I’m finally fucking here…
…I wish I could tell you that I shut it all off yesterday and never once looked back. But then a friend basically called me a moron for not changing one of my contact emails to a personal email (which I didn’t even think was possible) so I was back on my laptop to update the contact and forward a few lunches to a personal account and check to see if anybody said anything witty and….then…
I was finally fucking here.
The day’s topic is The Tug.
My brother-in-law likes to say, “The tug is the drug,” when referring to fishing, and he’s not wrong. Fishing can be absolutely thrilling, probably because the thrilling part is in such stark contrast to the not-thrilling, boring-as-hell, lots-of-cussing part. But it’s not that tug.
There’s another Tug from Thomas the Tank Engine, but honestly that’s not on my mind today. Also, the faces have always been creepy and that’s not a memory I want. Although, did you know that a whole bunch of famous people have been narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine (or I guess Thomas and Friends)? I know for sure that George Carlin did it, and when I just now looked it up, I also see that Ringo Starr, Alec Baldwin, Pierce Brosnan, and Kevin Jonas have narrated and HOLY SHIT RINGO FUCKING STARR? How do they land this kind of talent? Why did we not all go work for the Thomas the Tank Engine LLC?
Anyhow, I guess there’s yet another tug, often used in conjunction with the word “job”. I’m not gonna say that’s not on my mind, but it’s not the topic of the post…and a post can also be a hard pole….no wait it’s NOT ON MY MIND. Bottom line, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t Google ”tug job” (or DuckDuckGo it for the privacy-minded audience) because you’re not ready for what you’re about to see.
No, The Tug to which I refer is the one that subtly compels me to rush, or cut something short, or not go in the first place….because I have a meeting to attend. I was at the gym today and I felt that tug. BUT THERE WAS NO FUCKING MEETING! So not only was it a feeling pulling me away from something that I loved, but it was a PHANTOM TUG. It’s exactly like thinking you feel a vibration in your pants because you usually have your phone in there, but it’s really just the wind, or sudden change of direction, or a rodent…but it’s not your phone notification!
The Tug probably serves some evolutionary purpose, just like how our predilection for sugar and carbohydrates served an evolutionary purpose of KEEPING US FROM FUCKING STARVING but is now MAKING US MORBIDLY OBESE AND DISGUSTING AND UNHEALTHY, or how anger helped us to FUCKING SURVIVE IN THE FACE OF DANGER but now is RUINING OUR FUCKING RELATIONSHIPS AND MAKING US MISERABLE. In my current context, The Tug represents the 23-yr-old constant humming of duty and obligation and curiosity, that there’s either always something to be done, or always something to be learned to stay up to date or one step ahead, or even just something interesting out there I want to know. For a career in the rapidly evolving tech landscape, such a quality is highly advantageous. For a CTO, it’s arguably essential.
The Tug has helped me, no doubt. And now I hate it. For I have known for a while that when I have some obligation hanging over my head, I feel less empowered to pursue my own path. In fact, I passive-aggressively rail against that obligation—that overreaching, overbearing, despotic authority with the audacity to assume its desires are more important than my own—by procrastinating LIKE CRAZY. I read Wikipedia, I play games on my phone, I suddenly need to delete emails from my inbox…sometimes I even numb myself with bourbon to mute my brain so I can get through it, or maybe even to sabotage the result ever so slightly, as if to say, “Fine, I’ll do what you made me do, but you won’t get my best thinking.”
On some level, I’ve known this quirk about myself for a while, which I think informs my stated desire to do NOTHING for a few months. The nothingness is intended to be a Tug Detox; to make the chronic urges not just go away, but be actively chased away by my reaffirmation of NOTHING. I know that other urges simmer inside me, but they’re often drowned out by this overarching Tug of Employment. I want to let them come to the surface so I can examine them, understand them, maybe even follow them…or let them go if they’re not serving me anymore. After all, urges represent attachment, and attachment is at the root of all pain and strife. This Tug of Employment is my biggest Tug, and I wish to be free of it.
So, for now, I embrace the Anti-Tug.