Tarot readings as therapy

My head is screaming...you need to write, you need to write. But up until now, I've just done a series of obsessive tarot card readings, talking myself through my conflict by compressing my issues to a string of yes/no answers. Sigh. I'm convinced that the thing I want the most is almost always the thing that I avoid. This is instructive in a backhanded kind of way...all I have to do is look at what I have been secretly preoccupied with and voila, there they are...my underground desires.

Digging down

Apparently I was not done posting today, because I've got more thoughts here that I've got to get down. My whole kick to lose weight is symptomatic of my desire to change my life somehow--to make it feel more fulfilling. Some things (like not being monied enough able to afford to move away from a ghetto, or not being able to retire early) are unmovable. They simply are and there isn't much one can do at a particular point.

However there are some things that if not overturned, can be shifted and one of these things is weight. So I'm dieting and exercising and some things are changing for the better. Yay. But not enough things.

Like what?

Like I haven't been writing. At all. I haven't paid attention to my mind, at how it questions certain things at how it laughs at life or wonders at it. I've simply been mute. This isn't good. Historically, I've been at my best after a long period of writing and rumination. But note--best doesn't necessarily mean happy. I stopped writing in part because it made think...made me start peering deep into my roily soul for answers that I've been avoiding for a long, long time. Like why haven't I made writing a basic part of my life? Basic as in I do it everyday, not as in I am taking an expensive class. Basic as in I write in my blog regularly, I develop essays regularly. I submit articles regularly. All these things can be accomplished without any extra outlay of cash on my part...just an outlay of time.

Sigh. And writing is just the tip of the iceberg. Why haven't I taken tests for a promotion? Why don't I call my mother more often? Why have I stopped going to the dentist? And why is my office reminiscent of the wreck of the Hespers?

Messy, messy, messy. I'm going to stop here. All these root issues out on the table at once are very off-putting...

1/16/10 Update on weight. And I have gone to the dentist since this post (to the tune of $1,500 dollars!). And I'm redesigning my office with custom bookshelves and real curtains. And I finally found a test I'm willing to take.

not satisfied with first world issues...

I'm lucky. I have a house, a partner, some nice friends, a family. I have clothes to wear, cars to drive, a job to go to and generous health insurance. My pension fund is still up and running and I have the great fortune to have more than enough to eat.

But I am unhappy. And from the looks of it, I'm not alone. I'm not going to into all the reasons posited in the article, I'm just here to relate that I've got a profound sense of discontent going on that

1. I haven't been successful in kicking,
2. That I don't feel I deserve.

So I've the continual ennui of a person who has enough but can't feel sufficient gratitude to make themselves happy. Oh I've read that an important factor in dealing with such angst is to help other people and to that end I now work in a job where I'm almost continually helping people. It is diverting, yes, but at the end of the day, I still feel unsatisfied and lucky all at the same time. Hmph.

Maybe I'll go eat an apple.

One clue that I have identified is that I've recently gone on a diet. And not eating what I want and forcing myself to exercise when I'd rather masquerade as a couch cushion lays bare any sort of immediate gratification. As I've mentioned before in my tweets, chocolate croissants go a long way toward improving my mood...much farther in fact than a 50 minute work out. At least in the short run.

Sigh.

new job, different day

Well, I did it. I changed jobs yet again. When it came down to it I simply couldn't stay in the old job...it was just too far from my core interests. I wanted to like it because I adored the people, adored what they talked about, where they went for dinner and where they traveled to on vacations. I loved where they hung out, admired their hobbies and the fact that they were very literate and witty. Their jokes were funny, their analysis of current events insightful and multi-layered and they were by and large an extremely articulate bunch. But I hated the career...and for all the stellar social connectivity, the work was, in the end, much too dull.

