Early Immigrant Days-12

In my new start in life...I vacillated between a great appreciation of having such a magnificent weekly salary...like never before...with the power it gave me to get a few of those things...like my first guitar ever...that would start cutting into the
delayed gratification I had always practised...and the feeling that kept intruding upon my efforts at pushing paper...that this
good fortune that had come my way...was...somehow...not my niche in life. There were a few weeks of grace...when the high from my new material well being...kept me blind to my unsuitability for pursuing this particular kind of working life. It wasn't
long however...before the malaise began to drift through me...and coffee break...lunch time...and quitting time...began to
loom large...as oases...in a desert of grey. Knowing what I had come from and a fierce feeling that regardless of how I felt...
I must not "let the side down"...kept me coming back...thinking of how the folks back home would feel if they heard I'd
given up on such a golden opportunity. Inevitably...however...my stay at the insurance company answered for me forever...
any questions I had about living out my life...reporting to a boss every week day...working my way up the office ladder...
engaging in office politics...and on the whole...not being able to be myself...because for me...the wheels of commerce...
emphasized putting your false face forward...and saying sweet words you didn't mean. In the process of elimination I was
consciously or unconsciosly engaged in...the path that I had embarked on through the forests of clerkhood...eventually
closed off...leaving me open to other possibilities in my life. So...low on interest in the job at hand...but high on punctuality
and "stickability"...I trundled down hamster-like...into the concrete and ashphalt heart of Toronto...ever week day...for three
years...until I could ride my tread-mill no more...and left my nine-to-five life-raft behind...forever...to face the uncertainties
of life as a student and self taught artist...at the grand old age of...twenty three. [This concludes...for now...the series "Early
Immigrant Days"]....................................Quester.