—Got it?
Raisonné d’etre
—by Sugarpuss O'Shea, Editrix
Life’s work? LIFE’s WORK?!? Why can’t you settle down and just work? Why is it such a big deal to know you’re doing what you were trained to do, or better yet, always wanted to do? What are you muttering about, your life’s work? You’re lucky to have a damn job, let alone a divine calling—somebody has to clean public toilets at the State Parks, you know? Sometimes, life is work… Shut-up and look busy!
Yet and still, you are left wandering, or wondering —squandering or nose-grinding. You want to know why you’ve gone to school or got high and slept through class; matriculated from a University or left to travel the world; found work or got married, got laid-off, found another job, slept with your boss, quit, went on unemployment, did temping, moved back in with: the parents, the ex-’s, the cult—then found another job with even less personal satisfaction. When you were young the answers came easy, didn’t they? If asked the rote question by some well-meaning, shiny new-coin dandling relative —O boy! Did you have some answers! You were going to be drawing comics, or have a bunch of babies, or race Hot Wheels, or be Stevie Nicks and eat tempeh, or go live in the woods with the grizzlies —and besides, you’d also be a millionaire, so, like, duh…
It was once so simple to say what it was you saw for yourself. But, in retrospect, from your first W-2, to your current 401k, did you ever find yourself alone in the company lunchroom sniffing your new business card? Or filing away expense receipts with a secret smile, musing: This is My Brilliant Career!
But why indeed not? Wasn’t that part of the whole plan? Is everyone confused, or is it just you? Ultimately, like a Sartre character who can’t NOT tell his story, because to tell is to live: we all have to sum it up. The good and the bad. The memorable and the insufferable. The supposed avocations and the unemployed vacations.
Why? WHY?!? Because your life’s work is a map. It describes the craggy topography, the barren badlands, and the ever-changing horizon line of that ultimate of destinations: Your Future. So, herein, are some voices at differing latitudes and longitudes. Take note, or as the French would say, “Résumer, cheré…”
—————
(Editrix’s note: I began this ’zine in approx 2000, with revisions and contributions coming in until 2002. Then I hit a wall.... A very long and tall and dense wall. I am compelled now, however, to publish the variety of responses I was lucky enough to extract from friends and associates, because FOR FUCK SAKES it’s 8 years later and _almost_ w/out exception, peoples situations are the same or worse... I am not attempting to bum anyone out, but it has been a strange decade. The very idea of Life=Work / Life≠Dream Job is too spot on for me. Nevertheless, no matter how much I want to opt out, hide under a rock, bang my head on the wall, etc. I can't bury these truths and I owe their authors/creators their revelation.
Read ‘em and weep...
—S.O’S January MMX)
Yet and still, you are left wandering, or wondering —squandering or nose-grinding. You want to know why you’ve gone to school or got high and slept through class; matriculated from a University or left to travel the world; found work or got married, got laid-off, found another job, slept with your boss, quit, went on unemployment, did temping, moved back in with: the parents, the ex-’s, the cult—then found another job with even less personal satisfaction. When you were young the answers came easy, didn’t they? If asked the rote question by some well-meaning, shiny new-coin dandling relative —O boy! Did you have some answers! You were going to be drawing comics, or have a bunch of babies, or race Hot Wheels, or be Stevie Nicks and eat tempeh, or go live in the woods with the grizzlies —and besides, you’d also be a millionaire, so, like, duh…
It was once so simple to say what it was you saw for yourself. But, in retrospect, from your first W-2, to your current 401k, did you ever find yourself alone in the company lunchroom sniffing your new business card? Or filing away expense receipts with a secret smile, musing: This is My Brilliant Career!
But why indeed not? Wasn’t that part of the whole plan? Is everyone confused, or is it just you? Ultimately, like a Sartre character who can’t NOT tell his story, because to tell is to live: we all have to sum it up. The good and the bad. The memorable and the insufferable. The supposed avocations and the unemployed vacations.
Why? WHY?!? Because your life’s work is a map. It describes the craggy topography, the barren badlands, and the ever-changing horizon line of that ultimate of destinations: Your Future. So, herein, are some voices at differing latitudes and longitudes. Take note, or as the French would say, “Résumer, cheré…”
—————
(Editrix’s note: I began this ’zine in approx 2000, with revisions and contributions coming in until 2002. Then I hit a wall.... A very long and tall and dense wall. I am compelled now, however, to publish the variety of responses I was lucky enough to extract from friends and associates, because FOR FUCK SAKES it’s 8 years later and _almost_ w/out exception, peoples situations are the same or worse... I am not attempting to bum anyone out, but it has been a strange decade. The very idea of Life=Work / Life≠Dream Job is too spot on for me. Nevertheless, no matter how much I want to opt out, hide under a rock, bang my head on the wall, etc. I can't bury these truths and I owe their authors/creators their revelation.
Read ‘em and weep...
—S.O’S January MMX)
1 comment:
What is the role of free will versus destiny in self-actualization, of which your life's work is part? Were you always meant to do something in particular (destiny) or did you make it up (free will)?
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