This is it now. This is The Grind, the five day a week, 8 hours a day, too many chores to do every weekend, slow slogging death march. You go in every Monday dreaming of Friday, the weekends blow by so fast your head swivels, and before you can blink.....BLAMMO....you're back at your desk dreaming of Friday. Time marches on and you don't notice it's passing because you have two kinds of days, the WORK days and the FREE days. One's almost as monotonous as the other, marching back and forth like the guards at Winchester and then one day.........
....... you look up and another 10 years have passed.
People are using words like 'wise', 'cynical', 'patient', and 'calm' to describe you, but in your mind's eye you still hold the self-image of a fire-eating sonofabitch who lives to fuck and fight and fight while fucking. The cold shock sears your skull when you look into the mirror and find yourself staring at a dumpy middle-aged peckerwood with blurry tattoos and only a faint glint in his eyes of the fire that used to drive him.
"Live fast, die young" didn't work out so well for those who were too stubborn to actually do the dying part. The Grind wore us down, breaking our spirits and our dreams under the pulsing crush of reality. The Grind presses you between the Rock and the Hard Place, squeezing you until free will squishes out of your ears to dribble down your hunched and shriveled frame.
But I know a secret, a bit of revenge if you will. The secret is your mind, a safe haven for a wary, weary soul, locked safely behind the door of complete and utter insanity. It's a trick I learned on the streets, hanging around the shelters and missions. Those bums aren't lazy, crazy, or stupid.
They're hiding from The Grind!!
....... you look up and another 10 years have passed.
People are using words like 'wise', 'cynical', 'patient', and 'calm' to describe you, but in your mind's eye you still hold the self-image of a fire-eating sonofabitch who lives to fuck and fight and fight while fucking. The cold shock sears your skull when you look into the mirror and find yourself staring at a dumpy middle-aged peckerwood with blurry tattoos and only a faint glint in his eyes of the fire that used to drive him.
"Live fast, die young" didn't work out so well for those who were too stubborn to actually do the dying part. The Grind wore us down, breaking our spirits and our dreams under the pulsing crush of reality. The Grind presses you between the Rock and the Hard Place, squeezing you until free will squishes out of your ears to dribble down your hunched and shriveled frame.
But I know a secret, a bit of revenge if you will. The secret is your mind, a safe haven for a wary, weary soul, locked safely behind the door of complete and utter insanity. It's a trick I learned on the streets, hanging around the shelters and missions. Those bums aren't lazy, crazy, or stupid.
They're hiding from The Grind!!
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
it_thing_hard_on:
Nice name change. Kinda makes all your work on the SB logo moot, though. 
malloryknoxx:
WoW. Quite a thought provoking entry! I had a 9 to 5 job for a few years....I had to leave it becasue it made me want to put a bullet in my head. I've avoided the soul-crushing "grind" to an extent by staying in the restaurant biz - at least I can change my hours around whenever. Others shake their heads sadly at my choice - but my great-grandmother used to say something that always stuck with me - "Most people don't lay on their deathbed wishing they spent more time at the office."