How to be one of those sad people who also laughs and smiles.
1. Identify Your Uneasiness
I have lost interest in my tangible presence. Humour and craft is taking over. True existence is confusing and sad.
2. Take Pictures of Beautiful Things
She stands on a chair, aims her phone towards the desk and with her fashion eagle eye photographs beautiful things that don’t fit her. She spends thirty minutes taking the photograph, ten minutes writing the caption and all day checking the popularity of the piece online. She should be looking for a job.
3. Obligate Yourself To Fantasy
Everything is a suspicious illusion.
The virtual construction of an ego allows for the end of listening, the end of time, the end of truth and the complete lack of a true self-awareness. A false self-awareness is hyperbolically available via the obsessive construction of an online presence. Once we render ourselves subjects of social media, we obligate ourselves to fantasy. Everyone, everything is now committed to illusion. Keep up.
4. Refuse The Idea Of Failure
I look for a job in character because it involves writing letters and it occurs to me that letters would be more effective if they asserted a cat-like confidence that only Kara has. Kara applies to jobs. She has no experience but she applies to the job listings that appeal to her explaining in her letters that she is a skilled fashion photographer seeking an inspiring position as a content creator. She doesn’t worry about failing. There is no failing. Failing is a delusional excuse for laziness. She does not waste time worrying about failing because she has learned, somehow, that success is only a matter of time and that no matter happens in time she will succeed. She sends five applications. She wonders about lunch.
5. If You Stop Caring About Conversation and Food, Something is Working
I can feel her judging me for wanting lunch.
I am having lunch with a friend. I do not listen to my friend. I can’t. It just doesn’t seem like a mechanical possibility. Unless I am living the illusion, I am bored. Two emails arrive on my phone. Two job interviews. I have been applying to jobs for a year and I have had no interviews. These interviews are for Kara. But, fuck, I don’t even want these jobs. Serving positions in high-end restaurants. I am not high end. I am in an Uber with my friend, staring at my phone and I cannot process the opportunity. I don’t want these jobs. I can’t do these jobs. I sink. I gain 30 lbs just sitting and sinking.
6. Understand the Difference Between Conformity and Trendsetting
Setting a trend takes a combination of deep thought and idiotic playfulness. Only thoughtful idiots can be trendsetters.
I have never once fit in, ever in my life. I was too numb when I was young to learn how to conform and now, I just don’t get it. Kara is a cat. Fooling the humans with a sexy appearance and a well-crafted routine of making people feel good. It is important, for her brand, that she does not display sadness. She survives by being a thoughtful idiot, rubbing up against the humans and purring, walking away when she needs a moment alone to consider her opinion. She will only tell you her opinion when it will most influence you. Otherwise, she is waiting for the right person to offer her attention.
7. Gain Momentum, Let go of Doubt
Survival is a matter of strategic existence, strengthened by momentum and destroyed by doubt.
Kara is a treatment, giving life a slight liposuction, letting it float, so that very little matters and a lot can get done. I can’t get rid of her now. How do you get rid of a cat?
Rachel Ganz 