This morning I rose from my sleep after a late night playing D&D at a friends house. (For those in the know I was the dungeon master and will be for the next game, the third in a series of three)
As I was wandering around doing the usual stuff, washing clothes etc, my mind went back the conversation I'd had with one of my friends in the car whilst dropped him off after the game. I've been out of regular work for some time now, since Sept last year, so almost 6 months. My friend has had similar periods of "unemployment" a few years back and although now very much back on track with his career, we batted back and forth ideas and experience about the best way to write a cv etc, to get noticed amongst the pool of applicants. Given I'm six months in, common sense would suggest mine needs a reshuffle.
This lead to a thought this morning, as I pondered that word.
"Unemployment"
What does that actually mean? Occasionally I get myself down hearted due to my lack of resources currently and thats - pretty obviously - down to my situation as regards paid work. However, am I actually 'un-employed" ?
If you look up the definition of the word the first hit on google is:
It's the synonyms I find most Interesting. "idle" being one of them. And "Jobless". One could suggest I am neither, since I am writing this blog, (plus others) and spend a number of hours in academically inclined contemplation of philosophical thought & research plus doing my D&D planning. Occasionally I fix the odd bike, advise a friend of mine with a fledging bike business, and just last week I serviced the brakes on Vanessa, my old combo van, currently much battered and much loved . So one could argue I'm neither idle nor jobless.
Yet given an accusation levelled at me a few days ago, of being a "Pseudo Intellectual" and societies propensity to label people and assign veracity to their arguments based on somewhat arbitrary qualifiers, it's made me think. For example to be seen as legitimately knowing and understanding management principles one must be in a management job, thus I cant help wondering what qualifiers people place on me, an "unemployed, Trans-woman"? and moreover I'm questioning do they apply?
I would argue that since I'm "employing my time" doing other things I'm certainly not "unemployed" in that sense, yet it's very much true that what I do does not pay me directly, other than perhaps the link between searching for a (better) paid method of employing my time, and proof of that search being linked to a substance renumeration called benefits. Am I thus then being paid to look for work and therefore am "employed" in that capacity? (which would mean i wouldn't be unemployed and as result couldn't claim the benefit....yeah thats weird? ...)
Furthermore, unemployed has become shorthand for Idle in the minds of some, a perception of literally "doing nothing" and thus my financial constraints are seen as by choice. Whilst it's true that my choices in life have lead to this point (how could they not have?) I'd not say I would "choose" to remain in this situation were other options presented or discovered. This perception of unemployed = idle then brings in the skewed morality of the deserving and undeserving person. Those who actively seek to better themselves being seen perhaps as deserving of more assistance in doing so and thus achieving that aim.
All in all it's just a bit of amusing word play. I am reminded of the words of Tom Cruise in "The last Samurai", where he plays a conflicted American soldier struggling with memories of questionable actions.
"I am beset by the ironies of my life"
Side note, it's one of my favourite characters, and movies. It speaks to the shifting historical context of morality, remorse, honour and respect for culture, plus the concept of finding personal peace and redemption. The examination of which is sorely needed today.
Thankfully I haven't chosen the route Nathan Algren, the central character in the film did, initially climbing into a whiskey bottle to escape his memories, but believe me when I say at certain points in my life the option was more than just considered.
Many years ago I walked into a car dealership. It was to collect business cards for a school project. I was 16 ish. The first time I walked in I was summarily dismissed by the sales guy, who saw a scruffy kid. The next time I walked in and happened to be wearing smart clothes. I received much more assistance. Why?
Perceptions. Same person but a different image, Thus it is with "unemployed" "trans-woman" and "pseudo" intellectual.
These labels merely define a point, a discrete snapshot of our lives, and cannot ever encompass the whole. Confucius died believing himself a failure since no monarch took up his words, and Socrates was sentenced to death and executed by the very athenians he had sought to educate. Yet after their deaths both men gave rise to institutions that carried their ideas forward for centuries.
"Failure" for both was but a temporary thing. Their success lay in their "knowledge". Knowledge of humility, humanity and the importance of each, with their employment of these and other traits. There success was not defined by themselves at least, on whether they were paid well because of it.
Perhaps here then is my mini epiphany. Employ what knowledge you have to your greatest effect, and you shall, in time, see results, regardless of your current situation and other peoples definitions of it. Or, to put it another way,
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life that he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry David Thoreau
Until next time keep it #stubbornlyoptimistic
Sarah
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