Summer! That time of year when I do exactly what I do the other 250 odd days of the year—except, you do it when it is hot, sticky, and everyone else is talking about how many exciting things they are doing.
On the plus side, Oh Joy! Oh Bliss! Oh Happiness! My new car, his name is Whimsey, has Air Conditioning!! It is very sweet and considerate of him and I appreciate it more every single day.
On another even better note, summer brings esteemed and beloved visitors to my section of the South. Brunhilda will be coming to visit me around August. Buahaha…Now I just need to find a cute pub to take her adventuring to.
And Really…I live in the Beach Capital of the South….this year I really really need to make it to a beach at some point this summer.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hope and Money
Money is a dreadfully important thing.
I remember being broke after college, and every time I couldn’t afford groceries, or I froze in my house while I couldn’t pay for heat, or I put my car repairs on my credit card because I didn’t have any money for dire necessity repairs, I told myself, “It won’t be like this for long.”
You know….”Someday” will happen. I will get a better paying job. I will pay off one or two of my loans and I will have a little more leeway. Nothing will go disastrously wrong for another 6 months and I will get some savings. I will get a successful part-time job that won’t work me too hard. Someday I will have some fiscal security.
Then, nothing goes wrong and everything goes wrong. You realize that no matter how hard you work, your job will still be dead-end. Cost of living will go up faster than any possible raises. If you have an old car, it will break faster than your ability to pay for repairs, if you have a new car, the payments slowly bleed you dry. You have to go to the doctor. You have to go to the dentist and he finds $7000 dollars worth of repairs. You need glasses. You need to buy a good pair of running shoes. Utilities go up. Groceries go up. The payments for your loans go up and you realize at the minimum payments that the term is 30 years. You realize that you can’t afford to pay for education to get a better paying job. Job market tightens up and part-time jobs are more demanding and more rare than you had previously imagined.
God still provides. You have food and shelter and clothes, but you very carefully watch your money as it slowly spirals deeper and deeper and for the life of you you can’t imagine what you can use to possibly cut costs.
Now, naturally the answer to the question is “trust God.” God will solve the huge, financial, maelstrom in some way at some time. If you consult the American dream (or curse) than it will tell you if you work hard enough you will find a way and break through. But then, I can do math, and I read Grapes of Wrath. Those people had endless amounts of work, drive, and hope, and they never came to a homeplace. And the math tells me I will never make it out of debt without a significant change in pay.
Hope is a chancy thing. On the plus side, God promised to provide for me, but then, he only promised to provide your necessities. That he has done, even abundantly, but I write the checks every month, and I feel the weight of debt and lack of scope for vocational growth more and more every month. And I ask myself, what am I hoping for? I didn’t sign on for an easy ride when I became a Christian. And debt is an easier burden than martyrdom. But, debt is a loooooooooong burden. What do you pray for when you bereft on a sea of not so imminent yet always present financial issues? What do you cultivate hope in when you are perpetually broke with no way to go forward that you can see no matter how hard you work, or how many avenues you explore?
That may have been a very disorganized and not very enlightening post.
I remember being broke after college, and every time I couldn’t afford groceries, or I froze in my house while I couldn’t pay for heat, or I put my car repairs on my credit card because I didn’t have any money for dire necessity repairs, I told myself, “It won’t be like this for long.”
You know….”Someday” will happen. I will get a better paying job. I will pay off one or two of my loans and I will have a little more leeway. Nothing will go disastrously wrong for another 6 months and I will get some savings. I will get a successful part-time job that won’t work me too hard. Someday I will have some fiscal security.
