Ain’t you updatin’ this blog no more, Mr. Fancy Man?
Okay, I’ll admit that it’s been a while since I’ve updated this thing. Frankly, I haven’t been in the mood. Can you blame me? I sit at a desk for eight hours a day, staring at a computer monitor, banging away on plastic QWERTY keys, carefully crafting words that only a handful of people, at best, will read. And you think I want to come home at night and replicate that soul-deadening, dream-crushing experience?
So maybe I’m a little bitter. I think I’m entitled to a little bitterness, thank you very much. I mean, look at me: I’m nearly 40 years old and I type for a living. A hard-earned master’s degree under my belt, and all I have to show for it is a mighty, teetering stack of software manuals that are even now probably gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, never wanted, never opened, and never used. I studied and wrote endless papers and crammed for finals for years, so that I can get up early and rush out of the house to catch a dingy bus downtown and then spend the day sitting at a desk?
This is the dream job that I worked so hard to achieve? Really?
When we were in Colorado over the summer, we spent an afternoon rafting the eponymous river. During the quieter times when we were drifting slowly rather than furiously fighting roiling whitewater rapids, someone on our raft asked our guide what he did the rest of the year. “I have an e-commerce sit that I run year-round,” he answered, a job that gave him the kind of spare time that allowed him to work as a whitewater rafting guide. Just for fun.
Something happened to me at that moment, when I saw a man who was happy in his life, doing something he loved. I can’t imagine that he dreads going to work every day. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t hate my job. It pays me pretty well. I’m pretty good at it. I work with good people that I have known for years. I don’t hate my job.
But I don’t love it, either. I get up, I ride the bus to work, I do my thing, and I ride the bus home. I do my work well, but I do it without passion, without joy. It’s a job. Just a job.
As I kid, I dreamed about working as an archaeologist, trekking the globe to discover amazing artifacts of antiquity. I pored through books on quantum physics and cosmology, and dreamed about unlocking the secrets of the universe. I watched the space shuttles rise on pillars of flame, and dreamed of building the next generation of spacecraft that would carry humanity beyond this world.
As an adult, I eat lunch alone at a table in a nondescript office building. I sit in meetings and take notes, then go back to a cluttered desk and type words.
Falls a little short, doesn’t it?
Something has to change. Maybe my job, maybe me… but something has to change.
I have to find an exit and start a new journey, maybe find some back road that leads to something new, some place I can go where I can experience wonder and joy and somehow get a paycheck doing it so I don’t get thrown out of my house. I don’t know where such a road will take, or even if such a road exists. I’ve got no map and no idea of my final destination. All I know is, I have to get off this road I’ve been on for the last few years. It leads nowhere, and I’m done spending all my time and energy working my way down a path that ends in a brick wall.
Vacation Video Highlights: 2009 Edition
Some highlights of our trip to Glenwood Springs, Colorado…