Loving the Thing

I was talking to a bitchy coworker the other day and she was bitching about the company and the program and how frustrating it all was and how no one wants to commit to going back to Denver because we all get treated so badly and now I'm thinking about that conversation and I'm thinking that this bitchy coworker has it wrong.

The USAP will continue with or without us, her and me. It will do just fine. And when I said this to her, she said, but you would hope that if you worked this hard you would make a difference and make it better when you left.

She actually still thinks you can make a thing or a system or a program better by hard work and contributions.

And, I'm sitting here thinking that you can't.

Because she will leave and someone new will take her place and undo what she has done . . . for better or for worse.

Shit changes all the time.

And none of it matters.

We -- the people involved -- will only make a difference on the other people who are here. And then, only briefly. Not that we could change them or make them worse or better . . . but the people are the ones who remember us -- not the system or the program. Because in so many ways the system and the program are just constructs that we make right now. Hire someone new and the whole construct is changed completely.

I wonder how many of us think about the program and nurture the program as if it would remember us. Like Greenies. They think "Earth" gives a shit . . . but it's a thing. We can pollute it all up and kill all of god's little creatures, and it will continue to spin around and around, barren and dry and poisonous. It doesn't notice we're here.

We may love it . . . but it's just a thing.

Like the program.