Pathetic I am not!

Many people faced with redundancy find that they are challenged in an existential way. They experience a reassessment of their place. I’m feeling something of that I suppose.

Most of my life, I’ve tried to view success and adversity in such a way that my core beliefs are not challenged and my view of the world remains stable…ish. Much of it is post rationalisation, and in behaving like that, I’m doing what most other people apparently do.

I’m not THAT far off kilter in my self, I’m just fed up and tired of being in this position. I really think it’s time that our luck changed again.

Perhaps if I were a person that needed a whole lot of reassurance from lots of other people, I might feel less ‘centred’ than I feel like I am. Luckily for me, Daile is pretty much the whole shooting match in terms of the support that I need.

Never-the-less, I’ve been feeling challenged in respect to the part of me that needs to fit into our society. I’m NOT feeling like I have a good fit here, and its not really all that surprising. I’ve spent nearly six of the last twelve months without work, and whilst that’s bad from an income point of view, it’s also bad from a social perspective, cos everyone in advanced industrialised society needs to have a job description or a bloody good excuse.

I’ve been working on an excuse, but only intermittently. The rest of the time I’ve been working on conformity, just not with the same degree of success as most other people.

It’s an invidious position to be in – mine. To be in my late middle age, and yet still be wondering what I’m going to do when I grow up! My whole life I’ve had the notion that I’m destined to be great, but absolutely no idea of WHAT I’m going to be great at, and therefore, not really surprisingly, I’ve not been what you might call driven.

That whole time I’ve felt trapped between two opposing views of the world. One view states that opportunities are there to be exploited, that the pursuit of profit and material wealth are sensible pastimes for self-respecting humans to engage in. The other, more ‘spiritual’ (for want of a more appropriate word) view is that…well that there must be a mistake. Try as I have, there seems to be little in common to unite these two viewpoints. Neither of them are good enough on their own to be ALL to me. I can’t wholly give myself to the pursuit of money, it seems such a false god. On the other hand, I can’t seem to discern a spiritual path that feels right either… and even if I could, what would I feed the kids with? Nothing feels ‘certain’ enough…and the older I get, the less certain I am about anything!

I’m not sure that I totally agree with the statement; ‘No man is an island’. However, I’d concede that if a man were an island, that he would have to be a part of an archipelago. So, whilst I’m not exactly a candle in the wind of public opinion, my worth as a member of our society is related to my ability to resonate with it. My belief in my SELF is related to my FIT with society. Not in a way that I’m kiboshed if I don’t get approval for my situation or my actions, but in some way that I’m not sure I understand.

All this theory is coming out because I’m feeling like not fitting in is steering me to a career change and I think I should understand what is going on. Much of our thinking about worth is predicated on the same kind of mono-cultural thinking that leads early risers to look with disdain on late risers. Perhaps understandably, people who have prostrated themselves to the wheel of progress, are wont to take a dim view of others who just didn’t quite manage to flog themselves quite so effectively…even if they ARE, on the face of it nice people. People like people who are like them. People like people whose actions justify their own. Is there something about ME that people can see from a long way off, that identifies me as a non-believer?

In conversation I do try my best to fit…and in application letters, that becomes almost pathological! Well…I say pathological, but of course, it is difficult to make a sow’s ear look anything like the silk purse that they all want!…and part of me still thinks ‘why would anyone lie about what they’ve done just to get a job as widget stamper, leaflet distributor, carpet layer, bank manager or any other meaningless occupation? Apart from needing income…that is. The 70’s song ‘Sing if you’re proud to be gay!’ comes to mind! I’m proud to have been a generalist not a specialist. I’m proud to have been involved in work that requires thought and care, both for the work itself, and for the other members of the teams that I headed, but I feel like a pariah – as if I represent a threat to social structures in companies.

Little ol’ me!

And then I realised that;

it’s not me that doesn’t fit in with society…its society that doesn’t fit in with me! I AM an island, and I’m well defended. I need to trade for food, but I don’t have to hand over sovereignty!

And whilst I’m not Canute, I do reckon that its worth trying to change the tide of public opinion on mindless pursuit of profit and career. I say ‘Pathos is not pathogenic!’