Of Marmon and Groundhog days

It's been some time since I have written anything here. More than half a year. The reason is very simple, is that I don't think I would be changing anything much just by writing. And I am not even sure anyone is even reading them in the first place.

As I have mentioned before I contracted a brain illness called pyshcosis where I can hear voices in my head. It has affected the way I perceived things and hence there has been adverse effects on the way I view work, living and my life.

I have slowed down a lot and viewed many things with ambivalence. I used to view success narrowly as having all the material goods in the world and now I cannot get excited about anything that smacks of even materialism.

I just started on a new position as a Financial Services Consultant in an insurance company and I am used to filling up personal data on my people's income and am beginning to realize how far behind I fallen behind other's.

People are getting promoted and earning a pay I used to see as a benchmark but yet I cannot seem to muster the energy to try to emulate them. I used to hate to fall behind others but now I see them almost with envy and with a sense of "better-than-thou" attitude.

Envy stems from the perks of having money in the pocket and able to enjoy the fruits of our labour. The "better-than-thou" attitude comes from the almost blind worship of the Marmon that even surprises me. I enjoy good things in life but it doesn't mean that I will go after chasing for it blindly. And the manner by which many chase over the proverbial pay raise and promotion only smacks of materialism that transformed into almost a blind chase for the Marmon.

This Marmon comes in several forms. It comes in forms of even your family. All families want better things in life but what becomes a worship is when you actually spend more time working and then compensating with material goods with your family. The  best part is that even the family enjoys it. Who doesn't want better things in life. Everyone, but the chase of the Marmon means that material goods must be shared in order for the Marmon to perpetuate itself.

Recently, I had a family lunch at a nice hotel in town. It cost more than $50 per pax and everyone was happy. It was kind of obvious, people enjoyed the free lunch more than the getting-together in the first place.

Even I enjoyed it, cause the spread was fantastic but Marmon reared its head because no one was gathering together even prior to this. And so the Marmon spread has to be shared in order for the Marmon soul food binge to continue.

But at what cost: it seems that some of friends and family members have sacrificed much of their time in order for themselves to be consumed as well. By consumption I meant, appealing to the values of the Marmon family, this means a staid, solid middle class family. They aimed almost to be statistic, just so that people would viewed them as attaining the Marmon dream.

I call this a nightmare because you have absolutely no control over your life. You are sending emails at 3am in the morning. You give birth to children just because the Marmon life requires the Marmon lineage to continue. The worship to Marmon is total because the wish not to cower to materialism is so weak that intrinsic pleasures are not fully enjoyed at all.

Struggles of not doing email at 3am in the morning because, it is really time to sleep, or giving birth to kids for the love of kids rather than pressure from family seems to be symptomatic of a Marmon person.

Yes, it is really a riled against the so-called "wholesome" values of a middle-class society. The family is not necessary a beacon of hope.

Think of this question: what if one day, you lost your job and can never recover it back -through not fault of your's, would your family and friends leave you and treat you any differently. And if as such, would still want to continue this life if it means living each day as a "groundhog" day.