"And so Galahad decided that it would be a disgrace to set off on a quest with the other knights. Alone he would enter the dark forest where there was no path. This is the myth of the Hero’s Journey."
"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time."
"Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked."
"We're in a free fall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast. And always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. But all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective . . . Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes."
--Joseph Campbell
I said in my last post that I would bring the incessant bitching and whining about how my workaday life was draining me of my energy, my soul, and my essence to an end.
Well. I'm officially done.
I just finished my nuked TupperWare bowl of lentils (thank you, Emily) and will soon walk upstairs to prepare a cup of earl grey, after which I'll spend the better part of the next 4 hours or so working on a "site audit" for a pharmaceutical web site designed to persuade heartburn sufferers and gastroenterologists that a particular drug is the best one for that nasty pain in your chest.
I was supposed to have completed this document today. It will not be complete. I've been pulled like a Raggedy Ann stuffed with pork by beagles all week long. But I've taken my lunch time to myself, for a change. Instead of laboring through it, somehow, and I don't remember how, I got side-tracked into researching Joseph Campbell. And the timing was just perfect.
I'll outline in the coming weeks how my year in Philadelphia, my copy of a recent Southeby's art action catalog, random discussions with family and friends, my Ducati experience, various memories, and yes - my fuming, tongue-chewing pissed-offness about work is giving way to something that I should have done 20 years ago...
Determining what sends me into bliss...
I know what most of you are thinking. "6:30? In the evening? And you're excited?
Well, no. Not excited. Relieved is more accurate. The exciting thing is that I did it nearly all week. Except for Wednesday night, where I worked until a little after midnight. But heck, it was only one night.
This week.
I promise the ongoing string of posts grousing about my job will end soon. I'm with you; stop cursing the darkness, Mr. Lowe. Find your flippin' flashlight, ferchrissakes.
The previous week, I traveled to Chicago for a presentation. The flight departed at a silly-early hour; that was preceded by a workday that had me home at 10pm. My thoughts regarding that kind of lifelessness were captured on board the plane. They are pasted below.
Why am I writing on this subject so very much? Because in business circles, it's considered normal to sacrifice your life for your job. It's time for some kind of wake-up call. Kids need their parents. Their parents need to enjoy their marriages.
And workers in these silk tie wearing sweatshops need to find meaningful, human-embracing enterprises to contribute to.
I'm in the fray.
Next weekend, Sophia comes home.
Now. On board a recent flight to Chicago...
___________________________________
The waste continues
You are not alone.You. Sitting there in that airport gate seating area with your laptop, your reams of PowerPoint presentations yet unread, your nearly empty Starbucks cup, your Blackberry. You feel the pressure under your veneer of deadlines, like an old plaster wall having been smothered with generations of awful wallpaper.
Sure, you look collected. OK, truth be told, you look absolutely aloof. You’re trying to maintain an air of detached coolness, but your incessantally twitching foot, shod in business leather gives you away.
You so don’t want to be here. But if you were given the freedom, you wouldn’t know what else you’d do. Oh, right. You say you’d go to the Bahamas, or write a novel, or some other fantasy-turned-diversion. But what would you accomplish with your life were you suddenly granted the awful liberation from the fury of the clock?
This is what you know. This is all you know. This is the machine you propel.
You awoke at an hour that belongs to the raccoons that prowl your neighborhood looking for uneaten pizza in the neighbor’s trash, fumbled through a dark closet so as not to wake the spouse after your all-too-brief shower. Your eyes still feel the crispy burn of being pried apart by your cell phone alarm that, despite it’s cheery asian sing-song, screamed, “don’t be late or you’ll miss your flight.” The mental domino repercussions of that truth crush your brainstorm like an inverted pyramid. You just can’t think about that possibility.
You can’t.
You won’t.
It foists itself upon you, and like a grape under your heel, squirts you forward into the black morning.
You didn’t have time to enjoy your children last night because you were late getting home, despite the admonitions from your boss to “get out of here early so you can be well rested for that presentation.” You were late because you’re always late. Leaving at 6pm would be dangerously close to slacker territory – if you were able to run screaming from the asylum at that hour. But you can’t. The junior drones you share maze space with cannot carry their own weight, and when they do attempt to be “pro-active,” you are forced to pick out all the wet shoestring knots they create.
