Unachievable Results

By: Jonathan Seidel

Hostility or envious of the rich: the middle class conundrum with emerging freedom (Fromm, 95) 

The middle class dislikes the poor but they hate the rich. The rich are everything they have fallen short of. Everything they cannot have. Modernity provided the outlet to finally reach the pinnacle. Freedom to attain the riches. The American dream in sight but failing to prevail. Envy sprouting from the incapability. Having to work harder and yet unable to make it. Freedom has exposed a major liability. Here is the offer. Good luck.

Middle class-men were at a clear disadvantage from the rich. They had to start from scratch. The rich were given everything. Generational wealth as well as foundational land to work upon. Resources not privy to the newly freed man. Impassioned and inspired, the freed man searches for excellence. He works extra hard but is unable to compete. Without the proper tools he falls short quickly. He ventures to the the rich to borrow resources. A free man now enslaved to the rich. A debt he cannot easily pay. He has his own field but can only work his field with the rich’s tools. Thus a portion of the produce is allocated to the rich. The rich didn’t work the land but he provided the tools to be able to work it. Owning the means to produce allots him a substantial profit. Where would the free man be without his tools. The free man is part of a larger social group who can only receive tools from the rich who possess the monopoly. Naive and new to the game he is submerged in a quasi-slave mentality. 

He works and works. There is no break and no foundation to stand on. If he cannot attain his share he will lose his land. His land must be profitable to be maintained by him. A disastrous pickle. His hard work may not pay off. His fated failure may be sooner than he thinks. It is work or forever be under the thumb of the rich. Enslaved to his land or enslaved to a master. Both leave him without any control. Deprived of the sweet freedom he once aspired for. The hope for salvation was a vile satanic dream to make his life more miserable. Responsible for his own land has made him quite neurotic. He has no one to fall back on. No welfare to compensate his lost. He is alone figuring the world for himself. He comes from nothing and may return to nothing. It is all on his head. The yoke bears heavy on his aching shoulders. The difficult winter months only strengthen the yoke burdening his shoulders further. Part of him wishes to return to slavery. Return to the automatic compensation. Freedom is painful and jarringly isolating. 

His social circle has collapsed. Yet there is no turning back. There is no return to the salvaged slave life. He is now a struggling free man. He works and works to keep his land afloat. At times he loses his land to the rich. Paying a debt to win it back at some point. Maybe a surplus will bring in the necessary profit to win back his lost reward. The promise of hope in the capital inspires him to find a new role. Farming is much, maybe the industrial advances will be a better fit. Maybe a new trade is in order. The land has been in the hands for generations but every good thing must come to an end. Making his way to the big city is foreign but a start on the way to a new path. Poor and unsheltered he seeks employment. He picks up a newspaper from the ground and finds the available jobs. He makes his way to an interview astoundingly is accepted. With left over money he has from his hometown, he finds a small apartment to rent. His freedom hangs in the balance. The hope is to work hard enough to climb the ladder. Freedom is at the top of the hierarchy. He must pay fees but it is all in hopes of finally achieving his own space. 

As he succeeds, technological advancements make commuting easier. The city has been his home for a decades but the architecture out in suburbia is tempting. A house of his own then commute on the transit to his office. He can finally have something of his own. No more debt to the landlord, he is purchasing his own home. He has moved up in the company but is still an employee, yet there is time till he can be the VP right under the CEO’s son. Life in the suburbs is more flexible. Luscious green grass covers his backyard. Two stories with a playroom for a basement. He has qualified. He matches his house with the magazines. The American dream a mini-Rockefeller. The magazines do not lie. Look at those happy faces and styled attire. At his coronation to VP he exchanges his polo for a dazzled suit. Invited to the CEO’s house he marvels at its expanse. Wowed at the extravagance. Despite cleaning up he realises he is still below the bar. He is outmatched by his superior.  Arduous labour and he is yet to meet the CEO’s level of prestige and projection. 

