The Boss Man and I

Judging by the toilet bowl stains in his private bathroom, the boss man shits a lot of blood. Good. He shits what he drinks. Everyone who works here is pale, chalky, even Rahib. The copy paper has the healthiest complexion.

The boss man, because of his brazen love affair with money, assures me that no matter how barren or unhealthy my relationships become, there is always work, and that work stabilizes life by filling any gap like adhesive caulk. The unbalanced thing is that my work enriches the boss man while draining energy that I could put into relationships. But that's the system. I can't change the system. And the system is not the boss man's fault, although his motives elude me.

I have a choice. I could remove myself, give up material comforts and learn self-reliance. I could be poor and take shit and smile. I could refuse money, abhor it. I could be Jesus.

But I'm not Jesus and I don't choose that. I'm scared. I'm scared that if I made that decision it might not stop there, that I'll end up running through a dark tunnel pursuing an illusory and impossible goodness, through pain and pain and pain. I'm scared of falling and suffering.

That's life.

The nice thing is that I can always replace "I" with "we," or, if necessary, "me" with "us."