Surplus, Properly Allocated

If you fail, it's because you weren't hungry enough, or smart, or willing to work.

7:57 A.M.

The men are summoned before The Desk for their days. Bleak strands of light through the windows illuminate them, indifferent. All of humanity digs the same hole in the same corner office filled with sand, sifting for pennies to eat as they toil. Heavy with soot and oil, they labor as they overhear the patient, fatherly voice of the CEO as he pretends to speak to someone on the telephone.

"If you fail, it's because you weren't hungry enough, or smart, or willing to work. The formula is simple enough - sacrifice sleep, joy, time, and doubt. Replace these with measurable outcomes. Why are so many unwilling to do what is required?

The rules are laid out plain for everyone in this world. Work hard, be smart, and you can accomplish anything you desire.

There's something to be said for breeding, of course. The men in my family have always done well in life at whatever they set their minds to. The women have been excellent wives and mothers, and in some cases, navigated wealth and society better than the males. If you're cursed with low genes, you will live low, there's no denying that. The evidence is all around us. There's something in most people that makes them wretches. I acknowledge that."

The CEO continues on the phone, but now he looks across the room at one worker in particular, fixing his gaze. Loud enough that even those in the far corner can hear.

"Does this upset you? You look at me with eyes glaring, your fists clenched and shaking, and you say through gritted teeth, 'I work hard every day. And I am as smart as the next person.' Do you, though? Are you? If you did, if you were, why have you failed? You say, 'I make six figures a year! My family has a nice house in a safe neighborhood! We want for nothing!'

What do you even call someone who takes such pride in failure? Someone who so completely fails their ideals?

Work hard, be smart, and you can accomplish anything you desire. The notions you cherish, your desire to heal, to fix things, to increase opportunity or fairness, to make the world 'a better place,' these dreams of yours, would you be better or worse positioned to realize them if you had a net worth of $752 million dollars, as I do? Do your causes benefit from your keeping your mortgage paid and taking an annual vacation to someplace plastic and ordinary?

Have you financed cures for cancer?"

One worker's eyes light up as he spots and quickly reaches for a quarter in the sand.

"Or maybe you are selfish for the finer things. A helicopter with your name on it, a swimming pool shaped like a martini glass with an olive-shaped beach ball, or a private reserve where you can hunt the homeless for sport. Maybe I give you too much credit, for having a soul.

So why have you chosen to not be a success? Is it because you don't really care about these things you want other people to think you care about? I have sacrificed more than you could know for what I have earned in this world. And now I get what I want.

But you? If you wanted what you wanted, you'd have worked hard and been smart and climbed the ladder.

Unless, of course, inherently, you never had it in you."

12:03 P.M.

In line for cafeteria meatloaf, the men jostle for position. The strongest and largest assert their dominance and rise to the front, where their aggression is rewarded with full helpings. The weaker units fall to the rear and earn scraps and scrapings. The cafeteria workers frown at each and serve with uncareful plops.

A row of lifeless lights on the ceiling stretch in long rectangles above, lowly radiating.

Sticky with oil and unrecognizable with gritty blackened faces, the men sort and gather around round tables, where they probe each other over drips of gravy and spoons of succotash.

"What does being rich even mean? If everybody's rich, no one is rich, right?"

"It's true. Inequality is necessary. If it weren't for the lowlifes out there doing the grunt work, we couldn't have the good things."

"Half of them moochers, though."

"Yeah, a lot of takers in the world. Lazy thieves. Comes from not having fathers."

Heads nod.

"I hate I gotta spend so much time away from my kids, but I know I'm doing right by them."

"Shoes ain't cheap!"

"Gotta have shoes. You know, when I was in first grade, the teachers bought me a pair of shoes. Just thrift store ones, or maybe they had donations in a closet or something. The shoes my folks sent me to school in were falling apart. When I got home, my dad was pissed. He said he had just been about going to buy me new shoes, where did they get off doing that?"

Heads shake.

"People like that ought to let a man provide."

Heads nod.

A foreperson wanders through the cafeteria, holding a tablet. She makes swiping gestures and at one point holds the device up to take a photograph of one particular table of workers. The men act as though they are ignoring her presence and finish eating in the allotted time.

"Did I tell you about my dream last night? There was a ladder leading up to the clouds. And for one man to climb to the top with a fishing pole, another had to steady the bottom."

"No one wants to hear about your dreams."

Heads shake.

As they march back to their shifts, their footsteps stamp black stains, which shortly an unsmiling soldier comes along to mop into a bucket.

7:39 P.M.

At home in bed, he scrolls through his social media feed.

autoplay video, talking face, mute.

I work hard. I have the thing. This is new thing. You have the old thing. Didn't you know? There is a new thing, and it is better. No one is caught dead with the old thing. Everyone wants the new thing. Everyone wants the new thing, for it is better by far.

Here is political opinion and why you're right and everyone agrees with you. This is why we fight. This is why you're right. If you'll just refer to the comments, you'll learn how to express how you should feel about what you just perceived. The struggle is real. This is how you feel. This is why you're right.

ad.

Happy Wife look how she dances. Happy Wife look how she knows. Happy Wife look how she knows how not to nag Silly Daddy. Happy Wife loves Silly Daddy. Detergent.

nostalgia.

dark forces. stoked by danger.

This preview is for a show aimed at teenagers, and you do not have teenagers, and you are 54 years old. Did you know these teens like to sing and do coordinated dance moves? That they engage in antics and shenanigans? That they will often mug and quip? Our profits are immense. Our marketing budget is bloated. It has a stomach-ache and must lie on its side. Perhaps, but it doesn't really matter, you are interested in what teens are up to these days.

autoplay video, talking face, mute.

poke.

He spends 18 minutes typing a response to someone's comment which includes an obviously wrong opinion, but he deletes it without posting. "Lot of weirdos out there." He adjusts his pillow, folding it in half behind his head, and the motion bumps the mattress against the table and disturbs the lamp, which as it vibrates creates a dragon of light across the ceiling.

Do you remember this? It's from when you were 14. Before you had to work. Before you knew about the world. Life was simple before there was meaning. Hum along, you probably remember the words, you are clever. You haven't heard this voice in so long, it remembers you when you were special.

Here is a news story, figures on a sidewalk holding signs and wearing fanciful costumes, protesting something, they are workers organizing a resistance to something. "We will never forget what you took from us!" Smoke suspended low over the sidewalk. Overlapping voices in panic. A nun is shot in the head with a rubber bullet and falls in a dead line to the concrete. Outrageous and satisfying. Protesters swarm around the crumpled body, holding up opened umbrellas to shield the wounded. The face of a young man with aggressive facial hair enters the screen momentarily. "Wherever you are, we're fighting for you."

autoplay video, talking face, mute.

The algorithm knows when his eyelids are getting heavy and he will soon be lost to sleep. As he fades, a patient, fatherly voice whispers to him, "Why are so many unwilling to do what is required?"

He thinks of a ladder that requires a community to function, from which he can fish from the clouds and look down in wonder, then remembers he has forgotten to change again his once ivory sheets stained umber.

---

Neil Oldman for the Daydream Misfit blog.

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