It’s been a while.
A while since I’ve unleashed my inner demons and wandered into the familiar terrain of absurdity, isolation, and the meaninglessness of it all. Every so often, the darkness creeps in, trying to lure me back to its bed of thorny roses - pain and suffering dressed up like an old friend.
Well hello? Darkness my old friend...
So, what have I been up to? The same old same old, you know, work.
Imagine Sisyphus Happy
On paper, things look great: better schedule, better pay, and the ability to have an actual life outside the screen. In reality, it’s the same corporate BS, competition, lack of recognition, and backroom politics that make you wonder if “The Man” was specifically invented to test you or slowly drain the soul out of you. Until you no longer have it.
For years, I built my whole identity around work - trying to prove I was just as competent as the next guy while still being true to myself. I kept myself put together so I didn’t look like I spent ten hours in front of a computer… even though, let’s be real, I absolutely did. I was a cave-dweller for quite a while if I am being honest.
The quote from Severance nailed it:
8 hours of working does not mean healing.
I used to work a lot to numb myself from the world and from my own thoughts. I thought if I worked hard enough, I could escape. I couldn’t.
This time around, I’m not running from my mind. I want to face it. I want to experience both suffering and joy - in full, uncomfortable detail. I’m no longer letting work dictate who I am or how I feel about myself. I am enough. And whether or not someone in the office notices, promotes, or overlooks me is no longer the lever that tips me into a spiral.
So, fuck it. The four walls of an office (or home office) can keep their 8 hours. I’ll keep my identity outside them.
Here’s the hard truth: building a strong internal security system is exhausting. Rewiring a mind that craves external validation? That’s a full-time job in itself. But it’s worth it. Work will now be a means to fund my life, not define it.
My work will no longer be the measure of my intellect. I want other intellectual pursuits beyond work - meaningful activities that connect me with people who think, feel, and dream on the same wavelength. I’m tired of the surface-level exchanges that pass for connection at work. It’s like carrying an invisible backpack of weight that no one else can see, always bracing for the moment it drags me down again. Out there, it’s competitive, cutthroat, animalistic. I’ll do what’s expected of me, then call it a day. I’m not part of that jungle anymore.
Perhaps the overall point is to simply live. Not in some grand, cinematic adventure - but in the quiet, mundane moments most of us overlook. Outside the usual Sisyphean grind. To be present for the laughter, the loneliness, the heartbreak, and the small daily wins.
Like, what’s the point if we’re all going to die? Well… maybe that’s the point. Live fully anyway. Feel your existence so strongly that even the pain carries meaning. That’s the answer to this whole existential dread, at least the one Camus offers us.
And so here I am. Still resilient, still present, still showing up, and still creating my own meaning.
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
As long as that summer’s there, I’m good.
I'm picturing in my mind Sisyphus telling the gods, "You can take this job and shove it!" Let it all out @diabolika. Welcome back. 🖤
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Sisyphus freeing himself.
Thank you! ☺️
Your comment made me check out your channel. Glad you are still with HIVE. I wanted to comment on your post and was hoping to give some inspiration for you. When the comment turned out to be of post length, I decided to create a more elaborate post. A little expert I copy here:
I do very much agree the workplace is foremost about superficial connections. As my story and the reaction I got last Friday a week ago, painfully proved. Let it be. Play a role at work. Be what others want you to be. Pull a big ass wall around your emotions, to not let colleagues give you a bad feeling. But never stop finding opportunities to change things and perhaps also to try and truly reach people. In my experience, some people in the office can become true real-life friends outside the office. People with whom we can enjoy a much more in-depth relationship. I go by an unwritten rule in this. Generally, I seek such outside-office-relationships only after such person is not my colleague anymore, ie the person left the company or I left the company. Not sure if this is a must, but it seems to happen this way with ex-colleagues who are now somewhere in my inner circle of friends and/or somewhere in between my inner circle and the (little) lesser inner circles.
I do hope you went through summer finding good feelings with positive events. I certainly hope you are finding ways to deal with office and colleagues in ways it isn't harming the you you. For now, I wish you the best weekend you can have. NJOY 🙏
Thank you for checking out my channel - that already made my day. And I’m glad your comment grew into a full post; it was insightful and I appreciated reading the longer version. Deep down, I do want to build great friendships with colleagues. Back in the day, I had solid friends from work, but a lot happened in life that made me lose my bearings, and now I have trust issues. I swear I don’t want to be this way, but you know… I’m a still work in progress...
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply. Wishing you a peaceful weekend too. 🙏
Not to worry being in work-in-progress situation. Everybody has something that is work-in-progress. My work-in-progress includes a lot, including being less 'aggressive' towards people I have impatience with. The set of such people isn't small, especially in the office. Anyways, njoy this Sunday (evening for you I suppose).
idk you're anything but aggressive haha. Thanks!
One can be aggressive in many ways. In the office I can be hard with words, without the need for a loud voice. The latter also happens when I get truly agitated. In private life I have such much less. Perhaps part of the role I play? Or maybe I play a role in private life as well? A long-debated topic when I reflect on myself, but still not 100% sure about the answer. Though I tend to think it is an office role attribute while in private life it is my 'original' character, whatever original is, since also that can be debated.
Happy to read you back ;-)
Thank you!
Your words landed in my chest like a quiet echo of truth. The way you have stepped back from the endless grind refusing to let work define your worth and daring to reconnect with the richness of simple days, that’s brave and beautiful. I love how you are rediscovering what matters, the laughter, the quiet ache, the small triumphs that don’t need applause. Your choice to live fully even when existence is fragile and fleeting is a powerful act of rebellion. Thank you for sharing that tender strength, and for reminding us that within each of us lies an invincible summer.
It’s not always easy to step away from the noise and measure life in moments instead of metrics, but it’s in those small, quiet spaces that I feel most alive. I’m glad the idea of that “invincible summer” resonated with you. Thank you @temmylade.
It truly does
You are most welcome
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