On Interviews

Hello, audience. I'm going to talk, yet again, about being an adult. I seem to do this every couple of months, but that's okay. Few enough people read this blog that I feel entitled to talk about whatever I please. If you want to read other things, read other blogs. It's really that simple.

Actually, that pretty much describes my philosophy toward most things about myself--I'm abrasive. Get over it, embrace it, or move along. No one is making you interact with me.

Anyway, the subtext here is that there is no greater farce than adult life. It's so much BS that even I have to cringe a little inside, and that is speaking as a confirmed bullshitter. Adult life is based almost entirely on lying all of the time to almost everyone. Intimate relationships are set apart in adult life, because those are the people you either lie less to, or lie about different things.

At least when we were teenagers, everyone knew everyone was lying about who they were and how they were doing and whatnot, and it was not encouraged. As a child, there's this ringing chorus of "be yourself! Trust people! Be honest about who you are and what you believe!" and then you get out of school.

Suddenly it's all dating people because you're supposed to be in a relationship, and trying to get a job.

To be honest here, theoretical readers, I haven't had that many job interviews. I've had enough, though, to know that they're all about both interviewer and interviewed pretending they want to be there.

You walk in, and (after making you wait long enough that you know you're at their mercy) the interviewer shakes your hand and introduces themselves, a name which you promptly forget, because you were busy wondering if your handshake was firm enough, or if you smiled when you said it was nice to meet them, or if they notice that your pants are still kind of wrinkly, or wishing you had brushed your teeth before you left.

After they sit you down and start "trying to get to know you" the real pretense starts. You have to convince them that you're worth hiring, which they have probably already decided based on your initial application, and they spend the entire time pretending to be interested in hiring you.

It's like a date, where you both try and convince someone that you're exactly what they're looking for, even though you're lying through your teeth, and so are they. "Quick! Pretend you're way smarter, funnier, more competent, more attractive, more outgoing, and more dedicated and hardworking than you have ever actually been."

Because for some reason, we think that is a good basis for any kind of relationship. Especially when the chances are that they decided whether or not they wanted you in all of three minutes.

And the answer is usually no.

This basically defines adult life. There's this demand that you seem totally together all the time, regardless of whether or not you are; it doesn't matter if you're a broke alcoholic and all of your relationships are crumbling as long as you can seem like you're a successful human being.

Maybe this is one of those "fake it 'til you make it" things (a favorite saying of my mother's), but mostly it just seems like total crap. Does this ever help anyone? I mean really. Did I just miss the day where they handed out grown-up starter kits full of instruction booklets about how all of this makes sense?

Rambling About Goals and stuff.

Hello, audience. Here's my first post for 2014, though since I haven't been especially good about posting regularly ever, I wouldn't read too much into it. It honestly just occurred to me that it's New Years day, so expect no lofty resolutions from me. I don't have plans for a regular posting schedule, or anything like that. I do intend to do more writing in the near future, but I'll have to be a little (or a lot) more disciplined about everything.

Damn you, Discipline! You and The Pendulum can just go away, and I'll keep wasting a lot of time.

 This game may or may not have eaten nearly half a day since I bought it like three days ago...

Actually, discipline is closely related to the thing I was actually intending to muse on. (Publicly musing seems dangerous, and yet it's one of my best ways to think.) My older brother was in town "for Christmas" (he actually arrived on the 26th), and something he said to me while he was here was that "you are either moving toward a goal, or moving away from it." Or something quite similar to that, anyway, and I've been thinking about that idea.

I have several goals, some of them more nebulous than I'd like to admit, and I am (despite what seems to be popular opinion,) actively pursuing at least some of them.

Admittedly, the one I'm moving toward most actively is moving into an apartment, followed by finding a different job, but those either don't seem to count, or seem depressingly impotent.

But I'm not sure I agree with my dear brother. The essence of that thought is definitely something I agree with, and it seems a little nit-picky (ewwwww....nits.) to bother disagreeing at all, but I do. Goals are not always something you can actively pursue; sometimes there's a time for such things, or sometimes goals don't always have clear paths to pursue.

This sounds a little defensive, now that I say it out loud (or in print), and I don't deny that I could definitely be working harder on most of my goals, but it's something I think is still true.

There seems to be this trend, especially in my generation--I don't know about you older or younger people, but I suspect that it's also prevalent--that you are supposed to have a Direction, and a Plan. People begin asking about such things literally the second you graduate high school, and they always disapprove if you don't have an answer, because if you don't have a mission for your life, the expectation is that you will hop into the grooves worn by previous generations and go to college, get married, reproduce, and do something professional in fields you tested well in during school. Usually in that order.

God forbid you don't have a distinct list of goals, complete with dates, deadlines, and color codes. Because the people that don't have a Plan grow up to be losers. You don't want to be a loser, do you?

Not that I can say much in answer to that mentality. I'm an artist.

Some people I've known have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish with their lives, and they're doing what they think is necessary to making those things happen, like getting the pertinent degrees and certifications and suchlike, and in some ways I definitely envy that, but I don't think it's necessary. People say all the time that life is a journey, and it's about the journey, and other variations on that idea, but it seems like no one treats it that way. Experiencing life as a series of shaping events and experiences is seen as short-sighted and lazy even as people post inspirational photo-manipulations and quotes on their social networking pages saying just that.

But only if you have a defined destination. We don't want tourists or explorers.

I think this falls into the same category of "no winning" as the housewife dilemma. For those who don't know what I mean, even after years of women being allowed to work and have careers, there is still this idea that if you have a career, you hate your kids, or are selfish for having your own life and not having kids, but on the other side, if you choose not to have a career, and stay home with those same children, you're wasting your potential, and it's seen as a total cop out of having your own life.

The difficulty with these situations, I think, is that they're both not true, and people are forcing their presumptions on someone else, and demanding that other people make the same choice for the reasons they would, when that is impossible.

Not everyone has to do the same thing. It's okay to do and think and be different. We don't have to hate people for that.

Another thing that people say and don't do...I think the internet is going to call everyone on their hypocrisy someday.

I hope I'm not online that day.