Cubes and Chaos

Cube life during the holidays is a bizarre time. The corporate machine pretends that it is going to surge into the new year with all cannons blazing, setting records, making sales, crushing competition and always putting the golden calf on the alter of the almighty dollar. The reality is the last two weeks of the year watch that great machine grind to a virtual halt. More than 60% of the workforce is on vacation for some length of time and as a result nothing really gets done. The parking lot is empty, the cafeteria is empty, the normal lunch hotspots are barren accept for the few high school and college students still on winter break. It really is not a bad time to work if you have the motivation to do so. There is no one around to harass, bother or otherwise distract you. However, the motivation to work at more than 30% efficiency when the rest of your fellow cube dwellers are on vacation is nonexistent.

What I find fascinating are those people who really do feel the obligation to push harder during this time. They seem driven to make a point, to prove something to anyone who cares to watch that they are true workers and they will get shit done come hell or high water! If you even mention to them that they take it a bit easier, or *Gasp!* leave an hour or two early, and they just about lose their minds. I can almost see the 1’s and 0’s behind their mental processing slow down and repeat a simple message DOES NOT COMPUTE…ERROR…ERROR. These people are not aberrations. I would actually say they are in the majority. They won’t leave early, they won’t taper off their workload to any appreciable degree, and they won’t indulge in a slightly longer lunch or a slightly later start to the day. They just keep charging forward, bayonet in hand, bringing conquest to the cube trenches. I might find it inspirational if I was not so diametrically opposed to this way of thinking. I honestly can’t help it anymore than they can. I think I am one of those people who saunters through life with both middle fingers raised in defiance of the established order. I have no problem leaving early, taking longer lunches, and sleeping in a bit, especially during the holidays. I am not offended or threatened by the hardcore workers who obsess about every minute they spend at work, but I have given up trying to communicate with them. I can’t understand their need to abide by the unwritten codex of day-to-day “rules,” and they can’t understand my need to flow around walls, through cracks and into the nebulous “grey area” where rules are mere guidelines, not law.

This might make me sound like a bit of an anarchist, which is not the case. I respect law and order and understand that it is the glue that holds families, businesses and governments together. However, I am always going to be a small point of chaos in that sea of structure. It is not something I would change in myself even if I had the will or the power to do so. I like going against the grain. I enjoy not walking the path I am supposed to. Once upon a time I was on track to the “ideal” life of the gingerbread house with the white picket fence. The sun would rise and set like clockwork and I was to be a champion for structured and ordered life. Then the train jumped the tracks, and once you set down the path of chaos there is really no turning back. You see everything with different eyes. You crave the unorthodox and the extreme. You respect order, but you rail against it. You never do what you are ‘supposed’ to do, and even when it seems you are behaving and following the path, you are actually bending enough regulations to take your so-called “proper action” to the edge of normal. To those that plan and count and measure, I respect your ideology and the path you walk. But do not fear disorder. Do not shy away from that little bit of chaos in your day-to-day world. Do not feel discomfort when an ambassador of discord, like me, challenges the status quo and unravels a bit of the yarn that is the “normal life.” Sometimes we have to destroy in order to create, to upset the established order to advance, to open our ears and listen to what the universe is telling us…if Mother Nature tends towards disorder and chaos; if she drinks at the fountain of entropy; then who are we to argue?

What is Failtown?

Failtown. We have all been there. No matter how perfect we are (or think we are), sooner or later all roads lead to Failtown. Have you ever been walking on a seemingly perfect day…the sun shining, the birds singing, a quaint smile on your lips, your thoughts drifting to wondrous places…then BAM!!...you walk straight into a tree. Welcome to Failtown. Have you ever driven in Minnesota shortly after a snowstorm? Look to the ditches. You will see Failtown #1, #2, #3…and if you look closely you will see tracks leading deep into the ditches that bare witness to once thriving Failtown communities. Have you jokingly asked a coworker, “You look like you are in really rough shape today, lose a pet or your girlfriend?” Only to have them look up with red eyes and the simple reply, “Both.” You guessed it…welcome to Failtown.

Unless you are living under a rock there is a very good chance you have seen, or at least heard of, the fail blog (http://failblog.org/). I love this website almost as much as I love chocolate, and it is a page completely devoted to those that dwell in Failtown! There is nothing wrong with visiting Failtown. We are bound to travel its winding roads, spacious causeways and scenic paths sooner or later. Failtown is my own personal reminder to never take each day too seriously. At least once every day I visit Failtown. This morning I took milk out of the refrigerator, poured a glass full, put the glass in the fridge and the gallon container on the table where my glass should have been. Yes, I was half awake, but in that half awake state I found my way to Failtown. I managed to follow that visit up with a return trip at lunch by chugging some incredibly hot tea with absolutely no regard to its 211.999999 F temperature…if I had not lost the use of my tongue from the burning liquid I would have proclaimed myself the Mayor of Failtown.

