No, I'm not gone. A lot of things aren't going according to plan. Get over it.
America told me that I should use whatever smartness I might have and pursue a nifty and pricey education and that I would be rewarded hansomely for listening to it, aligning my goals with its own. And that's what I did, though I admit it took me long enough to realize what I was doing and put any heart into it. So now here I am with a nifty piece of paper printed with some nifty latin words and nifty gilded illuminations and some really nifty signatures and that's all. I thought we had a deal, 'merica. You said that if I spent four to five years of my life in mild poverty you would give me something useful to do.
I just read a news article that made me reconsider considering applying for lower-level jobs (i.e. working at Target or a supermarket). The writer explained that it would take the better part of a decade for my salary to catch up with what it would have been provided I found and took a job within my expertise. Whatever. I don't really care about that. He also brought to my attention that by working below my professional capacity, I am taking work that could be done by people who don't have the possibility of finding more exclusive employment. Basically, I'd be stealing from the poor.
I have mulled over the thought that by working anywhere, particularly in an engineering job and particularly during a recession, I would be taking work and money from someone else who needs it. I, as evident in my life without gainful employment, certainly do not need work. I could live off my parents for quite a while, though I can't imagine anyone would be thrilled with that arrangement. If you're interested in how I manage in my current situation, I think my senses of dignity have been dulled by the hope or dream that it is temporary--I thought very temporary until this week. The conclusion I reached is that I am moving toward necessity. I don't think I am meant to free-load interminably and haven't received any further calling or instruction.
The lack of divine appointment, actually, has hit me harder than either the job hunt or the time without work. I could stand to wait for a greater calling as long as there was some redemptive work to be done and I knew I was supposed to do it. But right now there is only silence and a house to paint. I wonder if I'm looking in the right places, but don't know where else to look. I do whatever ministries come along but have no certainty that it's what I should do. Because the last year was so amazing, I'm going to call this time comparative emptiness. It is not dissimilar to my life until about 2007, but it feels different. It feels like I've dissociated with the realities I came to know and love and now just do things. And wait.
I consider myself quite patient. Under certain circumstances I can wait years for something. But one thing I think I've lost is my ability to idle. I now am becoming restless in this place and I can't confirm that it is because I should be elsewhere or because my own personal ambitions are clouding my judgement. I want to move to Seattle for the rather silly reasons of liking the weather and thinking the Space Needle is a cool building. I want to get an engineering job for one year--I could probably be pursuaded into more--and return to school for a masters and maybe a PhD--a family can never have too many doctors, and with a surname like HansPetersen, does Jeff even really count? And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have more and more wants, like my self didn't really die. It went into stasis or has regrown from its own remains. And despite all I hear about God wanting to use my ambitions, personality, and individuality, I still get sad when I realize that I am still controlling my life and I have no idea what to do.
I appologize if this post sounded whiney but I need to vent and figure no one could possibly still be reading this.
Toodle.
