THE ''ALMOST'' MANIFESTO

I get to work and look at the pile of things that absolutely must be done by two days ago, so I pour myself a cup of coffee and do the crossword. Things have come to that. Soon, I will celebrate what will be my eighth anniversary working for this establishment. That is only a bit short of one-third of my life. A third of my life coming to the same place everyday, selling needless crap to the mindless masses, and receiving just enough of a pay raise every year to make me think that I am actually getting somewhere. My paychecks do nothing more than sustain my lifestyle. I am not saving for my future or touring Europe. Instead, I am paying too much rent for a tiny apartment, and making payments on an "awesome" car that breaks down all of the time. Sometimes I watch television and see the commercials for things that capitalistic commercialism tells me are absolute “must haves.” I look around to a society that tells me that my worth is directly proportionate to the size of my paycheck, the speed of my Internet access, the brand of clothes I wear, and the kind of car I drive. I am absolutely sickened. In my heart, the part of me that knows that stock portfolios and tall glass buildings and a government that censors me are wrong, I know that someone has flushed the toilet on all of this bullshit. Our entire culture is wrong and spiraling out of control at a mind-numbing rate. I want to be able to stand up and start a grass roots movement. I want to tell the baby boomers who came before us that my generation isn't "not loyal", but instead, we are just fed up with feeding into a system that does nothing but crash down and fail to provide for us. There are those of us who know that what we are doing as a society is wrong, and that where we are headed is a bad place. Yet we cannot articulate it. We need a voice to stand up and start a change. And deep within me, I want to be that voice. I am tired of being a slave to a socio-economical hierarchy that doesn't acknowledge me because I don't make enough money or buy the right things. Instead of becoming a voice in our dark times, I come to work and begin the task of meeting deadlines and paying taxes. I have squashed my true self in order to pay rent.
I am a complete fraud.