With a seat at the table he attempts to meet their standard. He cannot. Their hats a fortune, their watches too expensive. He is neatly dressed but feels underdressed. He feels poor amongst his peers. He has attained so much and yet feels inferior materialistically. He is always one step behind. He has moved into a beautiful house, bought a nice car and wears designer clothing. It pales in comparison. Turning over to the president, he mirrors the CEO. Dressed in the CEO’s hand-me-downs passed the torch to keep the machine running. Feeling left out of the surplus chain, he invests his money for a larger return. He plans on upscaling to fit in. On one trip he realises the difference. He sat business while his boss sat first class. The first trip they took he could only afford economy while his boss leisured in business. Now he was in business class but his boss was in first class. He was just playing catch up. There was a clear financial divide. He was able to acquire the new thing by the time the next new thing came out. He was behind but trying to reach the pinnacle of wealth. For him, he was rising a little at a time but couldn’t seem to outmatch his boss as long as his boss was in the chair. His highest run was VP as an outsider.

A role model to his children. They grew up financially stable. Able to acquire much of which they sought. Yet there was always a limit. Money was not unloading by the second. It was paced excess. His children didn’t experience the poverty and the struggles he endured during his adolescence but they acted spoiled. Desiring that which others had. His boss’ children received top-notch toys while his children waited until they dropped in price. They were secondhand after the rich ignored them. His children complained about the rich kids but at times more about the other suburban kids. Other parents went out of their way to buy expensive gifts. Demonstrating to their children that they could afford the price. Pride clouded their financial capabilities. Desiring to look well off when in reality was one step away from reduced poverty. Investments acted as an emergency fund but they were insufficient to compensate the collateral had disaster stricken. Accepting the eternity of the middle class does not mean richness was not strived for in other areas. Articulating rich jargon was a ploy in many regards. Whether it be schooling or simply dressing. The children of the middle class try to manage themselves as financially stable but they do not know the truth. 

Envy forms in his mind. He has worked so hard but he is a part of a company that could whither. Entrepreneurial routes have caught his eye but he is old and set in his ways. Stubborn and naive he persists in his ways. His children are ignorant to the detrimental truth. He will never reach the pinnacle of wealth. He has strived but has fallen short. Succeeded but there is a higher rung. Capitalism offers that possibility. It is plausible and yet he does not make it. A good life but one that can topple in minutes. A scary reality. His children live in their hopeful positivity. All is swell at home. His freedom has enabled him to climb but has also resisted his ability to claim the title he so deeply seeks. Despite his loneliness, he pushed forth. A lion ruthless and impassioned. A proud member of the middle class with aspirations for more. Tied to a social class with lacking social ties. He lives by business. Raised a family and provides for their future. It is a dog eat dog world and he will ensure his family is satiated.

Such A Sad Man

By: Jonathan Seidel

The delusional reflective observer: the jealous and deceitful absurd hero. 

Isolated from centerstage, the sufferer watches as the world burns in front of him. Unable to change the trajectory of the societal progress. A viewer yelling at the movie screen for the hero to save the day. His shouts lay on deaf ears. The hero cannot hear him. He tells his friends but they are caught up in the moment. Hypnotised by the elements that cradle their passion. Smirking he inquires again of the lunacy they are believing in but to no avail. Shrugging their shoulders in assertion of a societal acceptance. Perplexed by the unanimous conformity he sits back and rejects the echo chamber of singularity. He doesn’t run away, he just sits there in disbelief and mocks the primitive monism alienated and irritated. 

His isolation emboldens his perspective on the problematic asset. From afar he is able to see the full wide range of views. He has much time to focus beyond the day to day. He engages in everyday life but the constant struggle questions the normative movement. Spending time alone in his own world perplexes the routine. He is unable to follow through with the workload of society. He becomes engulfed in the fantasies of a better tomorrow. Watching others fall slowly into delusion. Coerced by their own impassioned desires. He shrugs and continues forward growing sceptical of the fervent consistency. Observing uniform behaviour bothers his conscious. Copycatting merely feels ambivalent and dubious. Scepticism enrages into cynicism. Distorting the realistic frame with nuanced perspective. The glorious endgame is an illusion perpetuated by the idealism inherent in fictional aspirations. Walking alongside friends deliberating over the day to day is rarely cross-examined. Solely discussed in its socratic singularity internally rebuffing the odd commentary. Unable to convince the blatant patterns that intersect in his mind. He sees the numbers above everyone’s head but they just call him crazy.

