Friday, July 20, 2018

Hamster Wheel


Despite my best efforts I became a hamster wheel automaton again. I conformed and was assimilated by the grind. This means zero reflection. Zero wisdom. Zero pondering. High production. Low humanity. I'm a consumer. I produce and I consume. This is the status quo the 'coastal elite' wish for humanity, and I resist it, but lately I have been sucked into the vortex again. I move from one petty crisis to another. I almost read the news as though it were a summary of current events when I know it's pure emotional manipulation to instigate hysteria so I will buy from the sponsors to cure my hysteria that was created by the sponsors. This is the vile status quo we are all too tired to do anything about. We hope someone else fixes it. I don't know where the time goes and I learn nothing important, like my fellow hamsters chasing invisible cheese.

The specifics of my hamster wheel involve commercial flush meters and the details therein. Flushmeters have diaphragms with relief valves, refill heads and flow rings of varying sizes and colors that control the volume of each flush. I've been in a debate with the tech support of one brand to learn what I can learn. That's my hamster wheel and it's the kind of thing that devours lives. The current Oggy could've really helped the Oggy of 6 months ago.

I do have a few moments each evening when I finish the latest Gunsmoke episode, when I reflect on my day and I get some encouragement that this will end soon and I will be able to reflect deeply and continuously again as is the task of all dime-store philosophers. I wonder if using the hamster wheel as a means to an end is not obviously insane. A hamster wheel stops in the same spot the hamster started running. Will I be any different? No, but I might be able to throw some more nickles at land agents and consolidate my affairs in one location. I'm not sure this matters since I don't even intend to stop exploring so it really means I value the security of my Python skin boots more than I value my own security. The status quo, pre-packaged, valuemart, bargain bin ethics moderator has trained me well. The good, fertile ideas are still trapped in my mind but the machine wears me down until one day I'm selling flushometers to my younger self and I don't remember how I got there or where I'm going. I'm a specialized tradesman with a bad memory and reading glasses like the septic serviceman I talked to today. We're on the same hamster wheel.
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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.