9/15/26 I hate work in all its forms. Some people seem exceedingly unbothered by their line of work - and tend to give the advice that you just need to soldier on when asking about their strategies for managing overwhelm or boredom - but I can't relate to them in the slightest. I just feel like it's an insult to humanity and the limited time we have on this earth that we should be required to spend 40 hours a week doing pointless work for shit pay, and then be treated like bending the knee is some kind of virtue. Nothing about struggling financially and being constantly drained feels virtuous to me, but I guess that old notion about making peace with the system seems to be the be only path forward. Eat the shit sandwich and learn to enjoy the taste. All tastes are acquired, after all. This experience is made all the more frustrating by the fact that constant griping is evidently unbecoming of a man my age, and the once sympathetic looks from people who recognize the pains of young adulthood have turned sour and indifferent. Everybody has something to worry about, and nobody can be responsible for my misery. Though I wish they could! Or that I could slot effortlessly into a cushy, lucrative remote job and abandon whatever principles and ethics I claim to have. What have they gotten me anyway, other than a false feeling of moral superiority and some good case management stories? I don't want to be spit at by the mentally ill. God bless the suffering lot, but they're a challenge, even with an SSRI. I want to take my coffee on my own porch and work at a leisurely pace to the tune of $100,000+/yr. At this point, even $60,000/yr would feel like a bounty.