We Are Little More Than The Whores Of The Capitalist Machine

Disclaimer: I do not own Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or the lyrics of “I Am The Wind,” which are partially quoted below.

Just like the sun,
When my day’s done
Sometimes, I don’t like
The person I’ve become

They say everything in life nowadays can be obtained through compromise. Compromise your principles and your pride in exchange for the faint promise that your boss won’t see fit to fire you. Compromise your individuality and your sanity in exchange for a steady income that seems to dwindle each time you see those numbers on your pay slip. Compromise your creative urges and your intelligence for monotony, security, and a sense of being part of the social order. Yes, compromise is such a wonderful thing.

I guess it was shortly after I got my first job that I came to realize that the Rage Against The Machine’s philosophy is right. In the current capitalist, corporate society that we’re forced to live in, you only really have two freedoms. The first freedom is to toss aside all sense of freedom, individuality, and sense to work for measly pay in typically dead-end jobs that ensure that the poor get poorer, the workers are exploited, and the slave masters come out smelling like so many roses. And if you refuse to exercise your first freedom, you then move on to the second freedom. The freedom to starve and rot.

So where does that put me and every other unemployed person in the country? We are in the unenviable position of being forced to stay unemployed or become corporate whores. In the corporate world, there is only room for one principle: make money. Your pride, your accomplishments, your personality, your sanity. They’re all expendable, no matter how concerned the HR interviewer might seem about them. The fact is, you sign on that dotted line, and you’ve just sold yourself, your skills, and perhaps even your body to the whims and fancies of the capitalist machine.

In the end, that’s what each and every person that isn’t running a company is. That’s right, all of us ordinary employees are really little more than whores and prostitutes. We’re selling ourselves to the highest bidder and placing everything we have to be laid bare for them to scrutinize us and see if we fit their tastes. If that doesn’t sound like a brothel to you, then you’re obviously as dense as the nincompoop of a man who runs Intelligraph Corporation. Really now, prostitutes sell their bodies for cash. We sell our skills for cash. There’s hardly any difference, except perhaps the fact that your average whore is at least honest about the nature of their job.

Even artists, painters, and novelists have to conform with what the world thinks is marketable, what the world thinks is aesthetic, what the world thinks is art. You sacrifice the integrity of your artistic vision in exchange for what others would think as artistic, as creative, as acceptable. Even the most radical artists have given in and sold part of themselves out just to make a quick buck. The only people that haven’t sold themselves out are the ones that aren’t known, the ones that don’t have a single penny to their names. All artistic integrity and vision will really get you nowadays is an empty wallet, an empty stomach, and just a touch of pride at not having sold your soul to the capitalist machine.

So why do we do the things we do? Because we don’t have much other choice. We work and conform, or we starve and die. We sell ourselves out, whore ourselves to these big corporations and businesses, let them bend us over and sodomize us, because in the world we live in now, we’ve got no other choice. What people see and think about when they see us is utterly influences, you see, by where we say we work.

You mention you work in a call center, and people will imagine someone living the high life. Lots of cash in his pocket and an easy job that just involves talking to people. Mention you’re a doctor or nurse and people conjure up clinics, hospitals, scenes from E.R. and House. Mention you’re a writer and images of book signings, late night moments writing that next best-selling romance novel, and drafts for the cheesy moments in primetime telenovelas instantly appear in people’s eyes. Which rather inspired me to write an essay on why men should watch more romantic comedies. I ought to be finished writing that soon.

The image people see of us is one that is ultimately determined by what our job is, whether we hold a title or position, and whether or not we even have a job. Yes, I’ll go out and say it. Some of us look for work simply because there are people in our lives that think we only matter when we have a steady, honest income. If you don’t have a job, you may as well be beneath their notice. We, as a people, are too concerned with appearances and social reflections, such that if we are unemployed, we are automatically isolated from the rest of the social strata. And we are to be in such exile until we find another job. Sad, hurtful, but it is not merely the truth, it is also a fact.

So the words above ring true for all of us. There are days, I am sure, when each and every last one among us does not like what they’ve let themselves become. Do we not, at some point in our lives, stay up on Friday nights and question whether giving up our ideals, our hopes, our dreams, our souls was worth what little we are getting now? Was it worth it, to seek compromise and accept that which is offered instead of holding out and letting what was a budding vision of grandeur fade beneath a pile of bureaucracy and paperwork?

Honestly? I don’t know.

I can’t presume to speak for everyone. As egotistical and arrogant as I can be, I can’t make that claim. I can only speak for myself and the people I know, the people I trust and people that I’ve shared the trenches of this eternal capitalist war with. All I can really presume is that I speak for myself.

Therefore, what do I say about all this? After the compromises. After the lies. After the kissing up to the boss’ ass. After the polite silence needed to stay employed. After the many nights spend questioning my purpose, my truth. After the sight of so many friends giving up their dreams and toiling away for a paycheck twice a month. After the hours of feeling as if I’d let myself die and allowed an empty shell to take my place.

I don’t like what I’ve become.

Do you?

To end this meaningless prattle, I offer lyrics from a song. This time it is the property of Blink 182, from their song “Anthem.”

We’ve been guided,
We’ve been misled,
Young and hostile,
But not stupid.

Random, Unrelated Note:

It has recently come to my attention that when people look up EduNara on the Internet, they tend to somehow stumble upon my blog. Particularly, the post I put up about EduNara and the experience I had working for them. It seems that my opinion on that particular corporate environment has somehow become some sort of…beacon for all of the disgruntled employees of the company, as well as applicants who aren’t quite sure if EduNara is on the up and up.

My apologies, but I simply did not spend enough time in that particular company to pin down concrete objections and observations. All I can offer are vague hunches and my bits of intuition, though the comments on the place certainly seem to reflect how accurate my instincts were about the place.

Now, if this were Intelligraph we were talking about, then I'd have plenty of ammo.

Another Random, Unrelated Note:

Cecilia & Mint is no more. That story has held that tentative title for so long that I’d actually forgotten it was a tentative title. From here on out, I will drop the Cecilia & Mint moniker and refer to the story as Darkness & Stars. No, the story is still dedicated to her, my perfect rose.