The big pasta

[Melooon]

From Melon's Chronicle of the Universe:

Once upon a time, the best of the chefs asked what would happen if he made one big pasta instead of many small ones. 1000 oxen spent 1000 days mixing the eggs, and another 1000 days to roll the pasta out. The pasta was so big that it's shadow cast "the pasta night" on the land around because it blocked the sun, however no one was upset because it was "a pasta night". The 10 kings gathered for a pasta feast, but when they were finished the big pasta was still big. A thousand years passed and still the pasta was so big, and when the last sun set on the last day of the world, it set on a big pasta.

[pepper]

Melon, I want you to know that I have thought about the big pasta more than a couple times in the last few weeks.

I work as a computer chip manufacturing technician, and I've become very disillusioned at work, and I've been job hunting for something that can provide me value beyond what a corporate, safe job can, and the process has been very discouraging. Against my best efforts I continue to find myself a part of a complex machine that supports what I see as a grave mistake. It didn't have to be like this, we didn't have to end up in a situation where so many of us are collectively working, against our own personal desires, to build something that we don't want, that we know is wrong, but nonetheless is being built. It's the wrong big pasta.

I'm trying to find my way out but it seems an impossible task, I need income and the only places that will give me income for my labor are the companies making a pasta I don't want to make. The small businesses aren't hiring, and the big companies that are hiring for jobs that would at least make me feel better about my career have ai that read resumes that don't like mine, and so I'm rejected every time by a robot, one which I myself may have helped build. And so I remain at a job I don't want. It's not that it's a "bad job", it pays well and is engaging and interesting, but I don't feel that I'm doing something that benefits people, and that really really bothers me. But I need income, I have bills, I'm the breadwinner, we need to eat. I donate to mutual aid when I can, I make personal ties with my community, I pursue art that I hope can free me, but I continue to toil these 1000 days to make that big pasta.

I guess I just really wish I could read your story as a beautiful thing: the big pasta was something wonderful that brought the people of the world joy for a thousand years. But I'm afraid that we aren't making that pasta. We're making a pasta that is casting a big pasta night that will never end.

Sorry to bring such a serious take as a response to a lighthearted story, but like I said, I've legitimately been thinking about this story off and on for a while and I wanted to share how it's affected me <3

[lakes]

Before I read the original post, I thought this was gonna be about "big pasta" as in big pasta companies like "big pharma" and not, an actual big pasta,

[Melooon]

Sorry to bring such a serious take as a response to a lighthearted story

I just wanted to say this was a really affirming comment to get and thanks so much for taking the time to leave it. I'd kinda forgotten I posted this, but reading how you read it really made me feel like I should write more! Sometimes I get so caught up working on code projects like the forum that I neglect my own creative projects, and in a way I also end up working on the wrong pastas too! I'd like to try and dedicate more time to writing!