Withdrawing to his room is an inevitable aspect of social isolation. He is threatening. His knowledge is superior and finds less compliance from his surroundings. He is perceived as a conspiracist. He is rumbling gibberish to the public. Finding little camaraderie conferencing his views. He urges those who disagree to take a step back and think but they are incapable. They call him a witch debasing his witchcraft. Accusing him of falsely poisoning other’s minds with his nonsense. His newly enlightened perspective is fishy and warrants polemical reactionaries. He retreats to his room in isolated focus. Pondering why they cannot see it? Are they so naive? He concocts experiments to deduce the rationale behind the error and the uproar. He concludes that they are too close to it. So stooped in this ideological frenzy they cannot but accept the truth. They are in too deep. Subconsciously they make recognise the error of their ways but consciously will never concede. Top prideful, they dig their own graves. He alienates to remain unaffected by the vitriol disenchantment. Not wishing to be infected by the grand lunacy overtaking the public. Safety from the hoodlums roaming freely in the pitch black darkness. 

He escapes the zombie ridden outside. Bolted shut he craves to not be bitten and fall back out of grace. Incapable of reasoning the obvious stench. Alone, he carefully examines and constructs a potential solution. Yet the cure is not easy to formulate. Zombies are transformed and entrenched in the bit. The medicinal salvation is a reckless but informative necessity. A medical solution that must be achieved by a respectable candidate. Though even a little by someone small can make a ripple in the waves. It may not reach the extravagant public but it can start with a few individuals. Conversation between individuals can lead to those individuals spreading out to speak to others. It is one thing to provide a cure. The real problem is convincing the public to take it. Zombies are witless soggy one track minded monsters. Injecting the cure is not enough. The only way to return to mortal form is to accept it. Their minds are mush so it is incredibly difficult for them undo their transformation into the undead. Yet to be affected by the drug must be considered working to fully execute its purpose. Forcing them back into mortal form will cause a chain reaction that only embitters their zombie form. The saviour must either leave the commune to start afresh elsewhere or slowly manipulate zombies back to the light. 

While his phobic relation to zombies is apparent it is also apparent that his perspective is justly due to not being a zombie. He may ache at the transformative monism but the monolithic goal is the zombie goal not the human goal. The latter does not need that nourishment to survive. Even in a civilised zombie society he is an outlier who fails to understand society’s goal. He may reject society’s aspirations but such can be said of his laidback and relaxed attitude. He is isolated and thus free from the retconning continuum. He sees the traffic lines as an observer without partaking in its incredulous manner. As an outsider he can critique because he is not a part of the trade. While the labour may be backbreaking the reward is joyful. He cannot attain given his rebuffed isolation. Remaining in the privacy of his room enables him to critique without even lifting a finger to exact his review of the event. A critic born of privileged courtship. Demurring the societal goal with his own take as he sits on his couch scarfing down buttered popcorn with a Diet Coke by his side. He observes but fails to appreciate the engagement. The fun from partaking in the communal element of societal progress. He sits in his room sad and lonely writing critical pieces to make himself feel better. 

He is a jealous man. He cannot have what others have. He is the quintessential slave moralist. He creates a profound model in his fictional perception to mark a new world order. He recognises he can never become the master. He doesn’t have the props or the ability. He is tragically a lonesome sufferer. He gives up the capacity to desire the societal rewards. The work hard great reward is a long shot for him. He doesn’t acknowledge the possibility. He is denied the access of such rewards. He cannot properly contend with the rest of society. If he cannot win he must change the rules of the game. The slave moralist recognises his limitations. Instead of trying hard nonetheless, he attempts to subvert the system. Offering a new compelling model that plays into his share. Why dare play a losing game when an alternative will be in one’s favour. He sees society grinding to the bow of the ship but what if he ordered the crew-mates to the stern. Those who successfully made it to the bow must now turn full circle and run the other way. Anyone who was near halfway has a better chance of winning. He has won because he is already at the stern as he champions those in progress to the bow to turn on a dime to his side. He incites deception that elevates his status while empowering those who were closest to the stern.

