Entry #12 - “Foundation of society, anxiety…suppress it if you can" - 4.15.07

Playlist

Song: “Jane Says” by Jane’s Addiction – The Perry Farrell classic acoustically driven ballad about a desperate ineffectual heroin-addicted nymph.

I had to place the Playlist first, as it served as the catalyst for my current train of thought, when compounded with the deep anxiety that I experienced looking through the Help Wanted ads in the weekly paper’s insert.

I’m grossly unprepared for the world at large… and I’m 28 years old. While my peers are out there right now engaging in the world that I assumed I’d die too young to ever engage, I’m in here marinating in a sludge far less healthy than ever I experienced while hustling.

I’ve no marketable skills in the traditional job world. Perhaps this deficit wouldn’t seem so profound if I didn’t have to put down that I’m an ex-con on every job app. that I fill out. Perhaps it won’t make a difference. I couldn’t find a job that I fit into hitherto my arrest, hence my descent back into a commerce I’d refrained from engaging in since my late teens.

Workspaces as a whole have always felt so incredibly fake to me. Cubicles, ties, retail spaces, phony smiles, manufactured sincerity—is this real to anyone? Seriously – who comes up with this shit? Would this world be so bad without it?

The latest New Yorker had a 2-column write-up on a support group for parolees in Manhattan. All the participants seemed to find austere precipitous obstacles to re-entry into society.

I fear that this just isn’t my world. I am not meant for it.

In Farrell’s band’s eponymous masterpiece, he sings, “Jane says…I’ve never been in love. I don’t know what it is. Only knows if someone wants her.”

Among the other exclusions, the one that will likely fuck with me is time lost in the dating pool. Perhaps this seems trite to some, or trivial at the very least. I know that I’ve covered this before. I guess that hearing the song lyric simply re-infused the issue, making it resolute.

To this day, I still question if I’ve ever been in love. I’ve never been good at relationships. In the few I can claim to have had, I choose partners below my league just so I could feel superior. Such is my malady. I’ve lost sleep the past couple of nights realizing some of the amazing women who really cared for me that I passed on without realizing what I was giving up.

The truth is I don’t know the first thing about developing a healthy relationship and I could really use the experience that I’m currently missing out on. How would I respond at this stage in my life? The only part of the mating game that I’m any good at is the one-night stand. I can often figure out within minutes of meeting someone if they want to sleep with me. This may not be a good thing though, as it may have undermined my chances for something deeper. Maybe this is for the better, as I can’t imagine anyone stable intentionally wanting to marry an ex-con. Most likely, when I get out I’ll be encountering a lot of insecure floozies who like the idea of sleeping with a “bad boy”, a role that I have zero desire to play.

In order to fund my time on the outside, I think I’ll start a poll on how long it takes me to develop anything resembling an ordinary life. Ladies and germs, come place your bets.

Playlist, Part 2

TV: 60 Minutes - Tonight they focused on a program in a few select Max Security Pens where Bard College is offering Liberal Arts Degrees to inmates. The fervor with which the participants soaked up the available knowledge was a compelling example of the way the incarcerated desire education. Even with my comparatively abbreviated bid, I could relate.

College courses have been few and far between since Congress cut funding in ’94 for college level classes. The argument was that, in a country where so many civilians can’t afford college, why should we fund the opportunity for criminals? Well wouldn’t it make more sense to make education more affordable for everyone, rather than take it away from a needy demographic?