The Relative Merits of Sanity
Hi all, Cult Abandon here. As you may know, I'm the Minister of Information for the Crowbar Resistance Force and the one most responsible for increasing our Force Capacity. I'm up putting in some overtime and thought I'd vent a bit about some of the downsides of being a member of the Crowbar Resistance Force.
I hate to admit it, but every now and again it gets a little competitive around here about just who's got it roughest; Cake thinks her job is the hardest, just because she has to spend so much time surrounded by the Dark Side(TM) Forces and use all her Double Agent training to evade detection. Ok, I'll give her that, it's not easy to be surrounded by the enemy and always wondering if the other shoe's about to drop. I'll also concede that she has to be the emotional punching bag for all of us because she does all the support work. It *definitely* gets to a person, having to hear what she does all day, and simultaneously watch the Dark Side(TM) psychologically break these young women in the guise of "treatment" or "punishment".
Con Allyerd, on the other hand, is convinced her job is the worst because, as Minister of Finance, she has to constantly stress about money. I have to admit, fundraising is a crappy job and most people hate it. We all want someone else to be responsible for bringing the dollars in. Forever desperately grasping for every spare nickle, feeling like you're always trying to convince people you're worthy - these are powerless things, and that might be why Con has had to develop such a flippant and seemingly amoral persona. It's true that without her we would have no Resistance Force, so that's a lot of responsibility for one person.
But I ask you, my fair reader - it's midnight and where are Cake and Con? Well, Cake is done for the day and now only has to ruminate on all the shit she heard today in jail and try to reinforce her identity to go back in tomorrow. Sometimes the full force of the young women's pain lands her in the fetal position, but she wandered through here earlier and said today wasn't that bad. She heard and witnessed no new agony that she doesn't deal with every other day at least, so she's off the clock for now. Con is out somewhere, partying and "networking", as she likes to call it. Con did her early agent training at the Mata Hari School, meaning there was a lot of emphasis on using her "natural" charms to elicit what she needs out of people, and cosying up to the power brokers. Having joined our little frontline shoestring crew, she now spends a lot less time at the swank parties and a lot more writing dry, constrictive proposals or working the door at some community event. She chose it, and knew it wasn't going to be the champagne and cavier version of spy work she originally envisioned for herself, but she can still never pass up a chance to put on a cocktail dress and chat up a dictator while stealing his briefcase. It's work, of a sort, but also work that involves alcohol and socializing and high heels. Con glitters like the gold she chases, so she gets to be the glamour girl in our crew and is off practicing some version of that now, as I speak to you.
And what am *I* doing? Well I'm up trying to write a lecture on Punishment so I can stand in a theatre of hostile minds tomorrow and cajole them, unbeknownst to themselves, into the Resistance Force. Cake supports, Con steals, and I try to reorganize value systems. I'm not saying mine is the hardest job, but I'm still the one up writing and putting on more coffee.
I'm not actually complaining though. I like my job, and I'm good at it, and if I'm being honest it does come kind of easily to me (guess that's why I got the staff appointment). Even so, with that said, it'd still be nice of one of the others were cleaning Headquarters or plowing through the stacks of laundry, or doing the agenda for our meeting tomorrow night. It'd take some of the edge off the fact that I'm still sitting here, writing away, trying to determine what to say about Punishment; who should be punished, what should they punished for, what do we consider appropriate punishment, and who has the right to do it?
And that's where Crowbar comes in. You did notice she was missing from the "tough job" list above, right? Well Crowbar, our fearless leader, has the easiest job of all. All she has to do is smash shit. Swear, rant, practice her swing, destroy things and, you guessed it, punish. Crowbar is quite convinced she has the right to punish, and wastes no time doling it out. She's out roaming the neighbourhood now, just looking for someone to say the wrong thing so she can unapologetically kick the shit out of him. I guess you could say she puts in long hours too, as she never seems to sleep and her hit list is endless, but every now and again I think I'd rather be wantonly smashing things than constructing logical arguments, truth be told.