Your company maintains momentum via the following unspoken management maxim: Got something that absolutely must get done? Give it to the busiest person.
Your children. Your eldest eyes you with suspicion. You adhere to a schedule you say you deplore. Yet you adhere like Velcro mixed with epoxy. You speak of your job with bitterness, describe your coworkers as dolts, but your conversation is so replete with details of their speech, their fashion, their mannerisms, and their annoying habits that the teenager that just walked past you sans eye contact through her bedroom door cannot help but believe the truth: you spend more time with those “dolts” than you’ve ever spent with her. You don’t know why she talks the way she does, or understand her fashion or manner. To her, you’re speaking of your real family. Your real loves. Your kin.
Your youngest brought in a toy, and sat on your bedroom floor while you silently gathered your suit, your shoes, tucked socks and underwear in an easy to access spot so your lightless fumbling 5 hours from now won’t result in a shocking surprise in an airport restroom mirror. Silently, and content to be with your presence, he arranges little Spongebobs, and little Batmans on the floor. Moves plastic cars with Jimmy Neutron in it without anything more than the click of it’s wheels. Has it hit you, yet? Do you realize that he’s learned not to ask, “Can you play with me,” because he’s experienced the “no, not now’s” one too many times? He intuits your love. But he’s fading, just like you. Soon, his suspicion will germinate and erupt like the grey flower you've taught your daughter to be. Soon he’ll realize you have other friends to play with that you've chosen to prioritize.
Truly, we do what we believe. Truly, we live our truths. That which is most important gets our action, not our words.
You slip into the master bath to brush your teeth. You emerge later to realize that the master of Spongebob and Batman has put himself to bed. No kiss goodnight. No quiet, bonding conversation. No explanation of tomorrow’s flight or meeting. No playing on the carpet with Jimmy Neutron’s car.
Did I mention that America is the most productive workforce in the world?
Clowns: delightful or terrifying?
Neither. In most cases they are passe at best, annoying to the point of arousing my misanthropy at worst. Overall, I find clowns to be an anachronism. Emmett Kelly had his place. Even Bozo had his. They were appropriate for their time. With maybe the exception being performers in Cirque du Soileil, pandering cheezy people hiding from others via thick whiteface are simply irrelevant. They no longer provide a bridge to fantasy. Other media now serve that function better.
i don't have a career. i just go from job to job, in a pseudo-calculated manner, in the hopes that the workplace will have more camaraderie and the paycheck will actually allow for some savings and the occasional Big Night Out with the family.
some of you would call that a "career." you're hopelessly wrong.
my new job is classic Frankly Mr. Shankly.
i am exhausted. i wake up as fried as last Sunday's egg sandwich. the people i work with mean well, but we know where good intentions get you. the lovely Day Runner that the Mrs. got me to keep me "organized" for my last job is worthless in this new position. instead, i'd be better served by a flak jacket. the moment i walk up the 3 flights of stairs in the old Princeton building where the agency is housed, i am hit from every direction by account managers and project managers and company owners...questions and needs a-go go. planning your day line by line on soft green tinted paper would be as foolish as...thinking that meditation is going to help you keep your calm through this insanity.
but there are hopeful spots in my life...
thanks to the relocation my family just endured, my commute has been cut from 90 minutes to 17. yay. now i'm closer to the buzz saw. at least i save gas getting there.
and i've located my "new" motorcycle. after getting my license the first week of July, and after several delays, September 15th is now slated as the Happy Vroom Vroom Day. she's not new, but she's new to me. and i've already named her: Sophia.
oh, i know...some of you are saying, "Sophia is a Greek name. A Greek name for an Italian motorcycle?"
Sophia is Greek for wisdom. She's a representation of the wisdom in the truth that you've got to care for yourself first, before you can care for others.
Then again, there was that Italian Loren chick...
she's a 1995 Ducati 900 SuperSport. went to see her for the first time this past Sunday, after several weeks of really great conversation online with her owner, a woman who is a very, very serious motorcyclist. walking into her stable of bikes, and seeing how spotless it was, and the garage area devoted to every aspect of the sport was very encouraging.