Then, nothing goes wrong and everything goes wrong. You realize that no matter how hard you work, your job will still be dead-end. Cost of living will go up faster than any possible raises. If you have an old car, it will break faster than your ability to pay for repairs, if you have a new car, the payments slowly bleed you dry. You have to go to the doctor. You have to go to the dentist and he finds $7000 dollars worth of repairs. You need glasses. You need to buy a good pair of running shoes. Utilities go up. Groceries go up. The payments for your loans go up and you realize at the minimum payments that the term is 30 years. You realize that you can’t afford to pay for education to get a better paying job. Job market tightens up and part-time jobs are more demanding and more rare than you had previously imagined.
God still provides. You have food and shelter and clothes, but you very carefully watch your money as it slowly spirals deeper and deeper and for the life of you you can’t imagine what you can use to possibly cut costs.
Now, naturally the answer to the question is “trust God.” God will solve the huge, financial, maelstrom in some way at some time. If you consult the American dream (or curse) than it will tell you if you work hard enough you will find a way and break through. But then, I can do math, and I read Grapes of Wrath. Those people had endless amounts of work, drive, and hope, and they never came to a homeplace. And the math tells me I will never make it out of debt without a significant change in pay.
Hope is a chancy thing. On the plus side, God promised to provide for me, but then, he only promised to provide your necessities. That he has done, even abundantly, but I write the checks every month, and I feel the weight of debt and lack of scope for vocational growth more and more every month. And I ask myself, what am I hoping for? I didn’t sign on for an easy ride when I became a Christian. And debt is an easier burden than martyrdom. But, debt is a loooooooooong burden. What do you pray for when you bereft on a sea of not so imminent yet always present financial issues? What do you cultivate hope in when you are perpetually broke with no way to go forward that you can see no matter how hard you work, or how many avenues you explore?
That may have been a very disorganized and not very enlightening post.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Theological Fun
It occurs to me that so far, this blog has covered pretty much the gym and books. Oh well, that is pretty much life at the moment. I’ve been going to the gym 6 times a week for the last three weeks, and today was the first day that I really and truly did not want to go. The day had started at seven unloading a semi-trailer, and I had spent the next ten hours unloading, pricing, and putting up my order, while serving endless demanding customers. It was a long day. Weight lifting was not something that particularly appealed.
But then it occurred to me. This time three years ago, I was never sure if I would be able to walk 30 yards without help let alone run for 45 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for all those men and women who helped me walk, carried my bags, packed me up and sent me home, helped edit my papers when I was completely brain dead, and brought me meals, but I am even more grateful for whatever God has done in the last few years so that now, I am able to work a 10 hour day and then go lift a ridiculous amount of weights.
I’m not often convicted my reading C.S. Lewis. Interested, expanded, and invigorated yes, but not convicted. But the other day I was reading The Problem of Pain and something stood out to me. Lewis says that most people think of life as a long walk to get to a place where there is no suffering, where life is easy, comfortable, and peaceful. But Lewis says that life is not like this. God, in his mercy does not, in general, give us a place where life is comfortable and peaceful—if it was, we would have no need of him. We would never grow. We would never catch a glimpse of what he does want for us. He brings us suffering because we are his children, and as proper children, he has a great interest in bettering us whether we like it or not. But, Lewis says, God, in his mercy does not give us ease. But God, in his mercy, does sprinkle a hard path with an enormous amount of….I realize this is not a theological word, but fun. He gives us incidence of fun, exuberance, delight. He doesn’t need to give us these glorious respites, but he delights to. It is only up to us to recognize and revel in these gifts. Reading this, I realized that I keep forgetting to spot the good. There is a lot of work. There is a lot of stress. There is even a lot of pain and sorrow. But God is doing a lot to send me friends, laughter, joy, and hope, and I am too often blind to it. But, in an attempt to tie these two topics together…the ability to work, and to work out, is a gift of God that I much too often forget to revel in, yet it is a constant and potent gift.
But then it occurred to me. This time three years ago, I was never sure if I would be able to walk 30 yards without help let alone run for 45 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for all those men and women who helped me walk, carried my bags, packed me up and sent me home, helped edit my papers when I was completely brain dead, and brought me meals, but I am even more grateful for whatever God has done in the last few years so that now, I am able to work a 10 hour day and then go lift a ridiculous amount of weights.
