RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Wednesday, May 19

(7s) Recent Force Battles For Control Of My Soul #1 - Upwardly Mobile Aspirations vs. White Trash Genetical Heritage


Look, there's a lot of things I could say, but they're hard to admit to myself, much less to the whole fucking anonymously peeping tom world of the interwebs. But I'm working a new job where I wear shirts and pants that are clean and feel bad about driving a pick-up truck outside in the parkng lot with multiple stupid dents and mismatched colors, and it's hard to know what direction to go. There is the return to school to put paper behind what you already do to add an extra tax bracket or two to your year end government report, or there is the get by any way that you can and try to flatten hills and straighten curves and plant mortgage lifters every spring plus crookneck squash and cucumbers galore with old coffee cans hung on twine to scare off the deer and the goddamned dogs type getting by. Shit, I don't even know what I was getting at. What I know is there are two paths right now. The first is to pretend that the world rewards those who deserve it and put my faith in the impressive work ethic and natural intelligence I was blessed/cursed to be born with, and let mine be doled to me accordingly. Arbeit macht frei, motherfucker. The second is to be like a stupid goth kid with some "it doesn't matter anyways" type stream of thought, and just slide through my engagements, siphoning off as many good time blasts as I can along the way, and let the memories explode together inside my mind for good stories while leaning against the bed of a pick-up truck around a cooler full of beer. The first is my desires, much like hitting the lottery numbers on a MegaMillions Friday night, even if it ain't but $12 million. But the second is my me. It's my white blood cells and the scars from self-stupidity I have and the nicks and knacks that get scraped across your surface and into your sub-conscious because, most likely (with no science to prove this, although eugenics history would suggest it has long been accepted as probable truth), I was born into this situation. That's how it was and that's how it is. Only thing left really is to believe in a fake god from gilded books because futuristic degrees, no matter how cheaply acquired, can't trump the stamp the universe gave your brain before you even got splat out your mom's cooch into the impatient hands of a dude paid to pretend he gave a shit. White trash genetical heritage wins.

4 comments:

Joel said...

Has anyone dropped the "do it for your kids" line on you yet about getting your paper?

Raven Mack said...

oh you know it, but apparently from being gone at work all the time and generally in a serious mood nowadays, my kids like me better unemployed, half-tipsy, and playing with them on the kitchen floor.

kami said...

s'funny , cos as i was reading this i was thinking that you were only contemplating this stuff cos of your kids. the whole 'future' thing... but then i think yre right, the kids would rather actually see us around the place happy than workin and comin home late and serious like. that is until they get a little older and start wantin all the 'technobabble' stuff that you cant afford unless youve got a job. then they'll want you to work!

Russmac said...

I walked around a Fortune 50 company for 14 years (and in management for 12 of those years)with a mild inferiority complex because I did not actually attain the degree that everyone assumed I had. I did it old school- came in for $20k / year and busted my ass and was actually promoted far more than i should have been without the degree. And i still say fuck a college degree.

But, you can bet your ass I will basically insist my daughter gets one. The plan is to be able to put her through school without her trying to work all the time and eat ramen noodles the whole way through her college career like her old man did before he finally said "fuck this place".