Of course the trade-off is that I'd have to be psychotic and, while that works for Crowbar, I think I'd always feel the need to rationalize myself out of it. Interestingly, Crowbar has no such internal conflicts. I guess that's what she has us for.
I hate to admit it, but every now and again it gets a little competitive around here about just who's got it roughest; Cake thinks her job is the hardest, just because she has to spend so much time surrounded by the Dark Side(TM) Forces and use all her Double Agent training to evade detection. Ok, I'll give her that, it's not easy to be surrounded by the enemy and always wondering if the other shoe's about to drop. I'll also concede that she has to be the emotional punching bag for all of us because she does all the support work. It *definitely* gets to a person, having to hear what she does all day, and simultaneously watch the Dark Side(TM) psychologically break these young women in the guise of "treatment" or "punishment".
Con Allyerd, on the other hand, is convinced her job is the worst because, as Minister of Finance, she has to constantly stress about money. I have to admit, fundraising is a crappy job and most people hate it. We all want someone else to be responsible for bringing the dollars in. Forever desperately grasping for every spare nickle, feeling like you're always trying to convince people you're worthy - these are powerless things, and that might be why Con has had to develop such a flippant and seemingly amoral persona. It's true that without her we would have no Resistance Force, so that's a lot of responsibility for one person.
But I ask you, my fair reader - it's midnight and where are Cake and Con? Well, Cake is done for the day and now only has to ruminate on all the shit she heard today in jail and try to reinforce her identity to go back in tomorrow. Sometimes the full force of the young women's pain lands her in the fetal position, but she wandered through here earlier and said today wasn't that bad. She heard and witnessed no new agony that she doesn't deal with every other day at least, so she's off the clock for now. Con is out somewhere, partying and "networking", as she likes to call it. Con did her early agent training at the Mata Hari School, meaning there was a lot of emphasis on using her "natural" charms to elicit what she needs out of people, and cosying up to the power brokers. Having joined our little frontline shoestring crew, she now spends a lot less time at the swank parties and a lot more writing dry, constrictive proposals or working the door at some community event. She chose it, and knew it wasn't going to be the champagne and cavier version of spy work she originally envisioned for herself, but she can still never pass up a chance to put on a cocktail dress and chat up a dictator while stealing his briefcase. It's work, of a sort, but also work that involves alcohol and socializing and high heels. Con glitters like the gold she chases, so she gets to be the glamour girl in our crew and is off practicing some version of that now, as I speak to you.
And what am *I* doing? Well I'm up trying to write a lecture on Punishment so I can stand in a theatre of hostile minds tomorrow and cajole them, unbeknownst to themselves, into the Resistance Force. Cake supports, Con steals, and I try to reorganize value systems. I'm not saying mine is the hardest job, but I'm still the one up writing and putting on more coffee.
I'm not actually complaining though. I like my job, and I'm good at it, and if I'm being honest it does come kind of easily to me (guess that's why I got the staff appointment). Even so, with that said, it'd still be nice of one of the others were cleaning Headquarters or plowing through the stacks of laundry, or doing the agenda for our meeting tomorrow night. It'd take some of the edge off the fact that I'm still sitting here, writing away, trying to determine what to say about Punishment; who should be punished, what should they punished for, what do we consider appropriate punishment, and who has the right to do it?
And that's where Crowbar comes in. You did notice she was missing from the "tough job" list above, right? Well Crowbar, our fearless leader, has the easiest job of all. All she has to do is smash shit. Swear, rant, practice her swing, destroy things and, you guessed it, punish. Crowbar is quite convinced she has the right to punish, and wastes no time doling it out. She's out roaming the neighbourhood now, just looking for someone to say the wrong thing so she can unapologetically kick the shit out of him. I guess you could say she puts in long hours too, as she never seems to sleep and her hit list is endless, but every now and again I think I'd rather be wantonly smashing things than constructing logical arguments, truth be told.
Of course the trade-off is that I'd have to be psychotic and, while that works for Crowbar, I think I'd always feel the need to rationalize myself out of it. Interestingly, Crowbar has no such internal conflicts. I guess that's what she has us for.
posted by Crowbar at 11:45 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home