Tomorrow I start a new job. It is not a good job, meaning that it does not pay much at all(10 bucks an hour). I'll be taking yearbook pictures of school children, K-12. I am not looking forward to being the "picture day" photographer to the under aged of this country. In my life now I am never around anyone under the age of 21. The thought of being a constant in a world of under 18 is haunting. If the over 21 can be a dumb, violent, uncontrollable and unpredictable as they have been in my experience then I can not imagine what their younger  brethren could  be capable of. The job is a must, however. I desperately need more money, and once I am sure of my schedule at this job I will start to look for a second. The next 8 to 10 months of my life are going to be dedicated to toil. I am going to work as much as possible to save as much as possible to learn some time management skills to drive myself crazy will mundane activities to dry out my system of this soggy laziness which has plagued me to teach myself a lesson or two to feel exhausted again to run myself ragged to get the most out of my time to not be in this house to squeeze the sweat from shirt to need a shower and a change of clothes to never have to pawn my camera again to get my gear out of the pawn shop for good to get exactly what I need to do exactly what I want and that is a new camera a new computer some classes on photoshop and maybe video editing and adobe illustrator and the rest of the adobe suite to acquire a passport and finally get a NV drivers license to save enough to buy a car and one year of insurance so I can get another job probably delivering pizza so I can earn tips so I can make more money and pay off other debts I have accrued to better my credit score to attain a credit card or two to get by if time get tough again so I don't have to resort to pawning my gear or taking out loans with apr's that resemble batting averages of hall-of-famer's. And that, my friends, is a run-on sentence, and that is a metaphor for my life. On and on without punctuation, problems run into one and other without solutions in sight or an end at all. There is no end in sight. Not at 10 bucks an hour. My goals will not be reached in 8 to 10 months. They will take years. I'll only be able to save around one hundred dollars a month. That means it will take me nearly 10 months just to get all of my gear out of the pawn shop and three months to get a lens out, and keep the other two in the shop for another month. At the end of the next month,  I'll have to spend 50 bucks of the hundred I can save to keep the other two lenses in the shop for three months in which at the end of those I'll be able to free one. Then it will  be four or five more until I can get the last one out, and this scenario is if nothing out of the ordinary happens-- if nothing goes foul, as usual.
Needless to say, something has to change. I can't just make 10 bucks an hour. I can't waste 40 hours a week for 400 bucks. I need to make 400 a day. I need to be taking photographs. I need to make a difference instead of barely making a dent. My time is worth more that this, but I would gladly take a job if I was offered the same 400 for 40 if that 40 was mine to take photos where and when I wanted. Then it would not be wasted. I despise the idea that in order to survive in this city on this planet in this time I must throw away half of my waking hours to bullshit movements which signify not a thing but meaningless toil. That in other to maybe make some difference I have to give up half of my life. The planet would be better off if I could do as I please. My photographs could make people think, feel, they could inspire one to create, could motivate one to speak up, could do something positive and never anything negative, in this world I could add order thus decreasing chaos thus giving life to positivity and killing negativity.  But I am not allowed to create full time. This world has to suck you dry, beat you down, dull your brain, cut at your creativity, and it wants to make you less of an individual and more of the same. Just a muddy minded machine. Just a man who works to consume to work to consume to work to work to die. And I want to put a stop to this. I have always wanted to put a stop to this. I never excepted that "this" is the way "things" are. A civilized society would not force its inhabitants to do less than they are capable of doing. I am a photographer, I should be taking photographs the way I see them. I should not be forced to do anything to survive. No one should have to do anything to have food and shelter.  Our world should be different. Greed and want of "things" ruined this free life for everyone. Men want more. More  land, more power, more women, more gold more control, more more, and it never makes anyone happier. All of the death and destruction in the name of stuff. That is why we have the type of society we have. That is why we have homeless men women and children. This is why we have people with no food, no medicine, and no education. All for more stuff. Or worse, more power. The fact that one man would want to have power(control) over another is unfathomable. I can not imagine needing to have someone listen to me so bad that I would kill his family for that attention. We do it, though. We fund it just by living here, and there really isn't much anyone can do about it. As humans we have damaged this planet so much, we have lived in a way that is antithetical to living. Our way is inconsistent with life. We impose death on people so people can live the way they want to which means people must die for they don't think the same as some, when having thoughts that differ should not be a problem. Thoughts, ideas, should not be dangerous. Doing anything that harms another is doing it wrong. That is exactly how one should measure his actions. Ask, "does this help or hurt?", if it hurts don't do it and if it helps then do it. Why has this simplicity evaded so many of us?
Every day I look around and see people doing wrong. I see litter on the ground. I see people screaming in traffic. I see the rude, mean, dirty minded, gluttonous, greedy, hate mongers thrive while the humble, kind, warm hearted ones suffer. We are not rewarded for being decent. We are rewarded for backstabbing, for greed, and for lack of concern for those less capable than we are. We don't take care of each other. We don't take care of ourselves or our surroundings. We shit where we eat, and this behavior that does not fit is starting to do what it should. It is starting to erode us. It is killing us. Our stupidity, our ignorance has become a monster which needs our dead flesh to survive.