My job is to provoke thought, in the face of such a mindless Media, or maybe that’s what I profess, at the moment. Now maybe I won’t do a good job, but I will TRY to. And as you see, it can’t be a job, because that would entail money.
Education is a job, or is it? See, all my life, I was under the impression that Education was work and a job. And yet, I wasn’t being paid, or even when I was being paid to go to school, there was some other title than “student.” The student is not a profession I later learned. It is an apprentice to the System. So what do you do? I’m a doctor; I’m a lawyer; I’m a student…record skips. That’s not a profession like the others. You’re a kid. You have chalk marks on your hands. You carry a book bag, not a briefcase. You are not an Adult with a Job.
So what does this “Adult with a Job” mean? It means paying bills, so you can afford shelter, food, more often than not, some kind of transportation (car, bus, train, etc.) and taxes. It can also be elaborated on to include a partner and kids or pets or both. Affording all this takes something and being a student ain’t it. So unless you’re administering tests or asking Compare and Contrast essays, you, student, are just a peon, in the eyes of the System. You are Potential for the System
The Job is the cog in the wheel of the System. So fringe cultures that are in school, in communes, in monasteries, on welfare, etc., are like chipped cogs that slow the wheel. Ideally, students should have a Job outside the school to be truly cogs. Otherwise, the System of Commerce and Economy slows, and Dads pull their hair out as to why sons and daughters aren’t working, and welfare is taking over.
So, naturally, the motivation to have and do a Job is of the utmost importance from society’s perspective. There must be classes for which you are motivated and trained to do your Job. And anyone who doesn’t have a work ethic that is politically required is either shunned or secretly dismissed. For example, they will say he’s a nice guy, but isn’t as productive as he should be. No gold star and bonus for him. And carrots-on-sticks are everywhere in the Job World: Christmas bonuses, monthly bonuses, bonuses for customer service. And they really do work. People will sell time, holiday-time, vacation-time, time with family, time with friends, pet-feeding time, for bonuses.
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I may be just the rebellious sort with all this. But I think the very most difficult thing to swallow about Jobs and Job Markets and the System are the direct relation between Identity and Job. When the major questions come, such as: Who are you? Some people, like Adam Sandler in “Anger Management,” fidget and raise their voice a little. This is not a standard: “What do you do?” or “How are you?” It asks one to strip away their job, family, shelter, food, transportation, Things and Self-Defining Things. It asks you philosophically: Are you a being in this world without these things or are you not? And this is its conundrum. Anyone who says, I know who I am, either has a self-awareness of Dalai Lama status, or simply has a running narrative of their life.
However, the major problem with these answers is that they ignore nature and nurture. I don’t know my Identity. I think he’s somewhere among family, Socrates, Dylan Thomas, and Stanley Kubrick, with a little Jesus thrown in. And that’s the best way I know how to describe my Identity. By influences. Not Writer/Poet. Those labels are what I do for work. And taken seriously (at least now I d not) by most. And they aren’t really Who I Am. My Job is not my Identity. But for many, their business cards cost their souls. Director of Sales—ABC, always be closing, sealing the deal. The sales director will target people as a potential sale, and will pretend to like them only for that sale and connection: which translates to money and potential money and more money, until that target is but a cog in the system of the sales person. Sales wasn’t always viewed this way, although Chaucer may disagree. They cared, and knew what the person wanted, and knew when to quit. Now all that is feigned, phony. Just like a politician wanting your vote. They perfect their smiles to make you feel good about yourself. Although, if you’ve read my previous blog, election’s a show in itself.
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And so we have the Job, the common denominator, among people. And if you are unemployed in any way, you better understand an obvious something: that a job is where you earn. And this idea of earning is crucial to the value system. If I won the lotto and had dinosaur eggs for breakfast and bald eagle coats—not only would archeologists and PETA raise arms and people want my money—, but, I guarantee, I would be looked at as someone not earning the right to have my Corvette. So many would say luck, not that he EARNED it. And earning implies a work ethic that the more you work your job, the more money you get, and the more you save and invest, then you are an Adult with a Job who REALLY owns that Corvette. And if you built that Corvette from scratch, you’re a guru of earning. You are an Adult. You are pronounced able to sit at the adult table and talk about politics and religion. What would you know about those types of Adulthood concepts, even if you spent 7 years studying them in undergrad and graduate school, you didn’t pay for your roof or the food on the table. Your note-taking and reading didn’t feed the System at that hippie college.
And so what happens is: the more you identify with your job, the more you earn, and the more people can label you that Job ID, and you become X-the Dishwasher, while he is X-the Doctor. Which one do I respect more, which one do I want to date, which one has a better car, which one, etc.? However elegant you are, and however great your personality is, they are just WORDS and MEANINGLESS, if your Job ID is subpar or you’re unemployed. But that saleswoman can say anything and be a snake, because her business and bank account are growing. Let’s listen to her. It’s like the Bill Hick’s old bit: we have the greatest minds of all time, making music, now, but let’s shine that camera on that little 13 year old singer and see what his lyrics mean.
But what about the poor scholarly boy, in the back of the library, studying mathematics: he won’t pay for the roof or food, and feed the System, until way down the road. And when he goes around saying his major—which in higher education is like describing your status and job title—mathematics, people will ask Systemic questions of him: “What can you do with that major?” or “What’s the use of the that major?”–tone, annoyingly flagrant. And few will understand that the history of mathematics is arguably the history of music, architecture, science, and even possibly it is a form of religion. The knowledge that scholarly boy will gain will surpass any Job Skills and Job Markets and Cogs in the Wheel. He will look at the System and calculate improvements and chaos. And he will say: “I guess I’ll teach, I don’t know.”
How refreshing is this “I don’t know.” The Job Identity undecided, and, thus, he is a dork and on the fringe culture of the Job System. And who needs Calculus anyway?
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