ve been unemployed for quite some time. I graduated from law school two-and-a-half years ago now. Since then, I’ve been working as a freelancer, aka, unemployed. That’s a bloody long time.
Initially, I was okay with my state of unemployment. Scrap that. In all truth, it was a self-inflicted unemployment. I was writing, full-time. Writing was my job. I didn’t care about getting paid to do something I really didn’t want to do, just to make a living. I had a bit of savings, and the government was kind enough to fuel my flame. Write. That’s all you’ve got to do, mate. That’s your job.
I didn’t just talk about writing, either. I didn’t just think about writing. I wrote. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote some more. No shit.
I finished a novel I had been working on from a few months before graduating. I started, and finished, one more novel. And I’m not far off from finishing my fifth novel. That’s a shit-tonne of writing. Over a million words in five years. (See, with all my free time, I have the time to count that shit.)
Needless to say, I’m not yet published. I’ve tried. And I’ve failed. And it’s been a painful, optimistic, cynical, biting – learning experience. It’s been hell. It’s been heaven. It’s been writing.
But I’m willing to fail for writing. I want to be a writer, full-time. I want to earn a living, doing what I love. And make no mistake about it, I fucking love to write. If I never end up getting published, then I’ll just fucking ask to be buried next to my forty unpublished scrapbooks, a dead, happy little failed writer person – who wrote, a lot.
I love writing. I love to write. I love to have written. Even when it hurts. Even when it seems hopeless. Even when I just don’t wanna. Even when that voice inside me is screaming, JUST GIVE UP AND BECOME A NORMAL PERSON! That voice itself makes for so much of the reason I bloody write. I’m a keep on writing. Cause I love it. Cause I hate it. Cause I have to.
Sometimes it’s tough. Sometimes it’s crippling. But that’s life. Writing. And when you love something, you let yourself keep on bleeding, no matter how much it hurts. That’s just what you do.
Because something inside you is a glutton for punishment. Because something inside you is hopelessly optimistic. Because something inside you just can’t do without the pain, and the joy – and the two having a little tea party, mingling together.
But lately, lately! Fuck. Me. Demoralising is what shit is.
I’ve been applying for jobs for a couple of months now. The flickers of light at the end of the tunnel?
One interview. And one phone interview. Holy fucking shit.
And they’re not even good jobs. Some are copywriting ones. Sure. But most are call centre ones. Even sales ones. Eww! Annoying innocent people at inconvenient times. How annoying! I even applied to be a fucking postman.
Postman Pop. Postman Pop. Postman Pop with overly ambitious frocks.
(Apparently not!)
That’s only half the truth. Truth is, I’ve been applying for jobs for a couple of years now. Which makes it all the worse.
Because, you see, for those couple of years, as I said, I was happy not working. I was applying, more or less, because I thought that I should apply. Cause that’s what people do: when they don’t gots the jobs, they apply for the jobs. Nevertheless, I didn’t really want to work. The lack of interviews, the rejections, they were welcome friends.
Now though, my mind congealed. I want a damned job. I want a damned job and I’m trying and I’m trying. And I’m fucking failing.
And I don’t even really, not really, want a job.
My heart is in writing. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I love to do. Till death do us part. And I will keep doing it, for better or worse, till death do us part. Working, a normal job – I want it as a means to an end. The end, living. The means, writing. (Or the other way around, I’m not sure.)
I want to work so I can keep on writing, in an apartment, with Internet, and a working fridge, and yeah, fuck it, even a PS3 – who knows, maybe, just maybe, one day a PS4?
I want to work. I don’t want to work. And I keep on failing.
And sometimes I think because I’m sending out mixed messages, I’m not getting a job. But I’m not even getting called backs. And writing, resumes, cover letters, I know how to do that. I know how to do that and not even they are working. That new age rubbish is mostly rubbish. Fuck.
What on earth is happening? The apocalypse?
Nope. It’s just life! (What a sham!)
It’s a Manic World.
