First of all, I want to say thanks to all the folks that tipped and rec'd my diary, yesterday. You don't know how much that meant to me and other unemployed kossacks.
Now, after yesterday's diary, which was pretty dreary, I pulled out a book that helps me when I'm feeling blue. I'm not a religious person and I don't do "self-help" books, but my mom gave me a book, last christmas that has helped reorient me countless time, over my past year of employment insecurity.
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty and unsexy ways, every day.
that is real freedom.
This comes from the book This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace. It's actually a college commencement speech he gave, but it is one of the simplest, most honest, and most profound statements I have ever read.
Look, when you've been laid off, sent out countless resumes, and watched your life crumble in some kind of horrible, slow-motion, post-modernist movie about alienation in the wealthiest society the planet has ever seen, it's easy to get depressed. Hell, if you're not depressed some of the time, you are either delusional or have access to some pretty great pharmaceuticals. After writing yesterday's diary(which got a burden off my shoulders, let me tell you), I picked up This Is Water, and gave it a reread, as I have done probably half a dozen times, over the last year.
Before the main section, let me give you an idea of who David Foster Wallace was:
For those of you that aren't familiar with David Foster Wallace, we was fairly influential writer, who committed suicide a little over two years ago. His best known work is Infinite Jest. It is a tome of well over a thousand pages and, to be honest, the only reason I ever read it was because I had a crush on a girl that worked at the library, and she said I should. If you are a fan of post-structuralist literature, I recommend it. If not, I don't. That book took a month's worth of my free time that I'll never get back, and it turned out the girl had a boyfriend. On the other hand when DFW isn't being over the top artistic, he wrote with an honesty that is all-to-lacking in much of today's culture.
Now back to the point.
At the end of the day, This Is Water is basically a handbook that DFW used to keep himself focused on reality, outside of his own personal experience, and to fight his eventually unsuccessful battle against depression and alienation. It starts thus:
There are two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?"
And the two fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "what the hell is water?"
The point that he is making, and goes on to flesh out, is that it is easy for us to live inside our own heads, and to shut out things that are going own outside of what he calls "our tiny skull-sized kingdoms". As we go through our daily struggles and triumphs, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are really part of the larger society, and in doing so, we do ourselves a great disservice. For myself and my fellow out-of-work brothers and sisters, it can be remarkably easy to feel like the whole world has turned it's back on you. While your friends and family are going to their jobs, you're stuck at home sending out resumes and trying to be as frugal as possible. As I said in yesterday's diary, that tends to compound your negative feelings. Not only are you physically isolated from others, all the TV wants to show you is stories about the wealthy, game shows about getting rich, and shows about cops, doctors, and suburbanite families. When folks like you show up, your usually a character that is intended to solicit pity.
That's why it's important to mentally take yourself out of the immediate situation and remind yourself that there are literally millions of people in your situation, and worse. Not in some far off, foreign land, but right here in the good ol' US of A. You're not alone, and if you've found a way to see this diary, chances are it could be worse. Seriously, you're in a place with electricity, which means it's probably heated(even if poorly), and there are a lot of folks that aren't. While it is easy to get angry at folks, it does an immense amount of good to step back and put yourself in their shoes.
For example:
That person that interviewed you , but never even bothered to call you and tell you didn't get the job... I'm not saying it isn't rude, but chances are that person interviewed dozens of people for the one job opening at the business, and they have other job duties, besides hiring. I've been in the situation where I was doing the hiring, it sucked to call folks and tell them they didn't get the job, and these were better times. It's got to be heartbreaking to interview dozens of qualified people, knowing full well you can only hire one.
There are so many other situations that you go through, on a daily basis, where "putting yourself in their shoes" will do you a ton of psychic good. Remember, besides the jerks on Wall Street and many in the Beltway, we are all victims of the economic system that treats people as little more than profit creation engines. We're in this together, even if it doesn't feel like it.
So, if you're in need of a little pick me up, I recommend going down to your local library and checking out This Is Water. Also, it's not just for folks out on the dole, I have lent it to friends that have been dealing with professional frustrations, and it has done them a world of good. I will leave you with this final thought from the speech:
What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away.
Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish, but please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death.
The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to thirty, or maybe fifty, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has nothing to do with grades or degrees, and everything to do with simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding outselves over and over:
This is water.
This is water.
Hope this helps someone.