What would I be doing if I wasn't at work right now? I don't even know any more. Periodically it occurs to me how strange it is that I'm "at work", doing nothing. It strikes me differently each time. Today, I realize how totally it affects my life, how I can't say what would be different if I didn't have to work. Would I have greater ambitions? Would I be content to sleep until early afternoon, and then read the newspaper or novels, like I was during summers and on my year off, before I graduated from college?

And what if I not only didn't have to work, but also had enough money to live anywhere I chose, and do anything I wanted? Where would I be? Hell, what would I be wearing?

That's not quite my concern, though, I realize. I guess I should be asking, what do I want to be doing? I still don't know, if it doesn't involve school or idleness. I don't necessarily want to be idle, but it's out of a moral conception of idleness. Generally, it seems okay to me to do nothing but laze about and read, hang out with frends, play music, make sprawling lists of movies I'd like to watch. Sometimes, I feel like doing more, and usually for me that means writing. Other times, I feel like I should want to do more, and that usually doesn't lead to anything other than feeling bad about myself for a while.

These issues can't help but present themselves through the lens of living in a capitalist society. I have no idea of the way I'd be thinking about them if I wasn't raised in late-20th century America; this was inherent in the way I first presented the question, "what would I be doing right now if I wasn't at work." The only reason I'm asking this question is because I'm in a society where people sign over portions of their time in order to make money. Perhaps this is better than a society where I would have to work all day, and work in a less abstract way than currently. Right now the only "work" I'm doing is being restricted to this particular place right now, answering the phone every so often, occasionally doing something for my boss.

If I had never been in a position to need a job in the first place, what would I be doing? I would not be the person I am. Well, if I suddenly learned that I'd receive my salary all year long without having any responsibilities whatsover, what then? I still don't know who I am, I guess. Do my readers know who they are?