I work the night shift as a security guard. My job consists of four 30-minute patrols and the remaining six hours are spent doing whatever I feel like. So, I spend that time mostly reading books and thinking. I’ve read so much. It gets to the point where I’m reading ten books simultaneously (usually all on the same subject.) So far, I’ve read about most of the world’s religions, physics, biology, time, linguistics, politics, geography, philosophy, logic, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, personal investing, management, economics, and even animal psychology. I’ve also read some great fictional authors including Tolstoy, Orwell, Joyce, Gibran, Rushdie, Philip Dick, and a host of others. I love my job! Because I get to read and learn, it is very fulfilling.
And yet, I constantly feel guilty for doing it. The profession has no respect as a career. I’m partially to blame for accepting this, and because I feel like I’m supposed to finish college. But, I mostly feel guilty because everyone keeps telling me I should finish school and do something [else] with my life. If everyone's judgments disappeared, I'd be totally content with security. If I had found a career field to pursue that allowed me to walk for two hours and then spend six hours reading, I would have finished school by now to pursue it.
The problem is that I’ve seen what a college type job looks like. I worked for Xerox as a financial analyst (accounting degree requirement overlooked) for a year and it was the most horrible job I"ve ever had. We would always have these business dinners (all paid for by Xerox) and everyone would spend hours just talking about how great Xerox is and how special they felt to work for the company. The atmosphere resembled a cult. People would give testimonials while everyone waited for their turn. These people were mentally maimed. Zombies and sick people surrounded me; so I left.
One more thing should be said. I’m tired of these self-righteous people who try to tell me that I should choose a career that helps others. Well, what if I don’t feel a strong yearning to help others. Before you jump on your high horse, let me explain. Mother Teresa claimed that she had a strong impulse to help others. So what did she do? She filled HER DESIRE! She felt their pain, so to help HERSELF, she helped them. I’m not ripping on Mother Teresa. I think she was a wonderful person and deserves every bit of credit she gets. But, I suspect that her acts of kindness were more about herself than others (I know -- what a horrible thing to say.) I do think people should help others. And yet, I don’t feel I want to make it my life’s goal. People help others in order to make themselves feel good about their lives. I don’t need to go to college to help others. There are plenty of drug-addicted prostitutes that need help and nobody – including myself – want to give. Instead, we throw out some Orwellian talk like "to help them is to actually hurt them." But in the end, most people try to help others by infecting them with some type of ideology. The job is fairly simple, it even has a format. First, you find someone who will listen. If they are converted to something else and won’t listen… MOVE ON. Now that you have your person, give an inspiring speech (the one you used 30 other times with slight variations.) Slowly teach the person how to interpret their life (post hoc rationalizations) so that everything seems to have some special meaning. At that point, they’ll figure it out. They now look at life through new lenses. Everything has meaning and it all seems to revolve around X. You can now congratulate yourself and feel good. This is how every Democrat, Republican, leftist, rightist, Nazi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, self-help guru, etc works. It’s so clear. But now I’m doing what they do. Ironic, eh?
When I was a kid, I watched a fantasy movie (I can’t remember the name and my retelling is probably false) about a character who is fighting his way up a mountain battling dragons and demons to get the book of life. When he opens it, the pages are mirrors. This, to me, is like life. We look out into the world and try to understand through some type of lens and in the end, all we find is our own reflection.
Sorry, I just had to get some complaints out of my mind.
