Peter Gibbons

If you've ever seen that movie Office Space, you'll know what a brilliant movie it is. If you haven't, you should go see it right now and then come back to read this.

I've often found myself in precarious situations, or situations that make me uncomfortable. If I were ordinary, or more ordinary than I really am, these situations would bother me. But being me, and not some ordinary square, they don't (despite the fact that my real name is very ordinary). I seem to have become the kind of person that doesn't care, or cares every now and then. I've also noticed that this comes with questions and accusations regarding laziness.

I quote Peter Gibbons on this: "It's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't care. It's a problem of motivation."

I'm really not a lazy person though the output of content from this blog would indicate otherwise. I would counter that by saying that I try to focus more on quality than quantity, which I believe is a healthy thing. I would rather write one sentence that says a lot rather than a dissertation that says nothing. So, there's that: I want to provide quality content. Now, the question of whether I do that... a discussion for another time.

I don't care about certain things because I don't have the same motivations as everyone else, nor do I seem to have any real motivations at this point in time, other than the immediate ones: food, rest, a longing for silence whilst I do my thing. Am I regressing into an id-like state? No! Don't be ridiculous. Though I wouldn't rule it out for the future when they invent the id-machine. Other than my motivation to be happy, I don't really seem to care about the things people tell me I'm supposed to care about. I don't see why I'm supposed to strive to be like everyone else. I've already got a strike against me in that department: my name, not my pen name. Trust me, it's dreadful: my name.

I suppose in the eyes of some people, that makes me a bum of some sort: not having the same motivations and goals of buying televisions and living in a box with a wife and 2.5 children and picket fences. If that's your goal, I'm not stopping you. In fact, go for it.

I don't think it makes me a bum or a villain to not want these things. I just think it makes me a little different than whoever wants these things.

I think the only real motivation I have that extends beyond the realm of the immediate is the desire to be happy, somehow. This would explain why I do the things I do, or don't. It would certainly explain my actions as of late. Or the things I say.

I often say that I wouldn't mind working in a bakery for the rest of my life and living in a single room by myself either.

Now, you could argue that this is simply my current self talking a load of nonsense. And that someday, I'll meet a nice girl who'll make me want to change that state of thinking and that I'll find myself wearing a suit, short hair, and etc. And you may be right (about my goals and motivations changing), I'll give you that. But the thing is that I only really truly seek happiness, or a sense of satisfaction with myself, not a desire to please others or satiate their desires or expectations and live for them.

No. That's not healthy. I only have one life unless I can be reincarnated by magic or science. I don't think I should spend it seeking some piece of paper in some particular field of study just so someone else can feel proud and ride the coattails of my accomplishments and completely disregard the fact that in the process of obtaining that piece of paper, I've lost my mind and the fiber of my sanity is basically in tatters.

A little theatrical quality to my writing but the exaggeration is pretty apt: I've gone bonkers a few times since starting school.

Maybe later I'll be motivated enough to do things I don't want to do but for now, I'll stick to finding some sort of happiness and being satisfied with myself.

Peter Gibbons seeks to do just nothing, as he says at various points in the film.

I seek some sort of happiness. Or: I think I do.

You, reader, probably fall somewhere in between there. More power to you.