December 2, 2010
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Doing My Job
Narcissism alert: This is an exercise in self-reflection. I need it, and if I was doing it alone, internally, it would be too easy to let myself be distracted. Writing it out forces me to stay focused on working it out. Well… not actually to stay focused, but certainly to keep returning to focus as my mind strays away and then notices this unfinished work staring at me.
I don’t have a job in the common sense of paid employment, on a schedule, for an employer. The last time I had a job like that was 1976. By then, at age 32, it had become very hard to find anyone willing to hire me. I’d had a felony incarceration for possession of marijuana, and my employment history was spotty. I had moved around a lot, and many of the jobs I’d had were terminated for absences due to illness. Getting sick again and losing that job put me firmly in the category of hardcore unemployable.
Fortunately for me, that same year I found a way to start getting paid for doing Tarot card readings and intuitive counseling, work I had been doing informally and without pay for seven years by then. That self-employment provided meager but adequate income for close to a quarter century before the relapsing and remitting illnesses again caught up with me, rendering me unable to do the summertime round of setting up booths at arts fairs and music festivals, and discouraging a loyal bunch of long-term mail-order clients who often had to wait months for responses from me.
But I digress… See how readily my mind strays from my purpose. DOING MY JOB! I need to define what that phrase means to me, examine where I stand in relation to the concept, and evaluate how well I’ve been doing my job.
The first purpose I set for myself in this life, when I was about four years old (give or take a year or two – I recall the moment and where I was, but not exactly when it was), was to “learn everything.” I later modified that to learning everything I can, but the original thought was, “everything,” absolutely. Subsequently, I was taught that in the limited time I had in the one life I had, I would not be able to learn absolutely everything, so I modified the ambition. Now that I have come to recall having lived before, to assume that I can live again, and to suspect that the conscious, learning, part of me is both infinite and eternal, I suppose it would be okay to revert to the original intention. I intend to know it all. That’s a big job, right there.
My first assignment, an imperative parental injunction, was to, “pull my own weight.” As early as I was able to get around on my own two feet, I was required to do so to whatever extent I was able. If there was work to be done, I was expected to learn how to do my share, and to do a good job of it. Being a freeloader or parasite was the lowest of the low. This job has, over the years, been very challenging. The parental programming set me up to refuse help, even when I needed it. My self-esteem was dependent on my being independent. Physical weaknesses and disabilities, as well as economic hardships, necessitated accepting help, and it was very difficult to do that. Some fancy mental footwork has allowed me to accept, and even to ask for help. I can manage now to do that and still keep my self-esteem, by giving back as much as I can. My parents’ hard-headed individualism has turned me into an open-hearted individual, openly and gladly giving whatever I’ve got to anyone who seems to need it.
Somewhere, probably from my paternal ancestry, I acquired a talent for storytelling, and some facility with words. Those who have heard my stories and read my letters, psychic readings, magazine articles, and blogs, frequently asked for more. A robed and hooded crone came to me in a dream and told me to write down my story. It’s a job I do fitfully, as the words either flow or they don’t. A decade or two ago, I began combining my enthusiasm for learning with my facility for writing, and started thinking about publishing factual articles and research papers. A few of them have showed up here on Xanga from time to time. As jobs go, it’s neither the best nor the worst, in my opinion.
Nature or cosmic mechanics or something has set me up to be a nurturer. Cooking and serving food to family, intimate friends, and crowds of strangers, is fun. The work itself is rewarding, and the applause is gratifying. If right livelihood is doing what you love, then my dream job is in a kitchen. The aforementioned physical and financial limitations tend to curtail my ability to indulge that particular creative urge to any great extent. Around here, I don’t always manage to prepare even one real meal each day. Some days, I barely manage to feed myself from the fruit basket and jars of nuts. I’m a frustrated culinary artist. That’s where that’s at.
Throughout my 66 years, I’ve become aware of a pervasive human need to justify one’s existence, to find meaning in life, to assign purpose to life. After much consideration of many different individual takes on the answer to the, “Why are we here?” question, I’ve adopted as my own the one that suits me best. My purpose in life is to transcend fear and practice unconditional love. That’s the job I took upon myself after mature reflection, in contrast to my youthful enthusiasm for learning, my parents’ injunction to carry my own weight, the biologically mediated gender role of nurturer, and the socially motivated flip-side of the learner thing in the writer and storyteller role. I think I’m doing that job in somewhat the same way and to a similar degree that I’m doing all the others: spottily, sometimes, after a fashion, in my own way and my own time.
So, this job of assessing the job I’ve been doing of being who I am has just about run its course for me. I’ve got other things to do. If I left anything out, or if something changes, I’ll need to revisit it sometime, I guess. That’s it for now.
Comments (3)
If a job is only about how we collect a paycheck, then it is a thing hardly worth mentioning. Thanks for sharing this.
Your first line reminds me of a book I was looking for the other day, “Malignant Self-Love”. I started it almost a year ago and then I got distracted and never finished it, despite my fascination with the subject’s treatment in the few chapters I read.
I started to look for it a few days ago, and then got distracted again, and forgot about it until just now.
Tomorrow morning I board a jet at O’Hare destined for arrival in Shanghai 14 hours and 49 minutes later. I should be packing. I should be fretting over the weight of my coat or the number of pairs of sox needed to sustain me during my absence.
I am not packing. I am not fretting. I am enjoying your reflections on a life, shared openly with a stranger who was blown in by a propitious wind.
I need to find that book now. I have time to read tomorrow.
Peace,
SR
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