From childhood on to adulthood we are told to do more and improve to be better than we were yesterday. In America we are propagandized with the idea of the American Dream and if you work hard you too can have the house and white picket fence and all the toys your neighbors the Jone’s have. We are sold this dream, this idea, a marketing tool if you like, to buy more stuff and have your job own you. There are so many highly successful miserable people in America that maybe the dream is actually a nightmare. Suicides rates and the divorce rates prove one thing. We aren’t happy. What is happiness?
Maybe happiness is lying on the couch after bong hits, eating ice cream, and watching mindless TV. Someone doing that isn’t causing any trouble. They aren’t crashing the economy or going on spree shootings. People with motivation do such things. Maybe America as a country needs to calm the fuck down. Sure sleeping in may hurt the energy drink business which has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. We need more naps and less appointments. In the simplest of terms we need to slack off.
I’m Tony Recluse and I am a slacker. I have been this way since I was a kid and I knew I could pass with a 65. This meant I could work my ass off in the fourth quarter to average 65 or more by the end of the year. Sure I enjoyed history and would have loved more social sciences. I looked at the point system as pointless. After I received a summer school diploma I was compelled to go to college by authority figures at the time. This was a mistake I wasn’t ready for college at the time. In hindsight I should’ve worked at the local factory out of high school and save money for a sabbatical internationally instead of buying a car and paying way too much on car insurance as eighteen years old do. That two fifty a month I could have saved. Especially since the piece of shit I drove was five hundred bucks. However I had to drive to college after spending a twelve years being a terrible student. Due to student loans I took a call from a military recruiter seriously. Maybe the Marine Corp wasn’t a good idea for a slacker like myself but one thing I did learn is that I could live a structured life with discipline. However that didn’t mean I wanted that life and I lasted four and a half weeks in boot camp. I came out worked convenience stores and multiple retail store that no longer exist.
There was a time I believed in the dream. I believed if I work eighty hours a week on salary I’d be paying my dues and things would get better however instead I got screwed and became bitter. Life would fall apart and I vowed never to play the game again. Instead what I have learned is that you have to make your own rules. I’ve minimized to renting a room, I ride a bike to work so I don’t have to pay extortion money to insurance companies, and I don’t need the promotion at work to survive.
As you work our way up the corporate ladder someone underneath will happily knock you off to take our spot. Its stressful everyday wondering if last months bad inventory will cost you your job. Now you need antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication because your mind can’t handle this because of course. No one can handle the pressure of losing everything they have built. Eventually you might get to retire and maybe the marriage survives but your health is depleted because those legal drugs prescribe will take their toll on you. Doctor’s bills go up and its time to take out a reverse mortgage to pay off any medical bills and downsize either way.
This will be a recurring segment on this blog about rebelling against the status quo and slaughtering the sacred cows of common sense. I’ll go over politics, religion, economics, and employment. It will cover all aspects of life with a contrarian point of view to pop culture. The slacker lifestyle isn’t for everyone but maybe it’s for you.