Frustration.

Hello, World.

     Today has been...difficult for me. Normally, I write musings regarding current events, societal trends, etc. However, today I feel the need to vent my personal frustrations. I hope you do not mind if I speak frankly and unfiltered, though I'd hope by now those of you who do read my ramblings know that is the case in most instances. I will not go into specifics, as I am still fairly private in my dealings (unless either you've traced together the different facets that amalgamate my identity or I have brought you here directly), but I will instead generalize the issues I face.

     The greed of the upper echelons of society have driven the economy into a dizzying spiral of artificially inflated costs. In order to exist in this world of modern peasantry and fiefdoms, we the majority are subject to either mass indignity or outright slavery in order to survive. Jobs that require constant movement, harassing the customers for up-sales, working in boiling heat or extreme cold, or the constant Damocles' sword of deadlines and timers are worth much more monetarily than the business owners are willing to pay. It is this very reasoning said higher ups attempt to cut the cost of labor razor thin, selling your body for two to five times what they pay you to the customer and reaping the benefits of your skills, abilities, or mere presence there. This is atop the doubling or tripling the cost of whatever item is being purchased or used, depending upon the situation. I understand the concept of overhead and profit margins, but truthfully, the gap between inflation and wages has slowly been widening since the Eighties, if not before. Now, said gap is exponentially larger than it has been ever before, and no amount of "overtime" or "extra shifts" is going to fix this problem.

     Thankfully, there are some institutions that assist in times of exceptional crisis, but it seems that every day pundits and politicians scream for their repeal. "Do not feed the lazy," they cry, ignoring that several large scale inquiries into fraud in these systems led to a near nil result. "The virus only culls the elderly," they cry aloud, while two hundred seventy five thousand individuals die on this land's soil. "The doctors and media inflated the numbers to get more funding," they insist, clutching desperately at their six hundred eighty six billion dollar military purse. Businesses defy shut down orders because asking them not to host crowds of people during a pandemic surge is "tyrannical." This inability to focus on anything but money drives us all to madness, and all because those at the top of the pyramid want every single dime.

     The struggle for existence is only a struggle when there are predators looking to eat you every day. Yes, there are packs and groups that temporarily give shelter from the biting winds of capitalism, and cooperation between like-minded parties is a rare boon that passes once objectives diverge. Still, I see the eyes watching me, their icy claws raking at my pockets and my sanity. Advertising rapes my eyes and ears, leaving me staring blankly at a screen as my thoughts ebb and I try to recall what I was trying to originally search for. Earlier today, a police officer arrived to speak to one of my neighbors. I hid inside my residence until he left simply because I did not want him to take any interest in me whatsoever. 

Do not see me. Do not kill me. I know you can.

     Some say fear is an emotion that one should not indulge in, that it is weak and renders one useless. I say that any person that has lived through real trauma, tragedy, or loss has every reason to accept the fact they feel it. In our own way, we have all had to live through situations that we were afraid past all comprehension while still handling said instances. Fear itself does not inhibit our strength as a person, but rather it shows that we are mentally fighting not to fail. Those who have accepted defeat are not afraid, just as those who know that victory is certain do not feel nervous. The fact that we fear for what the future holds means that we are uncertain, but we do not wish for a negative outcome. 

     Fear makes me focus, as it is my natural state to hyper-focus as it is. People say in tense situations or catastrophes that I react very well, but the main reason is that I am so focused on fixing the problem that I seem calm. They aren't there when the seizures take me at night because my mind is overloaded. They aren't there when I wake up screaming or when the crying hurts my chest. All they see is the rest, what I allow them to see. When I drink a liter of homemade absinthe in a few days, they see that. When I come out at eight am to smoke my first blunt of the day, they see that. They don't see that I've been awake since four am staring into a screen or the void looking for a solution to whatever issues I can address at the time. They don't hear the screaming I hear in my mind every morning, the whip cracking again and again to get more accomplished. 

I am spent. Good night, World.