@halfmoon: Thank you so much! I have set some things in motion; meanwhile, I am rallying some people I know—whom it would be easier to repay.
@Riggerjack: I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, to which I believe there is a genetic factor—and there are precedents in the family. The symptoms first manifested during my childhood, when I did not have much aggression to deal with, therefore, although this may indeed have become a modulating influence to my condition, I do not think repression is one of its efficient causes.
My first years were mostly okay; I flew kites with other kids, we spun tops, rode bicycles, played video-games and all that; I had my peculiarities, but I was not yet considered an oddball—although I would grown on to become the only thirteen-year old boy at school who did not drink, appreciate raging parties or engage in adult sexual behaviour.
Before I get to that, let me tell you that when I watched American films and saw stereotypical geeks being pushed around, I thought they were lucky in a sense. Of course, they had it rough, but then they could meet their friends at the chess club; or, if they wanted some silence, there were places for
that as well (like those impressive libraries); and however unique their tastes, they could always find
someone able to grasp the stuff they were into.
I mean, once I visited an acquaintance of mine who spent a lot of time watching reality TV, and I caught a snippet from an episode of Pawn Stars in which a man sold an early edition of
Walden; when an employee of the shop, Chumlee, apparently "slow" on cultural matters, started speaking about the book, one of his colleagues was amazed at his actually having read it, to which he retorted, "
Everyone has read this book."
What kind of country is that? People can rave about the closing of the American mind, but anyone who would not be really, jaw-droppingly astonished at bumping onto someone who is familiar with Thoreau's writing has some nice things going on. I believe it is not hard, in such a place, to find someone to relate to on an intellectual level.
But I did not have that. I was sensitive; I am pretty sure I also was the only introverted person in the entire town; surely the only one who
read in any group or circle I belonged to; thus, in a word, I was different—which is rather dangerous when living in a tribal society where civilization is a vague concept. "Look at that, '
The Divine Comedy!' So ya fancy yarself the comedian now? Well, folks, let's see if the clown laughs when we punch his face!" Yeah. There was laughter. I can still hear it.
After being hurt at school by those nice fellows, so dedicated to curing me from being the f****** fa**** they claimed I was, I would go home, where my relatives would advise me to go out more often, be more outgoing, watch more soccer and what have you—there was a balance between violence/humiliation at school and being annoyed for wanting to by myself at home the rest of the time; the message was always the same, though: being me was not okay.
Punches are less of a problem than people think—"everybody has to take a beating sometime" kind of thing. But imagine growing up in a place where every single personal asset of yours is considered to be a major liability, among people who have an ideal of being that is the exact opposite of everything you hold dear about yourself. What would happen if, on top of that, you did not have any example attesting to a different sort of existence?
As far as my knowledge went, the reason I could not derive any enjoyment from drinking myself to oblivion, while listening to those "
songs" and partaking in the bacchanals my peers found so stimulating, was because there was something fundamentally wrong about
me. When they told me that, I believed it. Hence the regular physical and/or psychological assault and all the humiliation felt somewhat deserved.
I was too naive to think that everyone was wrong—the problem
had to be me, right? And when I finally accepted the opposite, I found myself bereft of alternatives. I had no role-models. I had no one I could relate to, not on any relevant level, not to any relevant degree. I could talk about films and series with some people, play games with others, but there was no one to speak about anything actually important.
It was under those circumstances that I learned to cope with clinical depression; I had intense suicidal thoughts by the minute, but I learned to manage them; I learned to stand for myself, to keep my head cool in life-threatening situations—and I got those: people have pointed different blades and guns at me; people have tried to kill me; people have tried to rape me; but I survived.
Not unscathed, though; I am tackling agoraphobia, I am coping with PTSD, and just setting my foot on the street is a struggle, but as far as the fallout for trauma can go, this is pretty light, which, given the severity of what I was dealt, only attests to my resiliency—I have preserved my sanity despite everything, after all, a feat that I seriously doubt most people I know could replicate in similar circumstances.
Be that as it may, if you bare the lengthy introduction above, I trust you will understand when I say that my experience of growing up in a small town—where local industry had already died many years before I was born—did not feel just like being stuck—it was closer to being locked in Sartre's conception of hell, having Pinhead and an endless stream of duplicates of
this guy for company.
Now, what are the guys in their 30s and 40s doing here? Drinking. They grind on jobs they are always complaining about, then they sit down with their mates to drink their sorrows away—our venues of socialization tend to be variations on the same limited theme. Professionally, some have good working ethics, but are hard burdened by their chosen or life-imposed professions; most tend to be more easygoing, career-wise, but usually not dependable or worth emulating, though.
