We are Sisyphus...

I work in a cubicle. I work in a cubicle and I perform mundane Sisyphean tasks all the live long day. Now when you read about Sisyphus you realize that he was a cruel king who when cursed to everlasting damnation in the afterlife was forced to roll a boulder up a hill just to have it roll back down again for eternity. Granted, my cubicle isn't exactly Hades. There are people to talk to and I get a break from time to time but I can't help but make the connection based on my daily work load. No need to bore you with what it is that I do because you are well aware. It's a cubicle job with all the basic fixings complete with a boss who extends obligatory greetings and is the bane of everyone's existence. He's the kind of guy who comes to every cube in the morning to say hello and actually takes offense if we don't say goodnight in the evening. That would be fine normally, however, in this situation the rank and file employee knows that the goodmornings are just his way of taking attendance and the goodnights are necessary boosts to his extremely fragile ego. We have to make due though. It's a cubicle farm and he's Ol' McDonald.

There are two types of people that spend the majority of their waking hours on the farm. Those too young to be there and those too old to leave. I am of the former and hopefully never will be of the latter. I feel strongly about this. If you are under thirty and sans offspring, spouse, and or mortgage then you shouldn't be in a cubicle. There is entirely too much life still coursing through one's veins to be wasted in the manipulation of documents. This is not to imply that those older cubicleians with the aforementioned entrees on their proverbial plates are without vitality but they no longer have that ability to just up and go. Those of us that can survive a career switch should do so post haste. Why, you ask? Listen, it may be a living but it's a crappy life.

Working in that little 6x6 box is like playing some sort of poorly thought out video game wherein the hero doesn't do anything but his power depletes a little bit each day until he's done. The strangest thing about the job is that no matter how chipper and full of vim and vigor I am on the way to work, the moment I cross my office building's threshold I'm drained. At first I didn't understand why, but I now know it's a function of taking my place in a large machine that seems to crank away from 8 to 5 with a one hour respite and produce next to nothing. Do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of one of those Rube Goldberg machines.....

Simple...

I have always been attracted to antiques and the way things were done in the past. For instance, I shave with a straight razor. I lather up with the beaver hair brush and ever so gently run the blade across my cheek with a mind to have a baby soft face. I play LPs, that's right vinyl, on my phonograph. Granted, it's a new fangled doohickey with a CD player and cassette deck but that doesn't take away from the joy I get from hearing that initial crackle of needle meeting wax. Things somehow sound better on a device which you can't dance around for fear of making your favorite song skip. Tobacco is preferable from a well broken in pipe and time seems somehow more precise when I click open my pocket watch. The golden age of radio stirs my imagination even though it's coming to me live from nowhere via satellite radio. Film for my antique cameras is nearly impossible to find but when I come accross it I'll take some nice shots with my grandfather's old Kodak Brownie or my uncle's Argus 8mm he used in the Korean War.