Answer to Kimberly

Last Saturday, I left a question for Kimberly Steele about this job that has come up through my former employer, BehemothCo.

Kimberly, bless her, responded here rather than just deleting my question.

I replied to her answer: briefly here in a comment on her blog, and at greater length in a post here on mine.

So far, so good.

And then, in a burst of generosity not to be imagined, Kimberly replied to my blogpost in a comment here, which runs as follows.

Kimberly Steele here, thanks for sharing this. It seems to me your Tarot are telling you the same things as my Ogham. From what I can tell, you sincerely want to take the job and you want to move away, but both your Tarot and my Ogham are saying you would come to regret it. If you need to take the job and relocate because it is your heart's desire, then go ahead. Sometimes we can only learn certain lessons the hard way.

You also have other choices -- one is taking a local job or joining a local volunteer group or other Meetup for structure. You could also look into living and working in someplace that is not related to this job. The point is you have options even if you feel emotionally blinded to them right now.

Pause with me for a minute to appreciate what this comment means to me.

It has been—maybe, somehow, more or less—ten years since the community of "infidelity bloggers" to which I belonged fell apart. It has been slightly over ten years since anybody I'd heard of has commented on this blog. (And in the interim there have been only two other comments, so it's not like I'm hearing a lot from strangers.)

I talk about being alone in real life, but I'm pretty solitary on-line too.

So I am grateful for Kimberly following up. But is she right? Predictably, I think the matter is a little more complicated than that.

• "From what I can tell, you sincerely want to take the job"
• Not quite. Like Hamlet, I want the job but north-northwest. That is to say, there are things about it I would like: purpose, productivity, expertise, discipline, and people to talk to. I am also thrilled to be wanted … the same way I was thrilled that Wife wanted me, or that D wanted me. (And see how well those turned out!) 
• "… and you want to move away."
• Heavens, no. I don't want to leave Beautiful City.
• "If you need to take the job and relocate because it is your heart's desire, then go ahead."
• It's not my heart's desire, but maybe it sounded that way when I enthused over talking shop with fellow-experts. (In retrospect, maybe the enthusiasm I felt had something to do with how alone I am most of the time. Maybe it wasn't even joy-in-the-work, so much as joy to have someone to talk to.)
• "You also have other choices -- one is taking a local job"
• Of course, logically this is true. And anything I say to the contrary is going to sound like I'm playing "Why Don’t You – Yes But." That having been said, I did look for a number of jobs in town after being laid off from BehemothCo back in 2021. Not only did none of them pan out, but my Tarot readings were consistently against each one I applied to. The run of failed applications—and the messaging from the Tarot, and my own unclarity about what I really wanted—finally convinced me to stop applying. In fact, I asked Kimberly about that decision too.
• "… or joining a local volunteer group or other Meetup for structure. You could also look into living and working in someplace that is not related to this job."
• My God, where would I even start, to do something like that? One of the advantages of a job like this one is that there are so few variables … so few things that I would have to decide.

What I see emerging from all this discussion is a whole lot of passivity on my part. When my job ended three years ago, I put in a very half-hearted effort at finding a new one. When I learned that I didn't have to find a new job, I stopped looking. I got into some bad habits, but instead of making plans and working to free myself from them I just drifted. Then this job opportunity came along, and I have drifted unresistingly through three interviews so far. Am I "interested" in it? Well sure, in the sense that I'd like to know more about it. Do I want the job itself? That's harder to say. And of course if I drift as far as accepting it, then that will put an end to my drifting right quick because suddenly I'll have a lot of external obligations.

Come to think of it, this is a lot like how I drifted into accepting the job in Sticksville, up until I didn't.

And wasn't passivity the very thing that Kimberly—yes, again!—told me I have to abandon in order to get my book published? (Oh look, I haven't done it yet.) Weren't her very words, in fact, "Basically getting this thing out into general circulation is going to be an act of will that will act as one of your major tests in your life"? They were. I guess it'll be harder to get that done if I have a job again, huh?

Maybe I don't want this job. But if I don't take it, I have to find some other way to get some things into my life that I am sorely missing right now: structure and discipline, meaning and achievement, and friends. Without those, I will continue sitting here like prey for the next silly idea that comes along.