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Family Curse
The family curse is that the males in my family stop working. When my father was about my age he grew too paranoid to work and quit his job. As far as I know he has not been employed since. Maybe he tried running his own business for a while, but I think that went nowhere. Aside from a grocery store job decades ago and a few co-op placements, I think my brother has never had a job. As for me: I bounced around between the Cult and the University with part-time contracts, and then I had my latest job, and that's it. I do not expect to have a job (and maybe not have paid work) ever again.
From the outside it looks as if all of us ought to be skilled enough to hold down jobs. We all have secondary educations and we were all good enough at school. In some sense our predicaments are our own fault.
The family curse is that the males of my family all put together elaborate psychological constructs that ensure we stay trapped in our unhappiness. None of us are willing to get better and none of us will (or possibly can) reach out for help. We are all full of anger and paranoia. Whenever we are told things we do not want to hear we lose our tempers.
The family curse is that the males of my family mostly sit around unproductively. My father would watch television most of the day. I do not know how my brother spends his days but I guess it involves a lot of hiding in his room and surfing the Internet. I used to volunteer some time but I no longer do; now I spend my days either asleep, getting some perfunctory exercise, reading useless books, or wasting time on the Internet.
I am not thrilled that I have followed in my father's steps, and my brother's. But I should not be surprised. We are all similar in fairly toxic ways.
The socially acceptable reaction to the family curse is to try and break it. For a while I tried. But that fell through spectacularly, and I realized that no matter what I do I just make things worse. So I give up, and I give in.