Now I've rejoined a cadre of workers that are mostly unlike me, less educated in the book sense, less pretentious probably (!)--more like the plumbers union. Don't get me wrong...there is nothing wrong with plumbers...I love plumbers and they are vital. Just like the job I'll be doing, plumbing work is more essential in terms of performing a necessary maintenance duty such work has a wonderful symmetry to it: a beginning, middle and end. And like plumbers, I'll get paid better too, which was also an added incentive to return.

But the brotherhood and sisterhood of plumbers don't populate my social group. I have little to discuss with other plumbers other than the work at hand. Tried though I have, I will never be an intrinsic part of their confederacy, never will I be 'brethren'. There's no sense of natural belonging like I felt with the "non-plumbers".

And that is a fact of life that I've chosen to live with until I can figure out how to change it. The work is cool but after only three days on the job, I sure am lonely.

Dang that's funny isn't? But it does explain why I bopped between these two careers so many times (temperament vs. talent?).

I know I need to start connecting authentically with my co-workers asap. I may not ever find myself at the same gathering with them outside of work, but I must, must feel like I'm connected to them in some way. It's really the only way I can finally settle down and work the rest of my time here.

It's a question of time

I wish I were prolific or at least consistently disciplined. I've got all these pseudonyms I can use if I need to shield how productive I am...if I needed to protect the world from my great work. But that's not the case. Actually, my creative output is rather puny, stolen away from days where I'm at work and don't feel guilty about "not spending time together".

It's a funny thing that has developed now that we are on different tracks. My love for her hasn't slacked but my time with her has. And since the new job, my time with myself has too. So there are fewer occasions for me to spend in quality activity with both of us.

When the weekends come, she's had sufficient time with herself, sufficient time to be productive or creative if she chooses, sufficient time to slack off and read a novel or be artistic or undirected.

But not so for me, myself and I: the kind of work I like to get into...reading online or writing, or setting up websites or working through big projects in my office is done only in stolen moments after work in the four hours I have between leaving work for the day and my mandatory bedtime. Regrettably, these solitary pursuits get short shrift. Love that she is, she wants to be out in the world doing stuff with me (really I am so lucky), whilst all I can think about is my big stack of New York Times book reviews waiting for me in the corner.

It's worse now that I hate work --it is not aligned with what I want to do this lifetime other than building a financial nest egg. I have no curiosity about my job so undertaking it feels unrelenting. And when I'm free of it, selfishly the first thing I think about is running to my writing or reading. Immersing myself in a sequestered project. But when I return home she figuratively comes to stand by me and says with that delightful coltishness "What do you want to go do?"

Shamefacedly, I realize I hadn't even given that a thought...all I could entertain was my time by myself, the luxury of no outside obligation other than feeding the animals. But that's not reality. Couples that do best, do things together but the things we used to do...go to restaurants and go shopping, European travel and expensive daytrips (lifestyle sampling I used to call it) those things evaporated when she and the boom boom economy retired. Her current hobbies that we might do together (golf and gambling) are so far removed from anything that I'd consider fun that we're left adrift trying to figure out how to connect.

For a time I tried halfheartedly to figure out how to make my work my play...because then I'd satiate my obsessions...enough to let me feel fulfilled in that realm. Then I'd seek her joyously (and perhaps learn to love golf?) without the niggling feeling that I was leaving some master vocation undone.

But that hasn't panned out...the majority of my most tender dreams live in the territory of jobs that pay very poorly. That country is populated by men and women who have no intention of those pursuits being their sole economic support.

So off I go to a deadening job, begrudgingly lavishing my time and energy on dreck only to return home and deprive both the things I desperately love of attention. How pitifully hollow.

There must be a way to reconfigure the equation here (the new job possibilities in a radically different field on the horizon), to reshuffle the choices available for us all. Because none of us are happy.

Money

Yesterday I took a class that I've been meaning to take for nearly 5 years. One of the topics of discussion was on controlling one's career. A young woman stated early in the day that by following the precepts laid out in this class, she was taking a step forward in her own self direction.

The teacher, an old hand, said "no matter what you do, it's a step toward self direction."

We all had to sit and think about that for a while.

