Am I doing the right thing? (4/7)

In the last post on this topic, I gave some examples of “work theatre”, common things that writers claim that are not as impressive or concrete as they at first sound. In the next posts, I’ll go on to describe some dangerous fallacies that are the result of people defining themselves poorly. The first is:

Career = Self

My day job is as an engineer. When I bump into other engineers, they ask me the following variation on a theme: “What project are you working on? What does your husband do? So you’re away from your home location: are you renting out your flat? How big is it? Where is it?”

I’ve been caught off guard by these questions thus far, which means I fall back on my go-to for such situations: the truth. Not that I’m ashamed of the answer to any of these questions, but were I more awake I might charmingly divert the conversation to something, anything, more interesting.

After I fill in my verbal report, the inquisitive civilian, satisfied that his self-assigned reconnaissance task is completed and evaluated, sighs with relief. His shoulders go down. He smiles at me, and rewards me by talking with me about everything that he considers to be more trivial.

At lunch in the cafeteria, when lost, I find myself asking those same questions. I do so because I know it’ll get the conversation flowing and it’s apparently okay, nay, polite, nay, interesting to ask them. I hope to use them as ice-breakers or jumping-off questions to something else, which works out sometimes but often not.

When this is the only information anyone is willing to share with me, it’s all I have to go on in understanding who they are as a person. If I were to guess, I’d add in a family that loves them (which most of these engineers have) and then, yeah, that’s about it. The hours not spent on overtime at the office or raising kids is spent watching sitcoms, doing house repairs, or skiing.

I’m not disparaging people like this at all. It’s admirable. Making money is quite a tough thing to do. And it’s important—in terms of all the things that having money infers: food, roofs over heads, opportunities, freedom. Someone has to do the jobs these engineer guys do. (“If not for me it would be someone else” is a legitimate excuse only if the thing serves some personal or social good. Otherwise it’s just a kind of empty and unjustified cynicism.)

Only people who have money are afforded the luxury of sitting about and pontificating on its apparent unimportance. So, let’s hear it for breadwinners!

We’ve become so aware of the dark side of safety, monotony and apparent mediocrity that we forget to cheer for people like this. But sure, there is a dark side to it. If you only do or think about one thing, it will become who you are. These people are largely described by the answers to the three or four questions above. As I say, it probably works for them, though it comes with immense sacrifice—whether they notice that or not.

After I’ve answered these typical questions, the idea of me “ending there” fills me with dread. I resent the idea that I do.

In the next post I write about the dangers of defining yourself by your writing/creative success.