careers and responsibility
I was just talking with a friend about the various crappy stuff going on in our lives: Catherine's health, the fact that she now walks with a cane, the blisters on the eyeballs (now mercifully gone), the car theft and subsequent needle-prick, the dispiriting haggle with seventh-circle insurance people about the whole thing. To my surprise, the friend suggested that one of the solutions to all this was for me to settle down and get a real job (that is, a nine-to-five job) and a real house (that is, stop renting).
How those things are connected, I'll never know. I imagine that it's simply a case of human psychology at work. When life shows you a blank screen, you project your home movies on to it.
Catherine and I then talked a bit about the fact that we don't fit between the lines for so many people. We don't live on their grid. She battles not being taken seriously, and sometimes battles not taking herself seriously. I've never had it go that far, I'm glad to say. My only dissatisfactions about my career are about doing more of what I'm doing for a living, not about giving it up. To do what many of my fellow musicians do, which is have a day gig selling instruments, or working at a store, or selling insurance (God save them) or real estate — that would look very much like depression and defeat to me. Of course, to them, it looks like responsibility, and adulthood, and being able to afford the things they like, and providing for their families: I understand. Why don't they?
How those things are connected, I'll never know. I imagine that it's simply a case of human psychology at work. When life shows you a blank screen, you project your home movies on to it.
Catherine and I then talked a bit about the fact that we don't fit between the lines for so many people. We don't live on their grid. She battles not being taken seriously, and sometimes battles not taking herself seriously. I've never had it go that far, I'm glad to say. My only dissatisfactions about my career are about doing more of what I'm doing for a living, not about giving it up. To do what many of my fellow musicians do, which is have a day gig selling instruments, or working at a store, or selling insurance (God save them) or real estate — that would look very much like depression and defeat to me. Of course, to them, it looks like responsibility, and adulthood, and being able to afford the things they like, and providing for their families: I understand. Why don't they?
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