I am a prostitute.
Perhaps not the in the traditional sense- I am hardly a real life lady of the evening- but every day i dread coming to work and when I am here i feel like this job and what i do are no more than a sort of coporate prositution (masterfully massaging the metaphorical testicles of old & weathly adopters to keep them content and coming back for more). but then, i wonder if all of life is not really like this on some level- doesn’t it always comes down to you boucing around with a ball on your nose like some damned circus seal to prove to people how smart, how talented, how dedicated you are? How worthy you are for whatever job you are applying for , how much of an asset you are to whatever organization you hope to belong to: highschool, college, gradschool? Even holiday volunteer work wants you to show them that you are serious about donating your time for free. Children are being asked to learn to tap dance for their respective approvers earlier and earlier- pre- pre kindergarten classes want the kids to already know their shapes and colors before they enter, taking IQ tests before they are old enough to recognize their names on the top of the page. Their early resumes are as long as their first bowel movement. All of this to determine to smart, how extraordinary, how special your child is and what percentile ranking does your kid fall into. And why? Beacuse this way of thinking prepares them for their lives ahead- their whole lives will be measured on these initial size-ups. They will spend the rest of their existence, trading and selling themselves to either accenuate or move past these initial measurements where size ( intellectually speaking, of course) does matter. So they spend their whole lives, which stretches out before them in an endless conrete road from here to the horizon (thanks, modern medicine!), trying to figure out new tricks to perform in order make their work speak for itself. Because the sad truth is the work never does. The only things that matter are how fast you can type, how quickly you can answer email, and how quickly you bend that arse over & touch your toes for the revieiwng pleasure of approving body.
I hope you’ve been stretching ladies and gentleman. It is going to be an exhausting life.