I’m not often convicted my reading C.S. Lewis. Interested, expanded, and invigorated yes, but not convicted. But the other day I was reading The Problem of Pain and something stood out to me. Lewis says that most people think of life as a long walk to get to a place where there is no suffering, where life is easy, comfortable, and peaceful. But Lewis says that life is not like this. God, in his mercy does not, in general, give us a place where life is comfortable and peaceful—if it was, we would have no need of him. We would never grow. We would never catch a glimpse of what he does want for us. He brings us suffering because we are his children, and as proper children, he has a great interest in bettering us whether we like it or not. But, Lewis says, God, in his mercy does not give us ease. But God, in his mercy, does sprinkle a hard path with an enormous amount of….I realize this is not a theological word, but fun. He gives us incidence of fun, exuberance, delight. He doesn’t need to give us these glorious respites, but he delights to. It is only up to us to recognize and revel in these gifts. Reading this, I realized that I keep forgetting to spot the good. There is a lot of work. There is a lot of stress. There is even a lot of pain and sorrow. But God is doing a lot to send me friends, laughter, joy, and hope, and I am too often blind to it. But, in an attempt to tie these two topics together…the ability to work, and to work out, is a gift of God that I much too often forget to revel in, yet it is a constant and potent gift.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Kingship
Kingship
In these last few weeks, I’ve read both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf. It is interesting to read these two works back to back. They have several similarities. Both are quite old, both cover the lives and values of epic heroes, and both deal with issues ranging from martial heroes to life, death, and the hereafter.
Yet, the two approach things very differently. For one thing, Gilgamesh’s view of his people is only really covered in the first part of the epic. He mostly views his people as a means of pleasure: free sex, the right of life and death, taxes, and an endless audience to show off his amazing prowess martial prowess. Beowulf shows a very different approach to power. For one thing, the story opens with Beowulf crossing the wine-dark sea to risk his life fighting for a neighboring kingdom. The story ends with him going out to do battle with a dragon that he knows will kill him to defend his people. Gilgamesh views his people as a source of power, Beowulf sees his people as an entity that he is responsible to protect. Beowulf goes to power when he is young to win glory, and when he is old to defend and protect. Gilgamesh roisters and wastes his youth tormenting his people, and when he is old he goes to battle a dragon just to prove how amazing he is.
Another difference is the manifestations of friendship. Enkido is everything to Gilgamesh. When Enkido dies, Gilgamesh goes crazy for days, and finally storms the home of the gods to find a way to put off his own demise. It is interesting to note that he never asks for Enkido to return, he just doesn’t want to die himself. Though Beowulf himself has no truly intimate friends, he does repeatedly express his love both of his men, his fellow kings, and his people. When they die, he offers gifts, songs, and aid to the survivors. Yet, when they die, Beowulf has a sense of acceptance. The key appears to be that in Gilgamesh’s world, when the dead are gone, they are gone. Death is the end. Only the special, or exceptionally cheeky get made deities and therefore have eternal life. To Beowulf, there is an after life. All his men have the option of going to heaven, so when they die, or when he dies, there is heaven to look forward to. So, he need not fear death, or grieve wildly the deaths of those he loves. He mourns them, but there is no despair in death.
Finally, Gilgamesh ends in despair. He lives, he loves, he defeats the dragon, he encounters the gods, and he loses it all. He realizes that he is dust, the world will end in dust, and there is nothing left to live for. Beowulf ends with the death of the hero, but he ends with hope. He lives, he loves, he saves his people, he meets God, and he knows that as he ends, he will attain heaven—perfect peace and life.
If you conflate the two stories, they seem to cover a lot of the same subject matter, and could be mistaken for dealing with similar subjects, however, the two cover the same territory, yet end at polar opposites. They two stories stand as prime examples of how an essential belief can completely change the entire scope of a life.
