Illusions of Paradise: A Broken Promise

El Dorado,

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Gaily bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old—

This knight so bold—

And o’er his heart a shadow—

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—

‘Shadow,’ said he,

‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

‘Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,’

The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado

Age brings a certain perspective. A point of view, a vision of reality, a clarity, a focus. You spend so much of your life looking for something, a sign that you’re moving in the right direction, chasing the right thing. Jobs, relationships, grist for the creation of something, the one thing that you can’t define, you can’t comprehend, you will never understand. You spend your whole life chasing a goal, a dream destination, Shangri La, El Dorado.

It starts the day you’re born; they swaddle you in dreams, feed you a steady diet of false idols, the god of money, security, and middle-class happiness. Just like your parents, who have traded in all the postwar excitement for a life of diminishing returns. I can still see my dad walking out the door, Monday morning, chasing enough money to get by. If I ever wondered why men get shorter as they age it became clear with the passage of time.

Indoctrination continues in school, where we’re taught to raise our hand, and color inside the lines, and speak when we’re spoken to, show our work. Life is reduced to a Venn diagram, overlapping fields of denial and responsibility.  It’s drilled into us, there is a goal, and it involves pursuing a career, working for a living, buying a house, having a family, but nobody ever told us why we had to do that. It never involved satisfaction, or happiness.

I’ve been searching for meaning for almost fifty years. Something to justify my sacrifices, full disclosure, my sacrifices have been mostly small and insignificant, but I’ve been trading hours of my life for over forty years for money, which was traded for places to live, and things to eat, and methods of transportation. If I’m lucky there’s enough left to go out and have someone else, who is trading time in a futile effort to survive, bring me food and drink. It seems so heartless.

Early on, in my working career, one way I found some meaning, some reward for working was finding new jobs. Once I got bored, or frustrated, or tired of the monotony, tyranny or endless futility of a job, and let’s be honest, jobs are boring, dull, monotonous routines designed to make the best use of persons ability to perform a rote task while lost in endless daydreams, I would find a new job. It wouldn’t be a better job. But it would be a different job, with all the excitement of doing something new. Until the tedium found me, and it always did, and began wrapping its merciless tendrils around me, squeezing the life out of me. And, I would have to start over. Unfortunately, most jobs come with a probationary period, or they did way back then, and you wouldn’t qualify for any benefits, and I mean paid time off, at that age insurance and retirement were meaningless passages of air. You couldn’t take vacation, and I was forced, mostly by my wife, to keep a job.

“If I miss one more vacation, I’ll kill you in your sleep.” She said, I think she was kidding.

She was right, though. She stayed at her job, and acted mature, adult, responsible. She has always been so good at throwing herself into her work, taking it seriously, trying to do the best she can. Trying to be valuable, and helpful.

So, I’ve been in the same job for… Well, I’m not sure, the years fade into one, an endless stream of repetition, and dull, aching emptiness, it’s been a long time, though. I wake up, wash my face, comb my hair, brush my teeth, and put on my face, the one that tries to fit in, and make the most of it. I take the chip off my shoulder, and file it away with other meaningless, stupid, archaic gestures of artificial defiance, youth was so long ago.

In the end we all fit in or are swept aside. There are no successful revolutions. You are either an oppressor or oppressed. I didn’t see that until I was old and had given up, until the years have finally scraped away the glossy veneer of the illusion that success was just over the next quarter, if the sales justify it.

I realize, now, that we had no choice. We are just cogs, pushing a wheel, turning a gear that drives a blade cutting off small chunks of survival. Survival dropped onto disposable plates that are handed out to an endless line of drones and worker bees. And it’s the only choice they have. You can do it with a shovel, or a pencil, or a computer, but your life isn’t your own. It’s theirs.

Now, I’m getting close to retirement, and I just hope I die before I run out of money. A ward of the state, waiting for death, among the dying. Even worse, after all these years I don’t know what else to do. I’ll have to find a part time job, or volunteer position that will keep me occupied. Sadder still, I’ve come to believe that it’s the only thing that gives me worth, makes me valuable. I’m a victim of the machine, of the years of indoctrination.

Reading this, one more time, a last edit, I realize how depressing this is. I had a point, but I don’t remember what it was, and if you made it this far, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me, I’ve always been a malcontent, a lazy outsider. Life is what you make it, and I’m rooting for you.

—

This Post is republished on Medium.

—

Photo credit: iStock