Once the basic needs are taken care of; food, bed, and security are taken care of, what is there to do? This is where I sit now. Not all of my needs are taken care of. Social attentions are desperately lacking, but they would be a major distraction too.
“Why?” That sums it up pretty well. “Why do this or why do that?” and “What are my available choices?”
Let’s see what I’ve thought of most often. By far the most common choice people make is family. Finding a mate, having kids, school, college, and retirement. Of course, there are numerous decisions points in this sequence; multiple marriages, children, schools, jobs,.. This is what I think I should do. Though except for the finding a mate I don’t know if I care about the rest. Children seems like a good idea. I think my body is pretty good and I would like to see it continue. Otherwise, the world is ruled by Catholics and people who don’t understand birth control.
This life seems a bit confining. Events are driven by calendar, kindergarten and anniversaries. There is much to explore that seems under the surface. A deep, long relationship with someone and watching kids grow up.
This life seems expected and that rankles. It also means giving up my wants to those of my as-yet dependents. That takes the decision away and gives me someone(s) to blame. Much easier than finding a solution.
Right now, I feel like this would be a poorly made decision. My relationships to this point have been nearly complete disasters. Friends never to be talked to again. Very few friends. Distant, shallow family interactions. The one constant seems to be a penchant for saying the exactly wrong thing at inappropriate times and alienating myself. Also, not reaching out to people. Really, I don’t even think to reach out, because I don’t know anyone would help.
My age is starting to freak me out. I think I’m missing the window on this choice. Most people have set to this path in their 20’s. My arbitrary and perhaps foolish cut off is 40. Any later makes me an 50 year old man running around in the soccer van. That doesn’t interest me.
I also wonder what’s so wrong with me that this hasn’t happened to me. My past relationships get a lot of examination and the mistakes, which might be minor or correctable or youth, only get highlighted by my anxiety.
Is this the path I want to take? I don’t know. Finding someone that I can talk to and care for is very important to me. I yearn for connection, understanding, companionship, company, friendship, and love. The lack of these experiences is felt very sharply at the moment.
With Bridget I had many of these aspects, but I lacked self confidence and self love. Instead, I hated myself for not speaking up, not being the person she wanted me to be, for consistently failing to be worthy of her, for allowing myself to get run over, and not establishing myself. As the relationship ended these aspects were withdrawn until friendship was all that remained. That wasn’t enough to keep a relationship. The self hate is well established and even I had seen it reflected back to me in my actions toward Bridget.
Interacting with Sara this summer repeated several patterns I had seen with Bridget. It is to my eternal shame that I didn’t bring this up with her and do something about it. I thought that time had passed and I had meditated on it enough. That I wouldn’t do the same things again. But I did.
This makes me terrifically gunshy. I’m very angry with myself. There’s no reason to think another relationship wouldn’t repeat the same issue. You don’t want to know me. No one should. I eventually become psychologically abusive in a passive aggressive way.
I don’t know what a remedy is. How do you restore or rather create self-respect and appreciation? I’m such a hard judge. Just being competent.. and good? That’s pretty far out there.
Besides, I can’t figure out what I am and want to do? For months, I prevaricated on filling in the rest of my online dating profile. It finally occurred to me that I can’t describe myself truthfully, because I don’t know who I am. What is it I’m advertising online; a blogger, programmer, introvert,..? Those are things I’ve done and may not be what I do tomorrow.
This takes me back to, “Why?” I’m basically stable, well fed, unhappy, and antisocial. What is the reason to do anything, including taking the next breath? Why are people here? Why would I choose to come here? What is it that is so interesting that I would go through the process of living?
At this point in my life I can go in any of a great number of different directions. The number of options seems too much. I’m afraid of abandoning my 10 yr old increasingly unsatisfying career. There aren’t any interpersonal ties or connections to hold me. My mind is pretty sharp and I have a lot of characteristics that make me a good programmer. Well, developer. This job wants a programmer, but I can still develop if I want to.
“Want to” is the problem. What do I want to do? I could do just about anything and be good at it. Starting over is probably the biggest fear which my analytical mind wants to risk manage away. I haven’t been really snake bit by any one thing.
Writing on the blog is tempting, but people don’t make a living at that without lots of connections, time, and luck. I could literally starve for years. Actually, this aspect of writing is the very reason for copyright law. It takes years to make a book and all the lead up time is an investment that needs an artificial legal protection to ensure authors are paid. Also, I have no idea whether I’m good at it or not. No one ever comments on anything. Writing seems a hobby now that will likely grow.
My other interests swing like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. It’s gardening, then biking, carpentry, home remodeling, dating, programming, family history, computers, music, iPods, and on and on. Give each one 1-6 or 12 months and you have my interests. I can’t pick something when I won’t sit still long enough.
I’ve thought of more business ideas that you can imagine. Mostly, they fit around the attention absorbing hobby of the moment. That’s how long my enthusiasm lasts.
