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| Birds, and one man, in flight |
Because the old version of cynthiadaffron.com is now dead, and the domain temporarily redirecting here to the Artful Mistakes blog, it's a fine opportunity for me to slap some old work up here. And so I will.
For a time, I wrote the back page article for a magazine for beginning computer users. I tended to have a hard time staying on topic, but the editor gave me a lot of latitude (thanks, Susie), so I often managed to work in what was on my mind if I at least, as in the case here, alluded to computers.
This article (below) was written in the winter of 2005, after I had finished a masters program in creative writing at UMiami and moved across the country to get rained on in Portland, Oregon. Oregon set records for the number of gloomy, gray days records that year, and my quest for employment was slow-going, leaving me to reflect on career choices. Not every point holds true to my current thinking, but I'll let it stand as is, a marker of that time.
What I like about this piece is that it hints at things that I would do in the future. I did, in fact, become a property caretaker, at two different places in New Mexico, in 2006 and then in again in 2012. I did end up taking painting classes, and sailing lessons. My interest in visual art was starting to bubble up a bit, before I was aware of it. And I still have itchy feet, prone to long walks and longer road trips.
I also still very much believe in the importance of dreaming.
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So What Do You Do?
Like the roots of plants growing in the same pot, identity and career are
deeply tied and tangled. It's difficult to know where one plant ends and the
other begins, even though on the surface, the different leaves and stalks
appear distinct.
Here in America, "we are what we do." Politician or police
officer, librarian or lawyer, musician or mortician, the answer to what we do
(a verb) is usually announced as a noun: "I am a ____." We don't say
that we politic and police. If we are trying to be a bit more evasive, we may
say we are "in the __ industry." For example, you might say you're
"in the film industry" when what you really do is drive a golf cart
all over the set relaying messages and taking coffee orders.
These issues are on my mind because I'm unemployed and having an identity
crisis. I'm pretty sure the two are related.
Technically, as a writer, I am not unemployed. I am "freelancing."
Writers are either employed by a company or self-employed and freelancing. Of
course, some writers are financially successful at freelancing. And then there
are others, like myself at the moment, who quietly draw from savings and
solicit loans to tide them over through lean times. (As the old saying goes,
there's a fine line between
self-employment and
unemployment.)
Many of the efficient and gainfully employed around me have wondered, subtly
and not so subtly, enviously and/or disdainfully, exactly how I've been
spending my days. Here is the scandalous truth: courtesy of the Information
Age, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time playing Internet dress-up
with wildly diverse careers and the lives and personalities that might
accompany them.
Over the last few months, I have looked into graduate programs in art, art
history, library science, psychology, speech pathology, journalism, nursing,
communications and business. (In a fit of confusion, I even read up on law
school!) I've also pondered certificate programs in massage therapy, computer
programming, and driving a semi. I investigated teaching English in Japan,
organic farming in Maine, and permaculture in Costa Rica.
Under the idea of cutting expenses, I've looked into caretaker and
housesitting gigs. So I've corresponded with a writer in Rhinebeck, NY, a
graduate student in Cantonsville, MD, an artist/retreat owner ten miles from
nowhere in Mississippi, and a very polite man in Portland, Maine, who didn't
realize we were talking about two different Portlands (I live in Oregon, not
Maine).
My surfing exploration has netted international opportunities such as
volunteering at a yoga studio in Costa Rica, a fellowship in France, and
sailing as crew on boats in exotic locales. I've learned surprising new facts,
including of the existence of a country named Palau (1000 miles away from Guam,
it is a tropical paradise devoid of any poisonous snakes).
Domestically, I've researched rents and yoga studios, universities and job
markets in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Wilmington, North Carolina,
Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and St. Petersburg, Florida
through bestplaces.net, craigslist.org, findyourspot.com, and a whole lot of
Googling.
Locally, I've inquired about positions in painting, jewelry making, working
with an autistic child, and fruit basket assembly. Although none of those folks
responded to my queries, I did interview at a health and wellness medical
clinic and an upscale watch and jewelry store. No luck in either case, but I
didn't mind because once I was inside, I couldn't see myself happy there for
long. (Apparently, neither could they.)
Of course, if you've gotten this far, you may have noticed that the vast
majority of this frenetic research has nothing at all to do with what I say I
do when people ask. My actual stated career as a writer, excepting sporadic but
enthusiastic work on my novel, ranting and researching e-mails, quarterly
columns and rare blog entries, has been largely ignored amidst this uproar of
possibilities.