When people come together for the holidays they get warm fuzzies for the gifts and food, smiles and hugs, and the general feelings of goodwill. People will sit before a fire and cuddle, or pray around a table and share a sumptuous meal, or maybe they will just curl up by themselves with a book and drift into the night. I am not going to proclaim a trite and cliché message of, ‘Peace on Earth and goodwill to all!’ Rather, I suggest that this holiday season we share our stories of Failtown. This obviously is not the only way people will occupy their time, but more often than not, stories of our personal trips to Failtown are amusing, if somewhat self deprecating, and sometimes the gift of a laugh or a smile can fill gaps no amount of money or food will ever truly satisfy. If you have a dark sense of humor like I do, there is a lot to laugh at in these volatile times; climate change, economics, war…sometimes I think all of our combined visits to Failtown have led us to a darker, more cynical version of Disney World…Failworld. As individuals there is not much we can do to change this, but since we are all on the same Failworld rollercoaster I would make a single suggestion. Throw your hands up, take a deep breath then and scream like a crazed monkey. There is no escaping the rollercoaster of Failworld, and since we are all here we might as well enjoy the ride.

A House Called Serenity

I used to have a lot to say. I am a talker by nature, and I have been known to monologue on occasion. I talk to complete strangers at the drop of a hat, or talk to myself when no one is looking…or within earshot. But I also used to sit and write far more than I have the past few months. I would get an idea, have a powerful feeling or get lost in a dream and then I would write. I would spend long hours staring into the darkness, hovering somewhere between the waking world and the eternal dreamscape, or I would sit and watch the dying embers of a fire, and there I would find my voice. I would find words, thoughts and dreams and I would write. However, lately it has been hard to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Have I lost my muse? Have I entered the halls of silence and my words no longer ring aloud or taste of truth? Perhaps I have grown boring at my ripe old age of 29 or maybe my existence in corporate America has robbed me of the fire I once had; the undying need to express and share. Have I transformed into the automaton I long feared becoming? Looking back at each time I have sat and put my thoughts to whatever medium was present, whether it was a journal, notepad, napkin or word file, I was always in some sort of turmoil or pain. There would be strife and conflict, pain and endurance. The clash of steel, the screech of the four winds…scars in the making.

Why have I had a hard time writing? Because despite my great love of communication, I don’t know how to speak in a silent catacomb. I can’t hear my own voice in the corridors of calm and silence and it is unnerving. These past months I have found peace, and peace built me a house of serenity. I don’t know when it happened. Maybe peace found me when I was unaware, or maybe we found each other, but for the first time in my life I am enjoying a feeling of oneness and calm. Peace of mind and body. The heart and soul are another matter, but the language of my heart and soul are some combination of English and Latin, wolf and dove, crackling fire and Nordic wind, and to be perfectly honest I have no idea what heart or soul are saying most of the time. I suppose that is why I feel emotion. Maybe it’s my heart’s way of trying to communicate with me. Perhaps that is why I pray; in hope of a higher power helping me to understand the language of the soul. Regardless, I don’t feel like a hammer crashing against the anvil of the world. I don’t feel like an unshaped piece of iron being pounded between the anvil of yesterday and the hammer of tomorrow.

I wish I could say it was something profound that brought me to this place. That would certainly make for a better story, but in truth I think it was a bunch of little steps. A left turn here, a right turn there…a few crossed streams and a few more mended bridges and suddenly I am standing in an endless corridor of calm. There is color here. There are sconces and tapestries and the persistent fragrance of rose and cinnamon. It’s a wonderful place, it is just very hard for me to speak in this world. I am afraid it would diminish the experience; that it would shatter the image. I just need to have a bit more faith and use my voice once again. For those few that read this, you are hearing my voice as I am…for the first time. It has been a tumultuous past few years, and they have covered the entire rainbow of emotion; of love and hate, pleasure and pain. But I am sitting here on a frigid December night, drifting in my music, enjoying a drink, a stupid smile on my face, wondering what tomorrow brings. Alone, but calm. Tired, but at peace. I still have my inner fire, but it burns in a home called serenity and I hope it remains there unto the ending of my days.