An exercise I've wanted to do for a while now is to, instead of dig into some nagging in my brain and unpack things as they flow out, actively dismiss things that I haven't chosen for myself and try to see if a different, if not more complete, picture comes from the shooting down.
The idea reinvigorated itself after getting into a very dumb conversation about what representatives do and don't do and whether the government is obligated to listen to its constituency. Seems an odd angle, right? Well the person I was talking to did the most ridiculous thing to me in conversation I've ever experienced. They took what I was saying, adopted it, and argued that it was me all along who had taken up their position. I explicitly dictated, word for word, what they said in opening the “debate,” 10 minutes later, “I didn't say that, that's what you said” with completely zero awareness he had even done so.
The conversation was ridiculous for a number of reasons, but what stuck out was a discussion of what and whether we had values. His idea was that your representatives have selfish personal values, indeed values barely if even exist, and they don't align with yours, so they can never stand for you, thus government always fails or is corrupt. This man is going to be a lawyer. My position was that values do indeed exist and that it's important to identify them and hold your representatives accountable so you can in fact see your environment as a reflection of what you actually think.
To not get lost in the minutia of what I swear wasn't worth repeating, I stated at one point that the reason I'm not on Wall Street or pursuing money at any and all cost was a direct reflection of my values. In my exercise of shooting things down, the irrational market dictated by insider trading, algorithm, and at the general abuse of law and the poor I feel would be a bad place to really feel like me and set the right kind of example of the kind of person suited to usher humanity into the future.
A discussion of values is an inexhaustible one. Things overlap and contradict. They evolve over time. But I frequently wonder if my behavior and ideas about “friendship” reverting to a more basic selfishness are a reflection of the people in my life, at least how I see them online and in their intermittently shoddy behavior in person, speak to me wanting to play the dismissing game of what I don't want to be like. It seems an exercise where a lot of babies will get thrown out with the bathwater, but at the same time, if those babies were best suited for parties and a few outings, out the window may be where they belong.
Why do I shit on jobs like mine even before I take them? Why am I kind of angry about the chance to make more money doing less work? Why did I never want to be a middle-manager climbing the ranks to be shuffled around different stores one day? Why am I no humble farm hand, chiseled and calloused with a set of particular skills? If I'm so smart, if I've so many ideas, why did I choose drug studies and unreliable roommate after unreliable roommate instead of something more suitable?
First, I think for something to be respectable, it needs to provide me a challenge. “Playing human,” or trading on my tall white male privilege, as some idiots would describe it, is extremely easy. I know I can solve most day to day problems that “regular” people seem to entangle their entire existence with. What's considered a challenge, let alone a worthwhile one, is particular to each person. You have to find a sweet spot where you can actually achieve some end, but not take it for granted. So any job that doesn't feel like a challenge is immediately a garbage job to me. I believe this so strongly, I work garbage jobs, sometimes multiple at once, until they become a challenge that forces me to stop.
Second, I'm always looking for things that can amplify “the best.” The vast majority of tasks that exist or that people will pay you for are valuable for a select few. This means that when you exhibit your best, the value generated from it is transferred to someone else. If I'm doing something the best, I want the money for it, I want the extra time to pursue other things, and I want to figure out ways to enable others to get the best out of their effort. How often do you think an opportunity like that exists? Because in my experience, practically never. Now we have a proper challenge, and once complete it will be a shining beacon of what I actually value. Seems a good enough reason to avoid what doesn't seem to speak to that.
In practice, the vast majority of jobs that exist I consider “wrong.” It's not that I don't want to make coffee or pick up trash. I just want to be doing it for myself. So if it's not mine, it won't do. And that doesn't mean there aren't people out there who do like me or espouse my values. But it might mean I'm not located anywhere near them to join up, or they have some other baggage I'm not willing to adopt.
I think the difference between a society on the brink, and one striving for the future, is one that feels attached and responsible for their work. Not just in doing it or being busy, but in the larger story and ongoing consequences of what they're bringing into existence. It's downright wrong to hamstring people with non-compete agreements or strip people of benefits and make them agree to be fired for any reason at any time. Just because that's “normal” in employment contracts doesn't mean we're setting a respectable stage for future performances. I think people who feel like “wage-slaves” adopt slave ethics that rarely revolt, are too tired to get educated or organized, and worship the scraps of existence.
A huge part of why I don't do what you do is because I don't want to sound like you. I don't want work drama always on my lips, as I pretend it's not so bad, and even get angry at you for pointing out how often I'm only talking about work drama. I don't want to romanticize my week vacation a year from now or slip into high-voiced pleasantries as we all probe for how and whether we've changed too much to be cool to hang out with anymore. I don't want my dreams to take a backseat to bills. It can happen while you're not paying attention. One small measure of comfort will consume you, and you'll be shocked to discover that things aren't so bad if you focus on this little happy place. I'll never love a pet enough to take a thousand pictures of it. No matter how good The Cubs play this year, I still don't know a single person on the team.
Really, what's your “job” if you're persistently concerned with learning any number of details about some globalized problem, industry, or psychology, and want to create, promote, and organize in ways that address them across societal layers? I don't know, but I do know it'd be a shame to waste what I've learned or insights I've gained playing along with the environment provided. I need a new standard and paradigm. I need people who've cultivated their own and could share or contribute new tools. I want the conversation difficult, the tasks varied, but the problems so explicitly accepted and recorded the path forward tends to show itself along the way. Good luck, you “entrepreneur.”
There's a huge and whole discussion about sounding or trying to be “above-it-all” where both the emotional and robotic alike like to wade in and temper what they see as a lonely and out of control ego with an apparent blindness to his general lack of impact so far. It's enough to say, that attempt is misplaced.
My struggle is so much less to do with some abstract question regarding who I am or what I should be doing, as much as it is how to get more people involved. I want checks on everything I persistently get wrong. I want a measure of communal understanding, trust, and cooperation. I'd go crazy for 5 people I work with who consistently answered their phones. The problem seems to be the world I'm working in. I need to work in and on it at the same time. I need to make enough money or create enough space without losing my soul, and increasingly, I need to do it on timeframes that have already swallowed up the initial motivation. Now, instead of “friends,” I need to do it for “the people I don't see fucking me for no reason” or perhaps “the youth.”
I don't know. This feels especially all over the place and my eyes hurt. Maybe a line will be a baby you don't want to toss.
