27 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
27 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
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date: 2019-10-07
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weight: 5
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---
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The problem of working with clients on a task with a specified end-goal, one that is finished and about which you can say, "ah, it does *this* now", is that when the project is done, there is nothing left.
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> This is a problem with any task. This is a grander problem.
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Yes, even with self-appointed tasks, even with tasks at a non job-shop. It happened just recently, too. I finished my time at IA. I got home from visiting Barac. I got the contract signed at NV.
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If you hit a deadline and succeed, or if you have some work travel, or if you get home from a vacation, suddenly there's this empty bit of your future where there used to be this thing. There's just a void there. A sudden lack of weight.
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> And so, back then, you finished the release at work and also finished the office move in one fell swoop, and went home.
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I went home and took my meds like a good girl, and then proceeded to dissociate right through the evening.
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Dissociation is a hell of a drug.
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> It's a dreamy thing. It's a soft thing. It's a cottony thing. It's a muffled thing. It's watching your hands move. It's watching yourself breathe. It's feeling the air move in and out of you with a distant, slightly confused detachment. It's "ah, it does **this** now", except saying that about some strange machine which is not yourself.
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I watched myself sit down in my chair. I watched myself turn on *Babylon 5*. I watched myself mow through two glasses of gin.
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> You watched yourself with a metaphysical quirk of the eyebrow as you reached forward, grabbed the box of X-acto wood-carving tools --- purchased, doubtless, for some long forgotten project --- and flipped it open. You watched numbly as you slashed open the inside of your arm. There was a moment where you marveled at how long it took for the blood to well up, where you could see the white of subcutaneous fat.
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And then the pain snapped me to.
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