In these last few weeks, I’ve read both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf. It is interesting to read these two works back to back. They have several similarities. Both are quite old, both cover the lives and values of epic heroes, and both deal with issues ranging from martial heroes to life, death, and the hereafter.
Yet, the two approach things very differently. For one thing, Gilgamesh’s view of his people is only really covered in the first part of the epic. He mostly views his people as a means of pleasure: free sex, the right of life and death, taxes, and an endless audience to show off his amazing prowess martial prowess. Beowulf shows a very different approach to power. For one thing, the story opens with Beowulf crossing the wine-dark sea to risk his life fighting for a neighboring kingdom. The story ends with him going out to do battle with a dragon that he knows will kill him to defend his people. Gilgamesh views his people as a source of power, Beowulf sees his people as an entity that he is responsible to protect. Beowulf goes to power when he is young to win glory, and when he is old to defend and protect. Gilgamesh roisters and wastes his youth tormenting his people, and when he is old he goes to battle a dragon just to prove how amazing he is.
Another difference is the manifestations of friendship. Enkido is everything to Gilgamesh. When Enkido dies, Gilgamesh goes crazy for days, and finally storms the home of the gods to find a way to put off his own demise. It is interesting to note that he never asks for Enkido to return, he just doesn’t want to die himself. Though Beowulf himself has no truly intimate friends, he does repeatedly express his love both of his men, his fellow kings, and his people. When they die, he offers gifts, songs, and aid to the survivors. Yet, when they die, Beowulf has a sense of acceptance. The key appears to be that in Gilgamesh’s world, when the dead are gone, they are gone. Death is the end. Only the special, or exceptionally cheeky get made deities and therefore have eternal life. To Beowulf, there is an after life. All his men have the option of going to heaven, so when they die, or when he dies, there is heaven to look forward to. So, he need not fear death, or grieve wildly the deaths of those he loves. He mourns them, but there is no despair in death.
Finally, Gilgamesh ends in despair. He lives, he loves, he defeats the dragon, he encounters the gods, and he loses it all. He realizes that he is dust, the world will end in dust, and there is nothing left to live for. Beowulf ends with the death of the hero, but he ends with hope. He lives, he loves, he saves his people, he meets God, and he knows that as he ends, he will attain heaven—perfect peace and life.
If you conflate the two stories, they seem to cover a lot of the same subject matter, and could be mistaken for dealing with similar subjects, however, the two cover the same territory, yet end at polar opposites. They two stories stand as prime examples of how an essential belief can completely change the entire scope of a life.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Gyms, Jack of All Trades, and Existential Happiness
My priest is an odd duck. He will probably end up on this blog a few times, so, we shall call him Tom.
Fr. Tom…is sort of the Dr. Aikman of blue collar work. He has done almost every form of construction known to mankind. He can build a chicken coop in less than four hours, make a knife from scratch the old fashioned way (complete with anvil), he can construct a stained glass window, and wire any sort of building. I think the list of things he can’t do is a lot shorter than the list of things he can. Yeah, if you sense awe and amazement in that last sentence, I pretty much am.
Anyhow, somehow or other I ended up joining his gym. And he has the most robust form of encouragement I’ve ever encountered. The kind that watches you sweat through your three sets of fifteen reps on the hellacious machine, then looks at you and tells you, “do another five, and another round on all of them, you aren’t exhausted enough yet.” And lo and behold, you go and do them, and quite aside from being utterly dead, you feel exhilarated and empowered. At the end of the day, you aren’t sure if you are being tortured or made better, but, the two look so much alike, who can really tell?
Anyhow, by some odd interchange of cause and effect, I am becoming just a bit of a gym freak, and I’ve made an interesting sort of discovery. Mind does take precedence over matter. I’m not a runner. I haven’t run more than twenty minutes at a go since I was fourteen. And that twenty minutes of running is usually punctuated by many bewailings of severely pained ankles, knees, and lungs.
