A week ago I said I had figured out why career planning has always been so hard for me. Today I had another thought along the same lines.
Whenever I've thought about the issue in a grand way I've pitched it as "What am I supposed to be doing?" Then other times I've realized that's a really bad way to think about it. Still, in some form or other there is a lot of career advice out there that says to figure out what you love doing the most -- who you are -- and then do that.
Then this morning I had an idea about it. Can't remember if I've had this idea before or not. But basically ....
- I've called myself a philosopher manqué because I spend (some of) my free time thinking about philosophical questions. But I realize that inside the general area of philosophy, an awful lot of those questions are about religion or theology.
- I got interested in Greek mythology by the age of 4, and have never given it up.
- I'm reasonably certain that part of what attracted me to Wife was precisely that she was Wiccan (at the time); it was interesting, exciting, different ... and not mundane.
- And of course I've had experiences like this one.
Because you know, 150 years ago that wasn't a particularly strange career vocation. In some parts of the country it still isn't. And I wonder if maybe that's what I am particularly "made" for? Of course there's no way I would ever have pursued a pastoral or theological career. My father was a strident atheist back when I was growing up, and I would never have done anything to risk his ridicule. Pastoral or theological studies would have done just that.
But I wonder ... in an alternate universe, one where I grew up in a more conventionally devout household, is that the direction I would have gone?
There's no way to know for sure, of course, but I have been puzzling on it ever since. And of course now my dad is dead, so if I wanted to make a change there's no way he could ridicule me now from beyond the grave.
Hmmm.
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