At this point, you men are rolling your eyes and you women are wondering if I have an available brother. Ladies, sorry, too late, I'm taken. (And I cook, too.) Men, it's the same feeling of combined accomplishment and well-being that you get from mowing the lawn. Now you're getting me, right?
So today, while vacuuming the carpets in the old house, I emptied my mind (not a lengthy operation, admittedly) and meditated. Push, squeak. Pull, squeak. What is this all about, anyway? What do I want from my life? What do I want to be when I grow up? Where did it all go wrong? And where did it go right?
Much of my adult life has been spent in pursuit of security, but in a roundabout way. Go to college, get a job. Work hard. Get a better job. Work harder. Build a career. Make more money. Buy more stuff. Income=stuff=security, so income=security, right? But it doesn't, does it? If there's anything to be taken from the experience of losing my job (although technically, I'm just 'at risk' of losing it), it's that there IS no security.
Push, squeak. Pull, squeal.
But how do you actually GET security? I mean, it'd be nice to drop out and go walkabout for a couple of years, maybe sleep on the beach now and then, run a tiki bar somewhere. There's a cafe for sale on a Greek island for €75,000. Tempting. But what's the education system like in Greece? Could I support my family peddling saganaki and ouzo to pasty British tourists? Maybe not.
Push, squeak. Pull, squeal.
Maybe security is really just a function of whether you feel secure. Do I feel secure? I guess so. There's a severance package coming my way once the consultation period is over, that provides a certain level of security. I have a few transferrable, marketable skills. But what if something goes wrong and the severance doesn't come through? Nothing's guaranteed until the cheque is in the bank. And then what if the bank where I keep the money fails? What if my visa isn't approved? What if I can't find a job before the money runs out?
Push, squeak. Pull, squeal.
I've always been a thinker. Unfortunately, thinking results in conjuring up a wide array of possible outcomes, some of which are inevitably more frightening than others. For this reason, I worry a lot. The recession. The environment. My health. A terrible image forms in my imagination, faded and cracked like an old picture. An image composed of photos I've seen of the Depression. A man in line for bread, clothes dirty and torn; a stub of a cigarette hangs from the corner of his slack mouth. His children, uneducated and hungry, their growth arrested by malnutrition, their hair straggly, their eyes frightened.
Push, squeak. Pull, squeal.
But what is the likelihood that any of these dire possibilities actually comes to pass? Certainly not nil, but also not as likely as a positive outcome. So maybe that's my security; the knowledge that while there are any number of awful possibilities, the most likely outcome isn't one of them. In fact, the most likely outcome is that I'll find a job, pay the rent, feed the kids and things will be just fine. Different from before, maybe, but still fine.
And it's this realization that makes me feel secure. The knowledge that in all likelihood, things will be just fine.
So maybe there's really no security. Or maybe we just have to make our own.
Push. Squeak.
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