My Life of Absolutely Zero Utilitarian Value

Born into the collapse of the Industrial Age and its slow-to-arrive predecessor, the Age of Digits, I can count on no fingers what I've left to offer society and on less than no fingers any reason to do so. Like anyone, I have moments of unwarranted guilt about how little I've produced in terms of what society thinks it needs and wants. Work? Do not speak to me of work: My many years of unemployment involved hours of voluntary and unpaid toil incalculably more numerous than the hours you may have spent and for which you were, to an of course lesser degree, compensated.

I have neither zest nor aptitude for mathematics and science specific. Biology 101 merely confused me into a state that proved valuable for my invaluable (both connotations, emphasis on "unpaid") writing. Calculating a tip proves the outward expression of my mathematical ability.

All to say I do not qualify for any job of any "benefit" to anyone. I recently and ridiculously even subjected myself to a book that combines various emotional traits to suggest possible careers. The more "practical" list featured all the jobs for which I'm unfit, each and every one a subservice to the world technic and thereby impossibly beyond my capabilities. The others? All careers that provide alternative conclusions to the song, "Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be ___________." Example: DJ. Work for dreamers and wannabes and therefore no improvement whatsoever over "being" a writer.

With federal loan limits approaching long before (so far) the estimated date of a fatal coronary or, in the better case, being fatally stabbed for the intentional outrages and provocations of Airplane Novel ("Look, ma: no link"), I face the sickening prospect of finding a job. E.M. Cioran spoke what I myself often wondered far before reading his description: "I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams." They exist only to disappoint us. Cioran, again: "I am: therefore, the world is meaningless."

For those who possess the skills to make petty contributions to this Age of Digits and its probing fingers of molestation, do you really think you make a difference? You make a difference only in the most negative possible manner, feeding your little calculations to the Orwellian momentum. Only tears, if you've the necessary non-mechanical resources hidden somewhere, would suggest the possibility you're human...in some slight way.

And with that, my pessimism finds restraint, for if I contribute nothing -- if only nothing can be contributed beyond what "improves" the Orwellian treadmill beneath our feet -- then I have, like a physician, at least done no harm.