I briefly touched on Lent in my previous blog. But this time, I’m going to un-Lent (a.k.a. a resolution). I will now start responding to comments. My ignorance in previous posts (particularly my debut blog on bus fares) was somewhat stupid and showed how I can easily slip into the realm of solipsism. And for that, I apologise.
So I pondered over another topic where I can get your valuable opinions. See, the different cultural backgrounds and varying viewpoints of each individual is perhaps what I am subtly expressing in these blogs, that within ourselves, we hold different answers to questions shared by most of us. When addressing these, some of us are parochial, some are broad and others are in between in terms of our outlook on life. I think I bounce from one category to the next, never really settling in one particular place. This nomadic sluttyness is perhaps why my perspective on the existential questions to the minutiae of life is occasionally intriguing to all my beloved readers.
My good friend Raees Khan and I began to record a podcast some time ago, dealing with the questions that perhaps many of us mull over whilst out and about, during a deep state of meditation or even when on the toilet having a number two (or one, depending on your state of relaxation and of your bowel). Our aim was to discuss conflicting ideas in the form of audio, such as ‘Fame vs. Fortune’, ‘Communism vs. Capitalism’ and ‘Tits vs. Arse’ (cheap pun #2: I ‘tittered’ when that came up in our chinwag). We couldn’t be ‘arsed’ with the third one (and there’s cheap pun #3), and the second one was a special one that we would save until later, when we had experienced what it was like to discuss other topics. The first one had been recorded at one point, and we talked about it for a long time. So long in fact, that the computer couldn’t handle the size of the file we recorded and so we had to discard it altogether. You could say it went ‘tits’ up (and there’s cheap pun #4). But it’s a project I still aspire to complete with him. We shall impose a time limit next time. Lesson learned.
Confucius said ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life’. Concerning my current situation of casual employment, ‘a few days here and there’ is perhaps the most efficient way of describing my ‘dealio’. The goals regarding my career aspirations echo Confucius’ wise words, but how long can a person stay in a state of casual employment, or just plain old unemployment, until he/she is face-to-face with the harsh realities of life? By harsh realities of life, I mean when it comes to the point where you are kipping in your parents house until you begin to enter old age, still wearing apparel that is so old that it can no longer be attributed with the term ‘retro’, donning stone-washed jeans pressed so strongly with an iron that it’s begun to form a layer of dull shiny crustiness, trainers pumped so much that they would burst at a stomp, and a t-shirt of a band you saw when you still had all those dreams of the future, with all their tour dates that happened 20 years ago on the back of this worn out top, only acting as an aged beacon that broadcasts how desperately you clutch onto a time much simpler. A specific reference, sure. Of course, I am referring here to people that I have seen walking around, and formulate these stories with the grey matter encased in my skull. I imagine these sorts of people still living with parents/guardians as they snigger about what they saw on the internet, or fantasise about Hayden Panattiere, wishing they could save the cheerleader and thus save the world, but if only I could tell them that those dreams won’t be achieved by sitting in your bedroom playing online shoot-em-ups or conversing with others in binary. It’s just not a good way to go about life.
It’s those things that get me a little bit worried. A while back, I was a dole earner, in that I signed on at the Job Centre and from experience, I can think of much more fun and less embarrassing things to do. You see people taking quick drags before entering, most of whom seem to go in with bored expressions, as if it has become a tiresome endeavour; an arduous effort to get forty quid. Luckily, I’m out of there now, and I wondered whether it’s just better to do a job for the monetary gain just so you can rub in it in their faces. ‘Ha! I got a job! You didn’t think it possible, but someone hired me! And when I get up the career ladder, I’m gonna be a manager here, that’s right, at this Job Centre, just you watch, and then I’ll laud it over you, constantly shining my ‘manager’ badge with the best polish money can buy, just to emphasise my superiority and manager-ness’. Of course, this is complete fabrication, but my desire to see such an event take place is still as strong as it was. I suppose I’m a sucker for the happy ending (funnily enough, there’s talk of massage parlours in the city that can give you that, though I suppose that’s a different type of job altogether). But I wanted your viewpoints on this as it’s a topic that is becoming more and more pertinent in society. Should one take the plunge for their ‘dream job’ or just settle for money in a craft that one is indifferent to, or even hates? The gains are obvious in the second one, but its side effects are too much for me, that we should be drones, merely existing to sustain the equilibrium in a society slapped by economic recession. When we all know what we want to do in life, should it not be our primary goal? Is there a limit until we say, ‘That’s it, I’ve tried with no success. Let’s just find something to keep me going’? Luckily, I have not yet reached that point and I suppose I will have to cross that proverbial bridge when I come to it, should it interrupt my journey to the ‘getting paid for what I enjoy’ vocation. But for now, I remain a firm believer that both our careers and lives should only be governed by what makes us happy. After all, is that not what we require?
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