So, I was contemplating that as long as I was going to a gym, and more specifically, whatever gym Fr. Tom happened to be at, that the treadmill was going to be an increasingly time-consuming part of my life—and the knowledge did not thrill me. After trying pretty much everything—music, books on tape, tv, and conversation to take my mind off of sore legs, I had a brilliant idea. I discovered that while reading a book on a treadmill is next to impossible, reading a kindle on a treadmill is fairly easy. So, one investment in a kindle, and an hour downloading free books later, I am sweating on a treadmill while re-reading De Tocqueville.
Upshot, while listening to music, I can run for 22 minutes. While reading, I can go 45.
Fr. Tom…is sort of the Dr. Aikman of blue collar work. He has done almost every form of construction known to mankind. He can build a chicken coop in less than four hours, make a knife from scratch the old fashioned way (complete with anvil), he can construct a stained glass window, and wire any sort of building. I think the list of things he can’t do is a lot shorter than the list of things he can. Yeah, if you sense awe and amazement in that last sentence, I pretty much am.
Anyhow, somehow or other I ended up joining his gym. And he has the most robust form of encouragement I’ve ever encountered. The kind that watches you sweat through your three sets of fifteen reps on the hellacious machine, then looks at you and tells you, “do another five, and another round on all of them, you aren’t exhausted enough yet.” And lo and behold, you go and do them, and quite aside from being utterly dead, you feel exhilarated and empowered. At the end of the day, you aren’t sure if you are being tortured or made better, but, the two look so much alike, who can really tell?
Anyhow, by some odd interchange of cause and effect, I am becoming just a bit of a gym freak, and I’ve made an interesting sort of discovery. Mind does take precedence over matter. I’m not a runner. I haven’t run more than twenty minutes at a go since I was fourteen. And that twenty minutes of running is usually punctuated by many bewailings of severely pained ankles, knees, and lungs.
So, I was contemplating that as long as I was going to a gym, and more specifically, whatever gym Fr. Tom happened to be at, that the treadmill was going to be an increasingly time-consuming part of my life—and the knowledge did not thrill me. After trying pretty much everything—music, books on tape, tv, and conversation to take my mind off of sore legs, I had a brilliant idea. I discovered that while reading a book on a treadmill is next to impossible, reading a kindle on a treadmill is fairly easy. So, one investment in a kindle, and an hour downloading free books later, I am sweating on a treadmill while re-reading De Tocqueville.
Upshot, while listening to music, I can run for 22 minutes. While reading, I can go 45.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Epic of Gilgamesh--A Haphazard Review
To deal with my Bibliothetic panic of a week ago, I got serious. I suppose Serious should be underlined and capitalized, but why do that when you can emphasize it with a completely extraneous sentence instead? So, to be properly serious, I wrote a booklist that is 8 pages long and could probably provide a trio of frenetic readers in solitary confinement enough material to keep them busy for the rest of their lives. But hey, why do things by halves?
Now, I wrote a list, this, for me, counts as organized. I really don’t care what order the abundance comes at me. So, I started roughly 3600 years ago with “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”
Gilgamesh is not for kids. Neither is this slightly academic meandering for that matter.
Gilgamesh is an epic about the Chaldean King Arthur. He is a giant of a man—strong, powerful, ruler of the world, a tormenter of young men, the man who has the right to sleep with young brides before their consummation with their husbands, and a tyrant who the entire realm wishes dead. So, the people pray for deliverance….and the gods send them…another version of Gilgamsh, named Enkido. Now, Enkido, is a complete savage, and runs with the antelope like Mowgli. He needs to be tamed, so Gilgamesh sends a temple prostitute to seduce him, and bring him to humanity by granting him the gift and enlightenment of sex. Voila, it works, Enkido becomes a real man, comes to the city, and becomes the true friend of Gilgamesh. The true grow in heroics, strength, honor, they even act like human beings to their subjects. Together they go on fantastic adventures, slay great, slavering beasties, and rule the world. But then, Enkido dies, and Gilgamesh departs on days of fasting, wandering, and mourning before he goes to the gods and demands to be told how to defeat death. They tell him, no one gets immortality—unless you are extra special, like the man that through chicanery survived the Great Deluge. Then, they send him on an impossible quest, which he almost succeeds in, before he fails, and realizes, that, no matter what, no matter how strong, all men, even he, will die, and one should just accept their fate.
