The Grind
It’s not called the grind for no reason. Every one of us out there has had to work a job they hated, day in day out, until you feel as if your soul has be ground up into a messy pulp. If you haven’t ever experienced this this feeling then I offer you a simultaneous “congratulations” and “fuck off”, you are either so lucky or so filthy rich.
I just finished George Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London”. The book is a chronicle of the time Orwell spent in poverty while living in Paris, working as a dishwasher (plongeur), and in London, living as a tramp. Containing some fine social commentary, the book is an examination of poverty and injustice existing in the midst of metropolis. After leaving Paris, he theorizes on the significance of his work there, which was low paying with long hours, physically demanding, and completely useless:
“It does not matter whether his work is needed or not, because work in itself is good – for slaves at least…The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think…Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental difference between rich and poor. But in reality the mass of rich and poor people are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit…Since there is no difference between the mass of rich and poor, there is no question of setting the mob loose. The mob is in fact loose now, and – in the shape of rich men – is using its power to set up enormous treadmills of boredom.”
Word up George. You said it.
Here’s a few songs to help get you through the grind. You’ll like them whether you are rich or poor, promise.
