Sunday Night Ramblings

It snowed here three days ago, and despite the weather climbing back up into the upper 30s for most of the weekend, the six or so inches of snow that fell has managed stick around longer than most of us would like. (Longer than I'd like, anyway...) It would be fair to say at this point that I've had my fill of winter and am ready for spring, though not one like last year where it more or less went from winter to summer. At any rate, the storm that came through on Thursday managed to shut everything down for two days, which brought some much-needed R&R. And now, on the eve of going back to the proverbial grind, I find myself dreading the coming five days of long hours commuting back and forth from my quiet exurb town to work and its associated obligations.

What I've come to find in the last few months more than ever is that the wheel of bureaucracy is indeed needlessly slow and painful, and all too often insulting to the intelligence of anyone with half a brain. On one hand, I have come to terms with the fact that to some degree, bureaucracy is just part of life-- for everyone. But at the same time, having been existentially lost for the last several years, I can't help but have a short temper when my plans are marred by pointless policies and requirements put in place by people I deem less than qualified to make those kinds of decisions. I suppose a lot of that is just ego, but I think that there's nevertheless some actual merit to my discontent somewhere in there.

Looking ahead the next few months, my head -- and my gut -- start to cringe. Lots of uncertainty, unknowns and anxiety-inducing situations that have come to define my life. I won't dive into specifics for the reader's sake or my own, for that matter, but I think there's something to be said for a quiet, boring life. At least for a while. Maybe I embody the typical post-collegiate "millennial" or maybe I was going to be a lost soul either way, but I'm tired of wandering around aimlessly. It makes a person cynical and frankly, tired. I'm too young to be tired. I'm looking forward to accruing experience and authority so that when I tell it like it is, people actually listen. That gets back the whole bureaucracy thing, and having to play the part of a spineless yes-man in order to navigate the hazardous path to full adulthood overrun with red tape and self-important, bureaucratic scenesters who love to tell you what they think with an undeserved arrogance that only shows them for what they really are: naive and ignorant pariah with a penchant for worming their way into everyone else's business and then setting up camp there indefinitely.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to ultimately say I'm ready for people to quit talking to me like I'm some untested kid running solely on idealism. I'm a lot more hardened than I let on, and I only keep my mouth shut because I know it will get me into trouble based on the cockamamy rules I have to play by. That doesn't mean that I'm biding my time so that I can eventually take the place of today's bureaucrats; it means only that I'm well-aware of your, well, bullshit. Let's call it what it is. So enjoy the ego-trip when you condescend to me and other people in my shoes. You're only fooling yourself. You're "that guy," and the cool kids know not to eat lunch with him. Cheers.