This is, obviously, the short version of the Cliff Notes version, but a couple of things stood out to me in this poem. First, sex is a major part of this story. Sex is the means by which Enkido is brought to manhood, civilization, and enlightenment. The author of the forward made a great to-do about how this shows how the Chaldean’s properly understood sex as opposed to those Prudish Christians who don’t understand its powers of freedom and maturity. That, is a whole different conversation which I will enthusiastically start later, but, I do have to wonder, if sex is what makes us civilized and most fully human, does that leave virgins as half a person until consummation? I am also slightly worried by the fact that sex in the Epic has absolutely nothing to do with romance: artistry, craftsmanship, pleasure, spiritual enlightenment, and alienation are all important elements, but the woman you sleep with is a tool—one you can curse to the worst hell and bless with many lovers in the same breath.
Another thing that stood out is the elusiveness of eternity. And, I think as Christians I might take this for granted. For better or for worse, I will live for eternity. To the Chaldean, everyone is going to die, and be dust. The only exceptions are the gods. They live forever. There is no heave, and no hell, only nothingness, and deity. Nihilism is the state religion—no wonder you eat, sleep with anyone and anything you wish, and try to die in such a way that people will remember you.
The last thing that stood out was the cruelty of the gods. God destroyed the earth with a great flood, and it is hard to know why He allowed this to happen, but he did if for a pre-established purpose. The Epic also has a great flood, but in its version, 5 gods collude to cause the flood, but two recant as soon as they see the devastation, and wish they had never allowed it. The others say, essentially, “well, mankind wasn’t that valuable anyway, it all comes to dust in the end, so who cares?” They then reward the “Noah” figure with godhood, and what he is being rewarded for remains slightly obscure.
The story has a lot to offer. It does stray from the simple “me hero, me right” formula of your average hero tale. It grapples with the meaning of life, the hope of immortality, the love of friends, the importance of sex, and the value of true courage. However, in the end, it still remains a stunning example of just how glad I should be that I am a Christian.
Now, I wrote a list, this, for me, counts as organized. I really don’t care what order the abundance comes at me. So, I started roughly 3600 years ago with “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”
Gilgamesh is not for kids. Neither is this slightly academic meandering for that matter.
Gilgamesh is an epic about the Chaldean King Arthur. He is a giant of a man—strong, powerful, ruler of the world, a tormenter of young men, the man who has the right to sleep with young brides before their consummation with their husbands, and a tyrant who the entire realm wishes dead. So, the people pray for deliverance….and the gods send them…another version of Gilgamsh, named Enkido. Now, Enkido, is a complete savage, and runs with the antelope like Mowgli. He needs to be tamed, so Gilgamesh sends a temple prostitute to seduce him, and bring him to humanity by granting him the gift and enlightenment of sex. Voila, it works, Enkido becomes a real man, comes to the city, and becomes the true friend of Gilgamesh. The true grow in heroics, strength, honor, they even act like human beings to their subjects. Together they go on fantastic adventures, slay great, slavering beasties, and rule the world. But then, Enkido dies, and Gilgamesh departs on days of fasting, wandering, and mourning before he goes to the gods and demands to be told how to defeat death. They tell him, no one gets immortality—unless you are extra special, like the man that through chicanery survived the Great Deluge. Then, they send him on an impossible quest, which he almost succeeds in, before he fails, and realizes, that, no matter what, no matter how strong, all men, even he, will die, and one should just accept their fate.
