Sure, I've been unemployed for more than a year, but there were extenuating circumstances: My last job nearly killed me. My blood pressure had risen to dangerous levels and I had seen disturbing health problems arise, like panic attacks and heart palpatations. I was a mess. So I took some time off to heal. We have to allow at least 8 months for that, right? And there was no way I was going to stay in Iowa anymore. I had talked about leaving for so long that it had become like a mantra, or more accurately a broken record. (Shouldn't the phrase be "a broken record player"? Anyway...) But moving across the country takes time. That's a few months to investigate, to prepare and finally to go.
And then there was the disturbing realization that I hadn't done enough investigation, that the city I had chosen, no matter how beautiful it was, was also in the midst of an economic collapse greater than that of the rest of the country. Whoops...
But the thing is, he's right. I have been lazy. I have got a piss-poor work ethic. I'm a jackass who's scared. I've never done this sort of thing before, and I haven't got a clue what to do next. Frankly, I'm amazed that I made it this long without working, just as amazed as I am when I try to figure out where all the money I made when I was working went. (I'm sure quite a bit of it must have gone towards DVDs I never watch, but that can't be all of it, can it?)
I can chalk some of it up to fear, but I can also chalk a lot of it up to pride. I could get a job cleaning up shit or making burgers quite easily, but I won't allow myself to. Maybe it's the whole College Edumacation thing: I didn't spend thousands of dollars of my father's money to wind up wiping up other people's shit. The old man would probably have a coronary. Then again, he'd probably just be happy to see me working. So that's no excuse. I just have a bias against cleaning up other people's shit. I also have a bias against cleaning up my own.
I don't know where this work ethic thing started. Perhaps its the result of being the third generation of Keller men who worked themselves ceaselessly until they hit 65, pausing only for golf in between. I just never saw the point. I still don't. The accumulation of wealth? The Catholic Work-Now, Be-Rewarded-When-You-Die philosophy? The blind drive to Keep Up With the Joneses? The self-perpetuating capitalism machine? It's easy to ask those questions when your white, middle-class father paid for your college and handed you a car.
I don't buy it. Any of it. I don't buy my excuses, I don't buy the system I have to be subservient to, I don't even buy that I'm lazy. If anything, my laziness arises in the form of not being able to choose a direction. If a direction appears or is chosen for me, I have shown the ability in the past to push forward with total dedication. Working as a writer/editor at The Daily Iowan, I often came in early and worked well into the night, on weekends, long after others had left. I Loved with a capital "L" my job. I've been trying to duplicate it ever since. I think the disturbing realization that duplication would be difficult, if not impossible, has driven me into an apoplectic state.
It's also fair to say that I've done it because I can. Charlie's attack, only half-serious (okay, three-quarters), forced me to think of my justifications, and one thing that popped to mind is the obsession in this country with perpetual employment. It's evolved from a variety of sources, including rampant Puritanism and laissez-faire economics. Work is how we define ourselves. The first question people ask upon meeting a new acquaintance is generally not, say, "What religion are you?" but rather "What do you do [for a living]?" Even though I have never made a living wage from my writing, I still tell people that I'm a writer, if only out of desperate self-delusion and desire. (And I usually wind up negating that answer with excessive explanations and qualifications. But it's still first out of my mouth.)
People who are unemployed or underemployed are often looked upon with scorn and suspicion, even people in my situation who don't particularly need to be employed. Now, in all fairness, I could probably stand to be employed right about now, and if I don't get a job soon, I'll be in a horrifically difficult situation. And if nothing else, I could stand to get a job just for the structure it provides. But that's not my point. My point is, why did my admission that I have still not found a job automatically result in hostility? Have Americans kneeled down and surrendered bung-hole to the God of Constant Work? Other countries work 30-hour work weeks and some take entire months off to go to the beach with their children, and none of them have collapsed into utter chaos. Technological improvements were supposed to bring with them the promise of less work and more leisure. Instead, they have brought the ability to do work regardless of surroundings or location. (Even on the highway, driving at 75 MPH.) California just signed in the first paid Family Leave bill in the country, and it was regarded not with applause, but with derision, held up as a sign of liberalism gone amuck.
Doing some math, I could probably live reasonably well on about $1500 a month, possibly less. About $750 for rent and utilities, $100 for car insurance, $200 for food, and the rest disappearing into that black hole that money goes into, along with socks and ball-point pens. Now, I don't have health insurance, which is a huge risk, but I'm getting by. And I have no children or dependents, or sizable debt to pay off. I'm lucky, and I know it. But I dare someone, anyone, to give me a reason why I have to have a full-time job and work myself into a frenzy, forty plus hours per week, fifty weeks per year until I die or retire, whichever comes first.
G'wan. I dare ya.
