At one point my dad was a Major in the Army National

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I was debating pre- and post- smartphone existentialism with an older gentleman today and he stopped part way through and said “Why are you a security guard? Why aren’t you teaching this at some college somewhere?” And I didn’t know what to say so I went with “Well I used to make art but nobody pays an artist”

I want to invoke thought and wonder and introspection and encourage the passions of every soul I meet forever and ever and dig until I find the glorious potential for creation and experience and joy in every single one but unfortunately I must pay rent and so I stand, a meat shield, an NPC with unlockable dialogue

capitalism brain tells you that anyone interesting must fight to the top

of their interest https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/capitalism%20brain%20tells%20you%20that%20anyone%20interesting%20must%20fight%20to%20the%20top%20of%20their%20interest#and precludes the possibility of everyone everyone everyone already being interesting https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and%20precludes%20the%20possibility%20of%20everyone%20everyone%20everyone%20already%20being%20interesting

At one point my dad was a Major in the Army National Guard. His specialty was in communications analysis, which required top secret clearance.

He also was (illegally) passed over for a promotion/fired from his state job (because in part of missing work because called up by the Guard for a crisis).

Unable to find another job but needing to stay in the state job system for retirement/pension etc. reasons, he took a job as a night janitor.

One evening he was cleaning a bathroom and a man came in and for some reason said “It’s a damn shame what’s happening to Sarajevo.” (This was during the Bosnian War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War in the mid-90s.) “I just can’t wrap my head around it,” the man went on. “What a complicated situation, I doubt anybody can untangle it.” (Something like that, I’m paraphrasing, as it was some time ago.)

“Well,” my dad said, leaning on his mop, “you see, it’s like this,” and explained in very basic overarching terms the roots of the conflict, the major players, and the basic events. It was a very good summary, he’d given it to my religious education class earlier that week when one of the kids had asked what was going on.

The man was briefly interested, but then grew angry, when he realized how much my dad knew. “Why do you know all that!” he demanded.

“Well,” Dad said, “I’m also in the National Guard.”

“But you’re a janitor,” the guy said, and he was like, *really *mad.

“I’m not a janitor all the time,” Dad explained. But the man was furious, like Dad had tricked him, made a fool of him, by being an intelligence analyst disguised as a janitor or something. It was too challenging to his worldview, I think. Janitors aren’t supposed to be educated?

But like. Anybody can do anything. A guy with a mop can be smarter than you. Maybe it’s sort of a waste of time for him to have been mopping a floor, but like, somebody had to do it, and it kept him in the pension system and let him eventually retire early. He learned stuff, mopping floors. The time will pass anyway. And there’s always something interesting to talk about, wherever you find yourself. (Your picture was not posted)