Stereotypes, archetypes

I came through this poem of mine from a few years ago, and though it brought back some memories of why I felt like writing it, the details are not so clear anymore. Nevertheless it stood the test of time, and means just as much to me. Even though back then I wasn't working in call centers or service desks, but obviously felt the same way about my job. The only thing that's changed is that in those days I talked of myself as useless, but also did that with some irony. Now it's more than apparent to me that it's these kind of jobs which unfortunately seem to be the only ones available for some while, that make people feel totally brain-washed and so useless, not deserving any creativity, instead making them abandon even what they have. Well, hopefully we don't feel that way of our lives, as that's something else, even if we have to spend so much time of what we have at work.

The other reason why I found this poem interesting was that at this place I work now, where some people have just brought their friends as colleagues, I found them looking, but more than that, behaving in this or that way very similarly to some of the folks I made friends with at an earlier point of my life. Of course, that in itself doesn't make them be really like my own friends, however it made it easier for me to socialize with them, feeling - and that was the tricky part - that I knew them to some extension. Later on this sort of illusion also made me feel like stepping back when I learned their other faces.
Anyhow, this is the poem.


Stereotypes, archetypes

(do we have to close the circle yet tighter, when we aren't given much choice at all)

i'm nonfunctioning highly
not up to the standards of this society
i'm not an intellectual
don't know much of your morals

i won't be the one you expect me to be
don't play television quizes
don't look like your commercial models
 
i am a simple human being

and if you ask me how i'm doing not
i'll answer how i am doing
coz i'm sick of being sick
only wanna be myself

and yet i can be with you
can be someone else, too
and you can be me, if you want to
 
i don't regret, i don't refuse

i'm not really from this world
rather speak with my words
stay in the books i read
when i was a child, so sad

in the horror stories of ghosts
where i learned to face my fears
there i went to meet my hosts
was not ashamed of my tears

and if my friends meet my other friends first
and they say it felt like they met before
i don't think of reasons, don't feel that thirst
as i gave up on searching, not anymore

now i'm sinking back into myself
all the powerful twirlpools have left
and i'm regaining something again
that's obviously part of the game