I can commit to people and relationships, but not to any major life decisions. I know now is the time of life when I'm supposed to throw everything to the wind and become hard-boiled and career centered. But there's the hitch: not much is available in that department. I need a master's degree for what I want to do. I cannot as yet afford that. Nor am I ready to jump in. In the meantime, I'm supposed to find a semi-meaningful job that will make me enough money to live on and hopefully keep part of my brain alive until I can leap back into academia where my heart belongs. But you know what? Those jobs are rare. I am out there in this economy with a humanities degree. I live super-frugally and paycheck to paycheck. And you know what? I would love to be a workaholic. Shoot, that's how I've been my whole life. But I can't do that, and none of the jobs available offer the kind of fulfillment that would enable me to once again exist without people. But I'm not really sure that I could ever do that again---if there is one thing that this past year has taught me, it's that people are Meaning. I fully believe more than ever before that something as simple as a conversation or a cup of tea with a friend, an acquaintance, hell, even a stranger--is something extraordinarily sacred. It doesn't matter if the encounter is witty or entertaining or academically productive. It doesn't matter if the person is someone you will only know for a few months or for a lifetime. None of the pragmatics matter. You don't know how long a person will be in your sphere--but that cannot affect your investment in them. You must invest. You must love and love and love. Because that is all that we can do in the face of all of the shit that we encounter. Love is the only thing that has a shot at eternity. I used to limit my investment in people, because I had "important things" to do. I now know that they are the importance. All of my old ambitions are shot, or at least waiting to be reincarnated in a fashion that is open to community.
I have never known how to love God. I used to believe that my love could be centered in meticulous rule following. Clearly I wasn't really getting what the New Testament is all about. But now I know--the best way to love Him is through loving people. I always knew that theoretically, but it never fully set in. I never understood how short our time is-- I never understood that the only way for us to mildly touch on knowing divinity is to look for the spark of it in those who were created in His image. I don't see just flesh and blood anymore-- I see fellow souls (and sense that most of us are lonely ones.) And I know that community is not just an economic or psychological necessity--it is sacred. It is worship. We live in a world where we find so many convenient ways to build in distance, to shy away, to preserve our inner core. We prefer media to real live conversation, entertainment to banal everyday human interaction. Connection is rare. Emotional commitment is transient. We rarely trust each other. Hell, we rarely trust ourselves. But all of this only translates into why the intent to connect is so vitally important.
So what am I doing with my life? Damned if I know.
But here is my secret unimpressive answer:
Loving.
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Beautiful blog. Well put, well said.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm growing accustomed to the idea of NOT going to grad school. Would I like to? Yes. Do I need to? Maybe not.
If I had to describe our generation, Kate, I'd say we're the generation of cross-bearers.
We were supposed to graduate and find nice jobs. Or, more to the point, we were supposed to graduate and move seamlessly into the next academic institution.
Instead, we graduated and found that nice jobs were not to be had, except for the few and the lucky--with little regard to marketable skills. We found that our middle class parents couldn't afford even to co-sign us into a higher level of education, and that we couldn't justify the debt anyway, even if they could.
And it's amazing to me how quickly this shift came about.
I remember feeling very betrayed by the accusations of friends of family when I couldn't find a nice job, or even a job (period), in Boston. I remember feeling betrayed by my own hand when I couldn't finally get a job in the field I loved, publishing. I had the sense that I was exploring the new economy first-hand, while most others were still a mile behind me, incapable of seeing the gaping valley into which I had just set foot.
In fact, many of these feelings are still alive in my bones.
I know you have felt much of the same.
All this to say, I relate to much of your blog. XD