And it's true. No matter what we do, we are creating a path, a way...even if our path is to stand still in one, blame place.

The class---more of a workshop really---was on learning how to be a freelancer; how to run your own business. It was for a particular type of business and the people in the class were all in this particular field where they made almost no money or OK money but with almost no raises---for decades. The field is populated with those who live in small cramped apartments or with room mates or with their parents. Or with husbands who support them. Few have employer paid benefits and there is no talk of pensions or retirement.

I was one of the very, very few who had a conventional job that gave me a modicum of security. High irony was when the instructor said..."you've planned well. You have set yourself up in a very enviable position for this field because you can slowly start building your freelance side. And when you do retire early, your initial freelancing won't feel so desperate since you'll have some income and essential benefits at your back."

Hah! How "lucky" I've been. How well I've planned. Funny. It was all out of fear of being a bag lady. Surprising that my fellow students did not demonstrate this same fear...they willingly flung themselves toward poverty for love, not money. For the integrity of choosing and following a path that had meaning to them.

And here I have been feeling like I've wasted my life when in fact I have been choosing and following a path based on my essential principles...the essential principle of not being an abject pauper or depending on my own wits to find the next gig, forever.

I had a revelation similar to this last week when in conversation with a colleague at work. I was recounting a quarterly meeting I attended during my very brief tenure in the private sector. The meeting was held in rather large and well-appointed auditorium, catered by an exclusive local restaurant. And there was an open wine bar.

To begin the meeting, a huge JumboTron screen descended from the ceiling. A video began, showing Steve Balmour, now head of Microsoft, standing at a podium in yet another auditorium. He was smiling and screaming, pumping his hands in the air to the rhythm of his bellowing.

"Make money, make money", he roared.

The crowd in my auditorium rose to their feet, as the real Steve Balmour walked out onto the stage, joining his image in the rallying cry.

"Make money," people shouted around me, emboldened by the wine bar, no doubt. "Make money". Many punched the air as Steve did.

Peer pressure forced me to stand up but I could not join the chorus. I was horrified and knew I had to leave both the auditorium and the field. This was a long time ago...during the tech boom-boom years and ever since I've secretly felt ashamed that I was not quite up to the challenge of being one with the crowd.

"It sounds awful", said my colleague, himself a serial bureaucrat. "...a bit like an assembly of capitalistic automatons!"

It was at this point in retelling the story that I realized why I was a civil servant.

For over a decade I've hated myself for not following my dreams; for not living up to my potential; for not following what I thought were important life principles.

How silly I've been.

I have followed my dreams (albeit unconscious ones). I have explored quite thoroughly vast swaths of my potentials even in my-dry-as-toast but noble field. And in following my career path I have cleaved rather closely to my principles...the principle of security and the fairly creaky notion of public service.

But people do change...they evolve. And I am aware now that my dream for freedom is trumping the old dream of security. Maybe it's that I've explored all the potentials I care to in public service or perhaps I'm simply searching for a different way of approaching it. I just know it's time to start preparing for a change.

What an interesting weekend it's been so far.

Just say no to yuppie angst!

This last week I've been filling in for my boss. No I'm not a glutton for punishment nor am I a suck up. I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it.

I've known for a while that I haven't actively pursued promotion even though others have clearly thought me ready for it. I've hesitated because I've seen so many people regret the decision.

1. Promotion caused a huge spike in their stress level.
   
2. It caused them to be different outside of work.
3. It made them hate their jobs a lot more than when they were mere worker bees.
4. It forced them to care about stuff (boss stuff, subject matter stuff) that they would have preferred not to waste their time with.

Based merely on this brief list, I figured promotion was a non-starter for me.

But I had to be sure.

So I did it for 4 days, clearly not enough time for a representative survey...but enough...enough for me to know that it would siphon the life right out of me. So instead, I'm going to try to train myself in a related discipline and figure out how to do some freelancing on the side. That way, perhaps I can make a little more money without bringing more yuppie angst into to it...