Sundays Bite

I have always hated Sundays. It is not that Sundays in themselves are bad, it's that they lead to days that are - Mondays. Mondays always promised something bad.

When I was a kid, it was school. I never liked school. Who did, really? School was a widget factory that manufactured well-behaved, productive contributors to society. It was a 12 year prison sentence for bad behavior as little children, during which we were rehabilitated to "fit in" to adult society. Plus, the inmates, the other kids, behaved like inmates, and I don't miss them.

As an adult, Monday means work, which is not much better than school, except you get paid for it. Just like school, I sit at a desk all day and do what they want me to do.

Therein lies the existential problem that confounds me: after doing what "they" have wanted me to do for so many years I have forgotten what I want to do. Right now, it feels like I do not want to do anything. I go through the motions five days per week, rest on the weekend, and do it again the next week. I suppose it is the luxury of a privileged society to be able to do what one wants, but it is hard not to want it for oneself. I would love to be one of those Pollyannish optimists who "loves what they do" and "look forward to going to work." I envy them, even as I want to smack the smiles off their faces. But I learned to "be a good boy" at school, so I keep my hands to myself.

When you spend your life learning how to be a good boy, what do you really learn? Nothing. You know how to behave, not how to live. You know how to be who others want you to be, not who you want to be. You develop a pretty cover to a book with nothing written on the pages.

I could go on, but it is beginning to sound like one big "blaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh." Funny, that's what it feels like, too.