i don't see the advantages. maturity means subservience. say i get a real job (awful thought), a clerk in a large organization, private or public, it doesn't matter. as a newcomer i see a thousand ways of improving how the company does business. i make a suggestion. the manager smiles and says, 'good thinking. keep it up.' wow, a green light to creativity. i take him at his word. nothing happens about my first suggestion. this doesn't deter me. i make another. this time someone up higher in the food-chain hears about it. my supervisor gets criticized because of the short-coming i've seen. suddenly, i'm a pariah, a whistle-blower.
think back to the third grade. i had more freedom. the teacher applauded my imagination, my drawings hung at the county fair and awarded a blue ribbon. the irony? i couldn't wait to get into the wider world and show them who i was. alas, this applause couldn't last. high-school began clamping down. okay, i didn't care, sex mattered more to me, whispers and kisses in the dark, than expressing myself in public. i became the class clown, undercutting the teachers whenever i could, the trips to the principal's office routine. he told me i'd never succeed. i said i'd rather live under bridges.
and yet, and yet, i could see those who attended college received higher paychecks, and the longer they stayed in bondage to the institution, the more they'd be rewarded. so i did and was, or so i thought. wow, my friends say, 'you've got a job?' when i told them the pay, they insisted i buy them a drink. at that very moment i should have seen the handwriting on the wall. being a alpha male of the university kind would be very costly. maybe i should live on that bench in the park?
no, i desired comfort, a wife in bed for sex on demand, kids who would prove my potency. this meant i must be employed. and the result? i corralled my instincts, accepted 'don't step on the grass'. eventually, i watched the bums going by the window of the fancy restaurant where i dined. and terrible, subversive thoughts overwhelmed me. they don't have phone-bills, or to pay for insurance policies, no time spent cutting the grass or listening to complaints from the other half. i observed them closely. a bum meets a bum and they greet each other like old friends. each has a healthy-looking dog on a string. my god, they can afford pets.
needless to say, this got me thinking they should grow up, get a job, and at the same time i felt the clean napkins on the table worth less than their tattered backpacks. they'd light up cigars and cigarettes, and i'd think they support very expensive habits, how do they do it? i realize they live like children who loved their messy rooms and the world of self-invention. did i miss something, i think, as i dutifully pay the check and leave a 15% tip?
no wonder i'm attracted to festivals and fairs:
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/publicevents