What about a programming job at a different place? I would be very surprised if it were in Amarillo.
Switching to this job brought up a little hereto unheard of voice that asks what my work will be used for. If I’m spending ~40 hours a week on something it should be beneficial, non-harming, useful, successful, and generally improve peoples lives.
These are the choices I’ve seen so far. UE manages power plant drawings. Innocuous, helpful, mismanaged, which is why I left. There are a surprising number of insurance companies here. Enough said about them. Cattle tracking software. Horse breeding software. Crop insurance software. Local websites. Schools and Colleges at a 50% pay cut and probably not programming. Banks tend to fall in the category of insurance companies for me. Finally, the nuclear bombs and military attack helicopters. Love the last two.
Perhaps, I’ve missed something. Local websites seem promising, though very rare. This is Amarillo. Tweet is what birds do.
This leads to an argument with myself. On one side, I’m being too strict and on the other I know the disappointment I felt when I took my current job. It was good in all the parameters except the intention of the company organization and the physical programming environment (cube/building).
Those thoughts I just brushed away. Over the years they have grown and made me wonder what it is that I work towards every day. Where does my energy go and to whom? When the new CEO took over he answered my question quite simply. The company has always been profitable. Those profits had slipped from 20-25% down to 10% and he intending to restore or exceed that profit margin. So, my work goes towards the bottom line of a massive, faceless entity.
I’m afraid if I make the same choice again I will consider it settling for something less than I could have had. What that is I am left mystified.
Why work here or there? Why this career?
My attention turned to philosophy. It would have been religion, but nearly every religious person I see has chosen at some point to turn their brain off. Thinking that someone must have faced this decision before. Someone has to have been here before me. Maybe they left a note.
This led to an exploration of measurement. How do you value one choice over another? First, you have to measure the goodness. What makes someone choose coke over water, even though water is better for them? How do you know a decision or in this case job/career is good or bad?
Some of this is very new ground for me. One aspect of Bridget that I valued at first was her speed at judging the goodness of something. I could never settle on the right one and took a very long time to pick. Usually, I savor this process and explore all the possibilities making spreadsheets to compare on cleanliness, distance from work, price, size, likability, etc. Judge Bridget is the persona I grew to hate the most for it’s quick and sometimes very wrong decisions.
I have learned a lot and judge a great many things that I previously ignored. My overwhelming opinion is that most things out there are utter crap and the good ones are usually just competent not actually good. This leads to a lot of dissatisfaction and wonder if anyone else has seen this.
It’s in the design of everyday things. Look at a Mac laptop compared to a Windows thigh burner. The Windows machine starts out wrong. It’s covered in useless, meaningless stickers proclaiming an advertising campaign from Intel, HP, Intel, and Microsoft. When you start it up there’s a ton of useless trialware or even worse manufacturer added software the is buggy, nosy, and poorly designed. I could go on endless detail about the operating system, case design, port layout, extra non-standard laptop keys, etc. All of this customization and flashiness to impress you with the quality of your purchasing decisions actually takes you aware from you intent, using a computer.
Let’s look at something that is not computers. Maybe, I have an advantage over the average person since this is my chosen field. I started renovating a small laundry room. The decisions on paint, woodworking, finishing, doors, knobs, windows, etc. came up and I explored many of them in depth. The first thing that modern processes disregard environmental clean, leaving this expense to the communities fool enough to use such chemicals. The local community is the one paying for clean up drastically cutting the initial cost of the chemicals. “Brass” hinges are steel spray painted with a not-very-real brass paint. I have brass hinges even polished they don’t look like the wanna be gold impostors. Knobs have shrunk in the past 20+ years compared to the ones on my doors. Windows have a long list of defects starting with the fact that they don’t try to cover up the seams from jamming to hot pieces of plastic together. Solid doors are made of high density cardboard with a very narrow edge to hold the locksets. Yet the same size “pretty” door made into a classic design and true solid wood is only $20 more.
I only listed on issue with each of these elements of the room. There are probably 3-4 really dumb things that stick out on each on. You can forgo any environmental concerns and still have quite a list. This seems like inattention, apathy, cheapness, maximizing one variable at the cost of all others,.. A lot of things. Maybe, I’m not the only one with career issues. Is this the world we want? The one that is the very cheapest on the day it’s built?
Philosophy hasn’t led anywhere yet, though it’s so large it could take a while to find a hit. Sometimes you learn more from people you disagree with. It takes time. I feel smarter and better at detecting deceptions and I’m left wondering why we aren’t given a smattering of this in high school or college.
That leads me to wondering about leaving Amarillo. Though the alternative is unknown. I’m not happy here. I grow increasingly disillusioned and I want to do something about it, but I feel powerless where I am. The house and inertia is what’s really holding me.
There’s got to be something better than this.