Living out loud, 2

I explained in my last post that I joined a "Working Out Loud" (WOL) circle at work. The first assignment was to come up with a goal to work on for the next twelve weeks -- something that would be a stretch, but on which we could make some perceptible progress in that time. My goal is "Find out if there are opportunities to work in the area of making [my company] a modern, agile organization." You know that I've worried over time about stagnating in my current job, so it makes sense to look for something new. I'm fifty-four, so it makes sense to look for something new in the same company, because who would hire me fresh off the street? And this is a subject I have opinions on: see, e.g., this post or this one.

So it's a very logical kind of goal. It doesn't even commit me to taking a new job in this area ... it just means learning what's out there. What could be better, right?

And ever since then I haven't been able to find time to work on it.

Well sure, everyone's busy. We all know how it goes. And yet, ... I found time to go to the movies last week. I found time for a long walk this morning. I found time yesterday morning to sit around in my apartment reading my kids's old comic books, that they've left here. So it's not that every single minute has been booked out of my control.

And then I was browsing through the book that started this whole movement, John Stepper's Working Out Loud, and in chapter 12 he discusses exactly this problem. What if you just can't find the time? One of the things he says [top of page 140] is, "Check that your goal is something you care about. The more you care about it, the more motivated you'll be to find time to work on it."

Wait, ... what? It's not enough that I pick a goal which is plausible and logical and has all kind of good reasons behind it, but I have to care about it too? Well, shit. Wish I'd known that before.

Of course I'm joking, kind of. If you really don't care about something then it's not really a goal, is it?

But it got me to thinking: are there in fact work-related goals that I really care about? I think the answer might be No. And maybe that, in turn, is why I am so lousy at career-planning, at figuring out my next step in the ladder: because maybe I really don't give a shit one way or the other because the whole environment is alien to me. Because I can't take it seriously.

It's not that I dislike my job. On the whole I like my job, and I like the people I work with. Moreover, for all that I joke about my job's sillier side, somebody's got to do it and I'm good at it. Perhaps even very good. So that's all fine.

But once I drive away from the office for the evening, I don't think about the place until I show up again the next day. People will come ask me if I've had any good ideas about the problem they were discussing last night and I have to ask them to remind me what it was. There's almost a total disconnect between my work and the rest of my life.

This goes very deep. A while ago someone whose work blog I follow was writing about the virtues of "bringing your whole self to work" -- your hopes and fears and passions, all the things you care about in real life. At the time I smiled to myself and thought, "What a horrible idea! No way am I going to do that." Why not? I wondered. And the first thing that jumped to mind was, If I brought my whole self to work I'd be out of a job. The very first thing anybody would ask if they met my whole self is "Why the hell are you working here?"

Why would anybody think that? I suppose I had a couple reasons in mind.

One reason is that I believe my "whole self" to be almost totally focused on things outside of work. I come in, do my job ... even do a good job ... and leave, but at some deep level I'm kind of going through the motions.

But other people have outside interests too. So that can't be it (or not all of it). Besides, what are we really talking about? I care a lot about my kids; OK fine, so do most parents. I spend a lot of time at the movies; again, so do a lot of people. I spend time at live theater and museums ... fine, maybe that's not exactly a mainstream taste but it's still not so unusual.

At another level, I have spent my whole life with the knowledge that the things which interest me don't interest others. When I was in grade school my friends were the other smart kids in class: but they were all interested in the sciences and I was interested in mythology and history. That pattern persisted -- with refinements -- through my undergraduate degree. I spent a couple of years in graduate school surrounded by people who really were interested in the same things I was, but by that time my attention was distracted by my new marriage to Wife. And in time I left there without a degree and never went back. So ever since then my interests and tastes have all been formed by my academic experience and I'm outside the Academy ... which means that I am a fortiori surrounded by people who aren't interested in what interests me. At this point I take it as my lot in life that if I were to sit down with people and talk enthusiastically about the things I find exciting, I'd put them to sleep. Or else they would get up under pretext of refilling their drinks and then politely escape.

But of course I have interests about more things than the bronze coinage of Poldavia in the 12th century. I'm passionately interested in things like child-rearing, and the many varieties of romantic relationships. Aren't all other adults interested in these things? Probably yes, or there would be no market for romantic comedies in Hollywood. So why am I unwilling to discuss them? Probably because I am too afraid of getting hurt because they cut too close to the bone; but what I tell myself is that my opinions are going to be unpopular. In that respect the essays that I write here come a lot closer to "my whole self" than anything I show at work, but I would be mortified if someone at work connected this site with me.

Maybe that's it. Maybe my "real self" is this character, Hosea Tanatu, that I have invented for myself. Except even that's not really true. Even here I disguise myself, for at least two reasons. The more important reason is that I try to filter out anything that could identify me. So I don't talk about my work in any detail at all; I don't actually tell that many stories about the boys; and there are a lot of other details that I drop or change. The second reason is that writing is work; so there are plenty of things I think about that I never set down for you in words. And in a sense the character of Hosea is as much an artificial creation as the personality I pretend to be at work. It sounds odd to say I leave things out when I go on at such length, but in a sense it is true. Cum clamem, taceo. (cf. here)

For what it's worth, I realize I have written about this before: see, e.g., here.

So often when I sit down with a question or problem in mind and just start typing, I have an answer by the time I'm done. I don't have any good answers this time. Should I change my goal for the WOL circle? Is there a way I can make my life less compartmentalized (and would it be a good idea if I could)? I have no idea. About any of it. Maybe putting some of this in words will help it to gel, though.