Friday, January 13, 2006

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

The week stirs sluggishly to Friday, when otherwise sad, pathetic, socially limited individuals convince themselves that they have something witty, original & intriguing about themselves. The booze & drugs help, of course.
However, there are some who act in such a way regardless of which day it is, or how many chemicals they've ingested. I should know, I work with some of them.
They say that every workplace is a jungle; predators, scavengers, runts, the human versions can be discerned after a while. To this can be added venal. I suppose my workplace isn't unique in this regard. There are times, however, when the backstabbing, petty prejudices, stunted horizons & barely disguised shit-stirring move me to muse that some of my colleagues have every negative & hostile trait hardwired in their DNA.
I used to represent these characters as a union rep. Then I got wise. From naive, idealistic visions of sweeping politicisation to giving up on granite-rock prejudices, an almost autistic recall of trivia & deadening defeatism. Since then I've observed some of these characters in an almost anthropological way.
Marx's famous dictum that conditions determine consciousness still holds water. Yet there are added factors these days. Synthetic & shallow trends provide opiates to the masses; role models come from the netherworlds of chavdom, wide boys & uninformed opinion.

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