So if "we are what we do," what does all this Internet research and
dreaming and dress up say about me? That I don't know who I want to be, and I
don't want to be who I am? Yes, in part. But in a larger sense, what does it
say about our society that most people will no longer have just one career, but
several? Amid the end of company loyalty and pension benefits, the Internet
offers quicker and broader exchanges of information than ever before. It sets
the scene for career switching to blossom as quickly as hothouse flowers.
Consider one of my friends, who went from seven years as a librarian, and
then retrained to be a psychologist. Or my cousin the graphic designer who is
now studying accounting. Or another friend who went from repairing Persian rugs
to working as a computer guru, and is now starting his own business as a
photographer. Two other friends both worked as lawyers, and then quit. Neither
is sure what is next on the horizon. But then, another friend, a former
caregiver and vet tech, is in her second year of law school, and loving it.
Americans, in particular, tend to ask that dreaded and dreadful questions,
"So what do you do?" and then slot you into whatever category and
status your profession allows. But we are not only that. We are also what we
dream about doing
even if we never do it. Because in those aspirations
and explorations, we are trying to find expression for some part of ourselves
that we want to expand and allow to grow.
We want recognition for characteristics not usually associated with our
primary profession, or we yearn for something in our lives that the profession
doesn't necessarily foster. The librarian realized it was the people he wanted
to help, not the information he wanted to find, and so psychology was a
reasonable switch for him.
Many people find a livable compromise in deciding that their hobbies outside
of work can reflect other facets of their personality. Another friend runs a
fashion design company, but I met as a classmate in a poetry class in graduate
school. My aunt, who by day deals with bankruptcies, by night is ballroom dancing
or quilting or otherwise doing something completely different.
We are not just what we do for work now, but also what we have done before
for work, or for fun. Changing jobs does not change who we are. The librarian
still lives in the psychologist. But even that history, the total of our
actions in and outside of work, with friends, family and loved ones, this is
still not all of it. We are also what we have thought about, what we have
dreamed about, what we've wanted to do and might (or might never) do in the
future. We are also what interests us, by which I mean, what we remember, what
moves us, what motivates us, what we admire, what we care about, what makes us
curious, what we want, rational or not.
We are not just actions. We are not (only) what we do.
The Internet makes it easy to let our thoughts wander. Wandering helps our
dreams evolve, sets the scene for that serendipitous stumble into new
connection. Without wandering through caretaking ads, I'd never have heard of
Palau or ever corresponded with a literary archivist. Not that it may ever be
important. But then again, it might be. Without the dress-up, without the
random reading, without asking the questions, without exploring and e-mailing
of experts and amateurs, how will we, in the present moment, continue to step
forward onto increasingly authentic paths?
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| Preferred career: cat pillow |
And yet: a caution. Many eastern religions stress the importance of being
present in the moment, and there is great wisdom in that, in paying attention
to precisely what we see and hear and smell and taste, enjoying, or at least
noticing, the life we are living right now, rather than always daydreaming or
researching an invented future. As much as I try to put myself in other shoes,
I only have my current self. No matter how hard I imagine, I can't ever so
completely envision my dream life as a dream lawyer or sailor or best selling
writer so to determine my next move small with certainty – I can only expand
the possibilities of which I am aware. Until I, or you, are in a place or situation
or job, with all of its real life complications, until we are in a moment,
actually doing something, we can't entirely know how we will feel.
In the end, every choice in life is a gamble on an unknown. We can't know if
what we choose will be better. We can only know that if we choose change, it
will be different. And even if we choose to stay the same, life changes every
moment anyway.
Still, I'm pretty sure the next place I live and the next job I find will be
perfect. Everything I've read on the 'net, and everyone I've asked have
verified an idyllic world where I am magically transformed into a much, much
better person than I am right now. It's all out there, just waiting for me to
make the leap into becoming the person I've always dreamed of being.
Whoever that is.
Heartbeat - This piece was a less-than-successful portrait I started in a class months ago that I put aside until recently. I changed a lot of colors around, added shadows, background texture, etc. I may never love it, but it's significantly more appealing than it was. Her face is based off a magazine photo, although since, ahem, representative drawing is not my strength, it only looks somewhat like the original person. 
