Sinister: what do you want to do when you grow up??

I was looking for a job & then I found a job & heaven knows I’m miserable now. Dear Sinister, I have as of two days ago officially found a summer job – forty hours a week putting textbooks into cardboard boxes to be shipped across the country, with the possibility of moving up to the sealing-with-cellophane-tape department if I work out OK. It’s hardly my ideal employment but I have convinced myself, typically patronizing toward the rest of humanity, that there are people who do this sort of work (starting at 7am of course) for their entire lives, people for whom packing paperback books isn’t just a way to afford more Johnny Cash CDs. So by doing this for one summer, assuming I last the summer (the guy who hired me did say there was a prerequisite of being able to lift 40lbs and I’ve no idea how much that is so I just said Yes, Of Course I Can!), will allow me to properly empathize with people for whom this is a reality. & I owe them that much, being born into the American middle class. But then who’s to say I’m not one of those people? All my life people have drilled into me that I can do whatever I’d like, fly to the stars, jump the moon, conquer galaxies etc etc and I even think some of them said so in earnest too! & to some extent I believe them, despite all evidence to the contrary and my own indecision. I can do whatever I want, but I’m not quite sure what that is; I will be 32 and still putting textbooks into boxes thinking, “I want to be a writer! I want to be a radio producer! I want to be an artist! I want to be a rockstar!” And I don’t know if I’d hate working in a concrete shipping warehouse more than a sterile cubicle. But I don’t really believe that could happen to me. Other people work in cubicles, other people aim for uppermanagement and watch soap operas and buy SUVs. I will do something miraculous. It just hasn’t happened yet (note the passive tone). It hasn’t happened to me yet. I know vaguely what I want to do, but instead I spend my days surfing around on internet sites & playing frisbee with the hippies over in the park across the street, waiting for inspiration and talent and motivation to happen to me. It’s the worst sort of inexcusable idleness, I think. And I am starting college in the fall for which I’ve got to assume $2500 in debt each year, not my first choice college, or second or third, but my last safety school that at the time of applications I was too disdainful of to read up on and realize is strongly Jesuit. I did a foreign exchange year in Spain & had a miserable time. I lost my job last summer after nine days. I’ve done nothing but dwell on my own wonderful potential and now I head off to college to study some indeterminate subject to launch some unspecified career that isn’t what I want anyway. I want to be a rockstar, or a writer. It’s typical isn’t it? But usually people have fleeting ideas of satisfactory back-up plans: photo-journalist, veterinarian, cop – or even something specific you can work toward, like this fellow I know named John who is going to Astronaut university. When people ask me where I’m going to school I mumble New York and when they ask me what I’m going to study I slur englishistoryphilosophyliteraturepoliticalscience YOU know. For the sake of optimism we’ll call that “flexibility in my future plans” which isn’t untrue, per se. And as far as optimism goes, this e-mail seems to be veering in the opposite direction which is in all truth a misrepresentation. I’m not unhappy, just restless, and boxing books should be just fine if the friendly pear-shaped man who gave me the job agrees that I will be listening to headphones very loudly the entire time. There’s no fancy moral at the end of this where I realize I will be perfectly happy as a CEO as long as I have beautiful children & live in a mansion outside of Hartford. But what do you want to do when you grow up, Sinister? There’s a comedian I recall (it could have been Paula Poundstone who, for the record, makes child abuse much funnier than Michael Jackson could ever dream of) who said – and I paraphrase – “When adults ask kids what they want to do when they grow up it’s ‘cause they’re looking for ideas.” Cue the uproarious 80’s laughter. But I did just finish a whole e-mail so my task-management has reached an all-week high. Thank you, thank you. Jesse _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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