The events of this post happened quite some time ago, so "today" doesn't literally mean the day I posted this but rather the day that I started writing it. And even though my attitude has shifted since I started writing this, I still wanted to explore the thoughts that were coming up and finish this post. It has been a while since I wrote anything substantial in this blog. Enjoy.
Today at work, I was the maddest that I have ever been, I feel. I had to walk away from where I was to the loudest area of my work center's space, scream "Fuck this place!" at the top of my lungs, and then yell "Fuck!" multiple times while jumping up and down. The root cause of this outburst was hope.
Our work center recently got a new divisional officer. I know him from previous interactions, and I had gotten the impression he was a reasonable person. Before we left for lunch, we worked for several hours completing a cleaning "hit list". Our spaces looked pretty damned good already, mind, but we worked those hours nonetheless because we had to. As we left for the mess decks, one of the senior guys told us he was going to try to get us cut out early because we had done a good job. But I resisted the impulse to become hopeful. I ate lunch with my work mates, thinking how nice it would be to have most of an afternoon off. But still, I reminded myself not to expect anything good just because someone had suggested it might happen. I finished my food, I took my dishes and silverware to the scullery, and I headed back to the propulsion plant. As I walked down the ladderwell, the thought bubbled up without restraint: "yay! I'm about to go home!" But as it turned out, that thought couldn't have been farther from the reality I encountered when I got to our space.
After gathering us together, the divisional officer proceeded to start walking around, running his finger over the surface of various components in our space as if he were head butler at Buckingham Palace. Both his face and demeanor would be well-suited for that job, but that is beside the point. He looked into every nook and cranny, making a note of each instance he found of cleanliness being less than immaculate. The hit list he generated was even longer than the one we spent all morning working on. And he was being a total dick the entire time. He finished his tour, gave the list to the enlisted guy in charge of cleaning, informed us that the list must be complete to his satisfaction before we can go home, and left. I was devastated.
This story is not really unusual. At work, we often comment to each other that hope or happiness is secured (means not allowed). Starting back at prototype, some of us started using an acronym which we would mention when we needed a reminder not to get our hopes up: MAHALARA (maintain all hope as low as reasonably achievable... it's a reference to guidance for exposure to radiation). Basically, even going home at the normal time must not be taken for granted. Someone in charge could deal a blow to morale at any moment for any reason, and there is nothing anyone can do. Work in general is pretty harsh for morale as it is. Leadership likes to demand perfection. With all the cleaning I do, I feel like an overpaid janitor a lot of the time. Tasks get dropped in our lap last-minute a lot. I am sick of people telling me "it could always be worse" by way of motivation. And almost worse than that is leadership acting like they are doing us a huge favor by hooking us up with a day off here or there on a weekend which other departments normally get just because it's a weekend. Since when is a two day weekend a hook up? A great man once told me not to confuse a better deal for a good deal.
In other words, just because something is better than it could be
doesn't mean it's not still shitty. Even for normal privileges and freedom, I become hopeful at my own risk. Having to continually resist the impulse to become hopeful is a stupid, stupid practice, I feel, but I have to because I couldn't take the near-constant disappointment otherwise. Still, I must persevere and study my suffering.
My teacher told me that it is not a bad thing to become hopeful. Actually, it can be quite good. But as I so clearly illustrated above, hope puts me at risk of great inner turmoil. Doesn't it? After reflecting on this for a while, I thought that maybe I did not suffer because I was hopeful but rather because I was very attached to a certain outcome. It is fine to become hopeful in a spiritual sense, optimistic, in other words. But the type of hope that my work mates and I have come to regard with suspicion is more materialistic. We have colloquially been referring to attachment to a certain outcome as hope, but really they are not the same.
So I think that the right way forward is a balance of spiritual optimism and cynical pragmatism. I will allow myself to hope all over the place as long as it is uplifting and not greedy, but I will hold in check my impulse to dwell on good future events to the extent that their failure to manifest would result in excessive suffering, maintaining all attachment to a particular future as low as reasonably achievable... MAATAPFALARA
