Born and raised in Texas, recent migrator to Portland, OR
BY DUSTEN GRAMBRELL
Am I afraid of trying or failure?
I did quit my job of 7 years, sold my house and moved across the country with nothing but a dream to live in the PNW. Anyways that dream is dead; the only difference now from where I once lived is the weather. Oppressive government simply took another form, the outdoors life has been wrapped in police tape and friendly neighbors have been replaced with fears of Roni police raids.
I really don’t think I’ll fail because I know what it takes so even if I don’t hit my goal when I want I will hit it. It’s this confidence in achievement mixed with surprising loss of coherent long term ambition that has left me walking a tight rope of well, sanity. I’ve built my adult life on striving upwards and I don’t know when it happened, but have hit a ceiling. The removable tile professional colleagues want me to use, have no use for me. And yes I do fear a complete reversal of profession; once again not because I’ll fail but because getting a PhD would be the goal not necessarily making a living with that would at some point be the goal. But with anything, my goals are better set in the past tense. Any future objective I have is not a goal, but more of a rationalization of duty and honor.
This duty is “having money”. The problem lies in that in order to make enough money to even have a house, requires an over abundance of money. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t made enough to retire or what have you, leisurely. But if we are to rank tiers of income from zero, enough to know I’m in debt, breaking even, enough to pay down debt, can live debt free and buy stupid shit (where I’m at), anything here or above has only existed for me in fantasy whether I lived it or not was up to me but never have actually lived anything beyond where I’m at. Well I loathe those who worship the narrow rung of this ladder. For every success there is a crooked human who stepped on others to get where they are, and will jump on just as many to stay. I have a heart because I also loathe those who have sympathy for the lower rungs of society. Mental illness is real and mostly allowed to fall through the cracks (or worse, imprisoned) but our false empathy with sympathy only subjugates these objects into pets. True empathy for either side would properly seat our mental lock on a broad spectrum of human nature.
I once was a kneeling man for a god. I would ask for forgiveness and pray for peace but eventually I was just praying to myself. I seek input from a friend/mentor, however I fear not asking the question right and being accused of joking, or worse, receiving the answer requiring self discovery. Self discovery protects this house from the elements with a straw roof.
-Dusten Gambrell
The End