This is, obviously, the short version of the Cliff Notes version, but a couple of things stood out to me in this poem. First, sex is a major part of this story. Sex is the means by which Enkido is brought to manhood, civilization, and enlightenment. The author of the forward made a great to-do about how this shows how the Chaldean’s properly understood sex as opposed to those Prudish Christians who don’t understand its powers of freedom and maturity. That, is a whole different conversation which I will enthusiastically start later, but, I do have to wonder, if sex is what makes us civilized and most fully human, does that leave virgins as half a person until consummation? I am also slightly worried by the fact that sex in the Epic has absolutely nothing to do with romance: artistry, craftsmanship, pleasure, spiritual enlightenment, and alienation are all important elements, but the woman you sleep with is a tool—one you can curse to the worst hell and bless with many lovers in the same breath.
Another thing that stood out is the elusiveness of eternity. And, I think as Christians I might take this for granted. For better or for worse, I will live for eternity. To the Chaldean, everyone is going to die, and be dust. The only exceptions are the gods. They live forever. There is no heave, and no hell, only nothingness, and deity. Nihilism is the state religion—no wonder you eat, sleep with anyone and anything you wish, and try to die in such a way that people will remember you.
The last thing that stood out was the cruelty of the gods. God destroyed the earth with a great flood, and it is hard to know why He allowed this to happen, but he did if for a pre-established purpose. The Epic also has a great flood, but in its version, 5 gods collude to cause the flood, but two recant as soon as they see the devastation, and wish they had never allowed it. The others say, essentially, “well, mankind wasn’t that valuable anyway, it all comes to dust in the end, so who cares?” They then reward the “Noah” figure with godhood, and what he is being rewarded for remains slightly obscure.
The story has a lot to offer. It does stray from the simple “me hero, me right” formula of your average hero tale. It grapples with the meaning of life, the hope of immortality, the love of friends, the importance of sex, and the value of true courage. However, in the end, it still remains a stunning example of just how glad I should be that I am a Christian.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Retail as Life Skills Training
I read gtags. And on these gtags I see all the fabulous things that my various classmates are doing: getting jobs, getting married, having babies, attaining J.D.’s, Masters, and Ph.Ds. And I work retail—which, I admit, does a somewhat decent job of paying the bills—which, I also admit, is important, but it really doesn’t feel like I am getting anywhere. So, I am on a continuing mission to figure out what, in fact, retail is good for. And, in my position as career-minded, feminist homebody, I have found a use for it. Retail is great preparation for being a mother.
Let’s think about it. In retail, you always have 8 projects going at once. You never have a chance to finish any one job. You are constantly being interrupted. You are running all the time. You are always dealing with people in various levels of crankiness, hurry, preoccupation, and just plain angst. You have to deal with the demands of 5 or 6 customers at once, plus a manager, plus whatever projects you aren’t dealing with at the moment. You are perpetually doing the same jobs over, and over, and over again. You rarely feel pretty or in control. Holidays, and days of rest mean that your work load goes up. And, finally, somehow, you have to remain pleasant, professional, and competent throughout.
With all of this going on, if you can do all this, you can do anything.
Let’s think about it. In retail, you always have 8 projects going at once. You never have a chance to finish any one job. You are constantly being interrupted. You are running all the time. You are always dealing with people in various levels of crankiness, hurry, preoccupation, and just plain angst. You have to deal with the demands of 5 or 6 customers at once, plus a manager, plus whatever projects you aren’t dealing with at the moment. You are perpetually doing the same jobs over, and over, and over again. You rarely feel pretty or in control. Holidays, and days of rest mean that your work load goes up. And, finally, somehow, you have to remain pleasant, professional, and competent throughout.
With all of this going on, if you can do all this, you can do anything.
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