Houston 2: Electric Bugaloo

[vaxjedi]

So I am sitting in George Bush International Airport with nothing to do. My flight isn't for 6 hours, but no one could give me a ride earlier. But I have a book and my trusty Visor (which is getting more use now than ever before).


There is an Internet Access stand here in the waiting area. It calls my name. I've gotten so used to being wired that it is odd when I don't have some sort of real-time connection to the world.

I'm a big proponent of the idea of Clarkean magick - that is, based off of Clark's First Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I'm convinced that technology is past the point of sufficiently advanced.

Look at the net. With a few keystrokes, I can reliably exchange huge chunks of information in real time with people literally on the other side of the earth. Hell, some of the people I know and love best are thousands of miles away. And I talk to them every day.

And here I am in the airport, watching several tons of plastic and metal lift people into the air.

If that's not magick, I don't know what is.

---

I sometimes get intimidated when people from college get together. Pretty much everyone I knew in college has tech jobs, even the ones with Anthropology degrees. Hell, even the ones without degrees. And here I am with my CS degree doing tech support.

Someone asked what sort of job I wanted to be doing. And I couldn't answer. There is no particular career that calls out to me - work is simply something to pay the bills.

The main thing is the problem I had in college - I have no ambition. When I was in High School, I read Walden by Thoreau. He talks about being a dayworker, and the joy of going home at the end of the day and leaving work behind. As a kid whose father and step-father had owned their own businesses, that struck a chord. I don't think I ever want to own my own business. I want freedom at the end of the day.

But I have no real occupational ambitions. If I didn't need more money for family, I'd probably find a nice quiet little job somewhere and stay there.

When people ask, "What do you do?" I know what they mean. However, what I really want to say is "I take care of my daughter. I love my wife. I love my lovers and my fuckbuddies too. I write languages. I create worlds. I play computer games. I sleep occasionally."

I hate identifying with my job. Every time I've done that, I've become someone I don't like.

Comments

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

When people ask "What do you do?" tell them "I take care of my daughter..." You don't have to identify with your job.

[bloodlikerain.livejournal.com]

hee, amen.

[duncang.livejournal.com]

yeah I really really like it when someone answers that question with someone other than a job. Some people *are* their job, and for some people and osme jobs, that's great.
I mean someoen could say "I'm a policeman" and that is in many ways, who they are. Same could be said for politicans. It's their whole life.

Often, I follow up the question of what someone does, eoitehr with "what do you do to pay the bills?" or "what do you do when not at work?"

But I still do love hearing people indentify themselves by something other than a job. means there is hope.

[gax.livejournal.com]

You could try making a joke out of it. "Well, I'm until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up." Or, "I'm a by day, and a family man by night." That sounds a little lame here, but is it something you can work with? :)

[ryoganox.livejournal.com]

I can understand where you come from Love. I think the critical difference in the question is "What do you do FOR A LIVING?", in the respect of what do you do to make money to survive. Many people have to identify with their jobs in this society. When you consider you spend a third of your day for five days a week working on the average. Your job could be argued as 1/3rd of who you are for 5 days a week. But your initial reaction is accurate as well. Though I would add in Mentor for a Technical Support team. Because it is who you are, partially.
This is especially true if you take any sort of pride in your work. Or at least attempt to take pride in it. Which is anything from making sure you give the most accurate answers to spending extra time to make a report look nice.
Leave your job at work at the end of the day, that is the key to reducing the stress in you life, but take pride in what you do. Cause, if you gotta do it, then you might as well try to enjoy it as much as possible. If you don't then, it is time to search out new avenues of employment.


just my 2 cents.
Ryan