Missives From Obscurity

Collectively Unconscious

The other morning waking up was a long, drawn out process for me. I kept dreaming about waking up, instead of actually waking up, all the while aware that I did need to get up to go to work, with the dizzying feeling that I was already late. It’s an unpleasant, strangulated experience.

The awakening part of your mind realizes that the dreaming world you’re partaking in is fundamentally flawed. Like, you’re walking down Fourth Avenue, past Macy’s, but you’re having a conversation with your coworker and best friend, Cillian Murphy… and you’re naked. Or, like, you get up out of bed to feed your cats but the walk to the kitchen is through the halls of the elementary school you attended… and it’s raining inside. Or your roommate is level with the bed, just staring at you, waiting for you to get up, while you burrow into your blankets further… and Cillian Murphy is naked behind her. You’re aware that something is off kilter. Meanwhile, the dreaming part of your mind gets frustrated by your complete lack or inability to give yourself over fully to which restaurant Cillian’s recommending for lunch, the fact that you can’t get the bag of cat food out of the art class cupboard without shattering the ceramic dildos packed inside with it, or your roommate’s hushed “cootchie-coo”.

This is what working at a mind-numbingly dull job is like. Sitting in one position at an office desk behind a cubicle for seven hours a day (or more), part of your consciousness is pre-occupied with the fact that the data entry tasks (or the billing tasks, or the filing tasks) are wholly devoid of any significance outside of the immediate circumstances of your job description, that in the real world they are pointlessly repetitive and ultimately not very worthwhile, while another part of your mind prattles on, enticing you with promises that this is a good and right expenditure of your valuable life force that keeps you gainfully employed, health insured and financially stable.

It is such a relief to emerge from that dreaming-you’re-waking-up state, to have the world solidify and stabilize (and Glory Hallelujah Hosanna sing-it-from-on-top-of-the-mountain if on top of that, it’s also a Saturday and you don’t actually have to go to work after all!). You know where you are, you know that your next course of action will yield logical results. You know you’re naked (at least, I am when I wake up) but you don’t have to pretend that Cillian’s Taco Bell suggestion is anything but vastly inappropriate and disconcerting. You know the cat food is located in the kitchen, through the living room, in a cupboard full of nothing more than plastic bags, cat toys and cat treats, none of which are even remotely phallic. And you see that your roommate is still in bed, asleep and would never even utter the phrase “cootchie-coo” to you in real life, let alone freaking you out with it… right?... she wouldn’t… right?

Similarly, it is such a relief when the clock strikes five (or six, or whatever time is time to go home) and you can emerge from your job-induced stupor, shake off the sluggishness, and awaken to a world where you can preoccupy your mind with light, air, water, music, poetry, sex, food, anything other than billing codes, proper encoding procedures and ten key speeds! You are reminded that you have a body built for sensuality and self expression through physical exertion, a mind buzzing with creative potential and the capacity for great acts and immense empathy, and a soul so expansive that you could never be measured by such insignificant standards as a salary, job title status, dress code adherence, or your proficiency with Microsoft Word.

(P.S. Weirdly enough, I was recently coming home from work for lunch, walking down Seattle’s Fifth Avenue, under the monorail tracks, when, coming toward me, was a naked man, shuffling down the street. He was tall, a bit overweight, hairy all over and I don’t think he was entirely aware of what he was doing. This incident inspired my reference to walking downtown naked in the above blog entry. I guarantee you, there’s nothing quite so disgruntling as to have to wonder… so do I exist, or am I merely a figment of that man’s fevered dreaming while he’s in bed, dreaming he’s waking up?)

posted by Joseph T. Lopez @ 8:02 PM