With his slave morality intact he cripples the master. All those who were headed to the bow have descended to his side. Offering them peace beyond the former goal. His deception has won the day. He knows others are quite overjoyed with his inspiration. His methodology overtly cradles the lower rank on the hierarchy. The stragglers made their way to his side. He inverted the hierarchy to fulfil his own hole in his heart. The irony of the sufferer’s move is that this was a necessity. Even if he could attain the master’s model he would be unhappy. The glorious societal reward was meaningless. It provided no closure nor any solution to his depravity. He seeks a remedy that differs from the classical option. He wishes for an answer for himself. That answer does not come easily in the media frenzy pouring hot lead down the throat. Hypnotising society into a monolithic tone. He stays quiet working on himself but his survival is only the first step. He ability to thrive depends on societal action. He may be an individual but the community is relevant to his success. His ability to overcome must begin with civilised shift. His enlightened identity places himself as a preacher to save others. He has seen the light, now it is his turn to preach these faults to the public. Teach them the wrongs of master morality only placing him higher on a pedestal. If he is martyred wow is his name engraved in the history books.

His absurdity emerges from his inability to see as they see. His vision is deluded with overcompensated analysis. The problems are real but they do not measure to the anarchic consequences he seeks. He criticises but lacks the motor to facilitate change. He shouts and argues but he fails to consider the position of the average individual. His habits are myopic. Upset with his own situation he projects the worst on the world. Darkness hovers over all of societal implementation. Victimising the affected in social aggression. His revolutionary canon is a hope for his own salvation. He is the tragic hero. A tragic hero with a tainted lens. He does see the issues. An obvious cause of taking a large look at the picture. Unable to follow through with the ideological jargon he observes the captivating slogans hurling individuals inside its field. Selfless to expose these ubiquitous dogmas he asserts alternatives to deploy a new frame for the future. The writing is on the wall. Selfishly believing that he has seen through the deception of societal imperialism. He is the purist angel seeking to save humanity from its harmful blunder. Unveiling the mechanic inequities that halt proper progression. Dismantling the narrational theology. All so he can play hero and have purpose in his life.

Without proper involvement he is a slug muttering blemishes in his cohort. Angry at the world he takes it out on societal problems. His polemics are exaggerated to the point of conspiracist propaganda. Overthinking the ignorance of the public. Endearing to a sociological class to argue the theoretical possibilities but fails to measure up to practical actualisation. Overloaded with frustration and countless hours of time he directs his fury to a new evil. He cannot solve his own problem so maybe the world’s is a good start. A pretty galvanising threat to overcome. An obstacle he brushes aside as a simple solution. Use common sense be kind and take accountability. Simple things he learned from the self help aisle he’s been fondling in the library. The timid inspiration leaps in its energetic sensation with minute concrete visualisation. A prophetic impulse with jargonist messaging. Zero framing or world building to actualise his message. A guru who employs big words in poetic lullabies to garner interest. Little is aided if hearts are lifted with benign hope. Getting people excited and then failing them with an unrealistic fictional plan. Other stragglers hear his call but most ignore his idiosyncratic tumblings. A nice musing ineffective on the world stage. Rashly and brazen, his words laced with ire erupting out of a volcano. He sounds like an angry old man ordering his younglings around. A man without understanding of the way of the world, just believing the world is burning. 

Indiscriminately, he doesn’t see the trees or the beautiful cosmos. He sees hellfire and demons. His private abode is serene while the outside is a diseased-filled atmosphere. He wanders to the incomprehensible tune of others. Inquiring of their ignorance he feels superior but then ashamed he cannot connect. He is alone and mortified of his own enlightened ideals. He prefers a world where he feels alive and at home. One that makes him feel safe. A world he creates and brings others in. He doesn’t want to be alone so he convinces others of his vision. Some agree but many dispense with his angry tone. He is flustered and needs help. He pushes them away. A sufferer just mad at the world. A crazy man with an obvious bias. Unable to truly reckon with the rest of society he constructs fiction.