The fact is, I thoroughly dislike this place. I avoid interacting with most people here, if I can; when I cannot, I strive to keep the interaction to the strictly necessary; I dread putting myself in a position where they feel entitled to demand anything from me, and I surely do not appreciate engaging them professionally.
Whenever there is a knock upon my door, my heart jumps and I brace myself for impending hassle or trouble—which, especially when I am living in a guest- or boardinghouse, seldom fail to greet me. Landlady had another fight with her husband? Neighbour is drunk again? Acquaintance made a bad choice in life? It will get to me somehow.
As a teenager, I longed for relocating to some capital, and when I finally did, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the rest of the country was basically more of the same. The problems were not as acutely concentrated as in my home-town, at least not then, not yet, but the basics were invariably the same, the bleakness was prevalent.
Think about the kind of bad job available in your country, the demeaning jobs people only tolerate because they believe they must. Now imagine what "bad" and "demeaning" can mean in a place like Brazil.
I learned corporative survival strategies from a supervisor who had take it upon himself to screw me for refusing to commit fraud; he taught me invaluable lessons on being cautious, meticulous, reading between the lines, always keeping my guard up, but the experience sucked nevertheless.
I have worked for a few sociopaths, and it always sucked; working in places where I was expected to smile before arrogance, baseness and vulgarity sucked; or a company engaging and illegal activities, and getting myself in trouble for refusing to participate, it sucked; it really sucked having to
strive to get such demeaning positions, and it surely sucked being given dimes in exchange for everything in the end.
I can take a lot of pressure, I can put in a lot of effort, but I am done with doing it for nothing; I am through with giving away my sweat and my blood to people I despise; and I am done with
needing to do that.
Maybe it will take me one or more jobs before I can work for myself, and before I can make my money work for me, and before I can become financially independent. Fine! But I will look for the best return in function of invested time/effort with my goal in mind.
Even the golden salaried jobs in this country, the ones that require degrees and certification and what not, bear the same underlying pattern of forcing employees to deal with [the local levels of] cluelessness and occasional abuse.
Whatever I may have owed this place is surely paid for; whatever claim The Crowd could have had on me has long been deprecated. I paid the price to be myself, now I will go about acquiring the means to live congruently. I will make the most of the available systems, then I will depart towards some greener pastures—or the white wintry fury of a place where I can conceivably hope to be left alone.
Civil service in Brazil is akin to Mandarinate on so many accounts. But if they want to give the best possible remuneration in exchange a nice schedule of work, then I will take it; if they want to provide many benefits—like paid leaves to study in foreign countries, for crying out loud!—to the best hassle/reward ratio in the whole country, then I will have it.
To be sure, I agree with you—it is far from something inherently desirable, specially for someone like me. It surely does beat most of the local alternatives, however, and as far as it is from what I want for myself, and from where I want to go, it still looks like a good starting point and effective leverage out of this misery.
I can only suppose it will be nice not being forced to choose between eating and buying a book, for a change, or being able to afford an interesting seminar or course. But those are minor add-ons. I think more about freeing myself from the constant worry about the physical integrity of people I care about and about having some personal space.
There are many things I care about and intend to explore—writing, for example. A number of such things, I reckon, can be profitable, but I want to take care of the basics before fully dedicating myself to them. Acquiring new skills will probably be a much more efficient, and rewarding, process when I am not either too hungry, feverish or depressed to properly focus—a state that has afflicted me often enough.
I wrote this long post (my apologies about its absurd extension), in a language I learned by myself, while different groupings of fellow citizens blasted the place with an assortment of long-ranged
weaponised vibrations. I long to (re)discover what I can accomplish when both my body and my mind are balanced and clean—perhaps, as a bonus, in a place where I can hear myself think most of the time.
@Augustus: Thank you very much for your suggestions! I already have plans to learn study some CS-related disciplines, and I intend to develop them into a toolkit that I want to include Internet engineering skills—if for nothing else, so I will not depend excessively on third parties when launching a product online. I lack resources, but there are many potential options, so I am considering variations on my projects; I have thus checked the links and also a number of alternatives (teamtreehouse, for example), but I already have some good reading material to starting with. Again, thank you very much!
@oldbeyond: I decided to go for the government job so I can have some firm ground upon which to start building. It will enable me to eliminate my debt, and start investing—both financially and on my education. Copywriting and programming are two personal interests I do intend to eventually delve deeper into.