Numb and Humdrum

I feel like this is a visual representation of me, and I don’t mean those big leaves at the back standing edgily against the wall.

I’m talking about the sadder-looking guys further down. See those ones bent over, almost touching the floor? Yeah, those nose divers. That is me, or at least what it feels like my insides are doing with each day that I drag myself through work. That is what work is doing to my spirit right now.

Okay, maybe I’m giving high drama with the black and white but you get the gist. I’ve sunken into the depth of my feels.

Work is so dull, so unfulfilling. The way I know best to cope is by being so busy that I don’t have time to realise how bored I am. I sit there in meetings hanging off the proverbial plant pot edge, so low my nose is almost touching the floor. My manager is saying something to rally the troops, and bless her, she really is trying to rally. But I can not spring into action. My body is upright, smiling at appropriate intervals, a little chuckle here and there to acknowledge the work jokes. Har har, hee hee. The well-behaved side of me wishes I could give more in fact. Sometimes my body does but my spirit never can because this company is striving for a world coloured in grey, where everything is automated. No life, no colour, no thought. Heaven forbid we should have to face an actual decision.

We give the machine what it wants and it vomits up something perfectly unexciting and acceptable. Dry is the word I would use, to capture a lot with a little.

And speaking of dry, this winter which we haven’t even gotten to yet, is already giving me the middle finger from down the corridor. It is wreaking destruction on my poor lips. Burt’s Bees don't even know what to do about me and they're professionals!

But back to it, the machine’s name is automation and based on where I work I will never escape it. It’s the ghost island that this ship is headed to.

So I’m going to start again. Don’t be silly, I’m not going to quit my job…at least not now anyway, there are bills to pay and lifestyles to upload. But at least on the inside, it’s time to save myself and think ahead to better days. If I could pick, I’d be using an oar to sail to work everyday on a cloud. And even upon arrival, I’d always hover slightly above the ground, the air would be my walkway. In Better Days, I’d stay firmly planted between what already is and what could be, because that’s where creativity and innovation live. Better Days always has that faint sound of a background hum. Those are the bees buzzing away to create energy so that we never get tired at work, even after a carby lunch on a Tuesday. The buzzers keep us energised so that we can work and live and play and love between what already is and what could be. Oh, and the best part? The work, which is really just structured play. Play in a particular direction. It involves looking and trying and looking and thinking and looking and making and looking and failing and trying all over again.

To be honest, maybe it's the work that makes me float, not the bees. Perhaps the bees are just there to remind me of what already is. Energy coursing through the body, pure life being lived, fulfilment.