It’s hard to give a fuck today
Uploaded on May 5, 2023
I’m at the skate park today – May 4, 2023. I’m playing hooky from work. I don’t give a fuck — I’m supposed to be fixing some bullshit that I coded and did a terrible job on because I hate the work. I was actually supposed to fix it yesterday, and if I was a good boy, I would have signed on at 9 am this morning and told a project manager that I fixed it. But I didn’t fix it, because I played hooky from work to skate yesterday too.
I’ve been thinking about the phenomena of skateboarding tricks being easier to land when you do them fast. Performing a trick fast, with no fear of failure, is the platonic ideal of skateboarding. But the times when you perform a trick with that sort of confidence – full speed, and with no arms out to catch yourself in case of failure – is when you really get broke off. Would I be a better skater if I skated faster, with more confidence? Maybe.. or I push my luck a little too far and end up with two broken legs.
If I had more confidence in my abilities and talents, I might be getting paid to do something that I actually gave a fuck about. Maybe I could make websites that promote community, and bring people in my neighborhood together. Or get paid to travel to foreign countries and take pictures — seeing and documenting things that are new to me, outside of what’s easy. I’m just dreaming..
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Back at the skate park, I take a break from skating and my mind wanders. “I should quit my job and try freelancing again”. I open Instagram. Some guy who went to RISD just got promoted to partner at a Chicago-based design company. “I should hit him up, let him know I can code, we can both make money.” His profile shows that he designed a website celebrating the south side of Chicago, produced by the University of Chicago. So great of him to work on such an “inclusive” project with an institution that has such strong roots with “its community” in Hyde Park.
I keep scrolling, I see a video of a man “vigilantly” stopping a middle aged woman from stealing food from a box store.
As the seams of the “first world” begin to visibly tear apart – when all of the backs of the people who the world is built on are broken, and “the market” demands that labor is required from children who don’t have their own bills to pay, but rather their parents’ (1) (2) , truly, what the fuck is the point of working hard, or trying to create “meaningful” work.
Do I want to continue working hard, stacking paper to buy a house? So I can stack paper faster? Do I want to live in a castle and look down at the people sleeping on the sidewalk? With all that paper, I could give even less of a fuck when I throw away money playing blackjack or paying Adobe for software that I rarely use.
It’s not easy to give a fuck today. If you put your head down and work hard, with pure, holy intention, you might get rewarded for it. But what’s the point if when you bring your head back up again and look around, you’re just an asshole with a trophy in hell?