Sophia, despite her age, is spotless, and essentially new. new tires, new clutch, tons of custom components...and ohmygod...the growl on her! i have never heard such a vicious - yet comforting - roar.
for those of you who were around for my first post, where i wrote longingly to be up to the desmo challenge...but opted instead to go for something more Teutonic and sedate, you'll be happy for me. she's much more bike than i'd ever expect for a first mount. i'm so excited.
know what the oddest thing has been? to hear other men at the office swoon over images of this bike, only to say "my wife (or girlfriend) won't -let- me have a bike."
my response? marry an Italian.
ok. i can't believe i typed this much. time to pull myself up the stairs and collapse. got more craziness to fend off, tomorrow...
The Sucky Side of Capitalism
To all my former Vox readers – I feel compelled to ask your forgiveness for going nearly a full month without any flare signaling my whereabouts. But since there was no complicity on my part to deprive either you of my writing, or myself from the joy of sharing, I'll refrain from getting too verbally clingy. Suffice it to say that since you last read of my adventures, I successfully completed the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course, have inked a new lease on a different family house just outside of Princeton, and have dived headlong into my new job.
I write to you ensconced from a bed surrounded by moving boxes. Change is my real bedfellow.
Certain flavors of drowning are immensely pleasurable. This latest one has simply been – nostril gorging. But it'll all work out.
Even the motorcycle part.
Before launching into my latest need for controlled vitriol, Ray, Dave, take it away:
No Summer Vroom. Maybe.
I'll write about the specifics of the 5-day course in another post, but, suffice it to say, it confirmed all the musings I had about motorcycling about as quickly as you could twist a rubber throttle grip.
When I was a kid in a tee-totaller household, I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be tipsy. Of course, it's impossible to accurately describe to someone who's never had 2 martini's what the sensation actually feels like. You can imagine it all you want, but until you've swallowed the last mangled vestiges of that vermouth-soaked olive, words are hopeless.
Sharing verbally your derriere's experience of Straddling a V-Twin when it's snarling is the same.
The first time I pressed the starter button after going through the near pre-flight discipline of mounting a motorcycle in the MSF curriculum, was life-changing. Unlike the disembodied sensation of being behind a car's firewall, where the engine is "out there," and you're "in here," on the motorcycle, that raw, spinning mass of metal and rubber was beneath you, inches away. The countless explosions of internal combustion, the mixture of fuel and air, and the successful containment of all that carnage was going on, quite literally, between your legs. It was completely frightening. And as fresh and wonderful as the first time you flew a kite, hugged a dog with your arms full wide, or ran open-mouthed through a sunny thunderstorm.
Only sensations experienced in delight and childhood suffice for the experience.
So when each and every one of my classmates began describing the bikes they had already purchased, my envy rocket reached Saturnine orbit within moments.
The day before graduation, I attempted to secure financing for a new, mid-sized bike. With the new salary, the payments were easier to swallow than the aforementioned olive. But the three credit bureaus said, "bar's closed."
I was crushed. I had sailed through months of study and hopefulness by keeping my eyes on a short-but-intense class. After passing the class with honors (I was actually given the distinction of being nicknamed, the "Superhero of Swerve") I now found myself with no easy path towards the tool that made all that study and passion possible. I had no bike. And couldn't figure out how I was going to secure one before the warmth of my 42nd summer came to a close.
Learning to Play the Game
During the following week, several of my new office mates were asking, "Get 'cher bike, yet?" That was sorta like asking a eunuch how many kids he'd planned on having. I smiled and said, "Not yet."
The coworker who's efforts at building the firm over the years from a fledgling internet shop to an important online agency then said to me with a wink and a nod, "You did turn in an invoice for all those hours you consulted with us prior to being hired, didn't you?"
Visions of Ducati's danced in my head once more.
Yes, Ducati. I know, I know, a few of you will remember me talking about BMW, not Ducati. But at the MSF course, it was made pretty clear that the instructors found anti-lock brakes on motorcycles to actually be a potential detriment. It was the ABS of the B'mers that had attracted this safe, soda cracker white boy's interest so desperately. After a couple days out on the range practicing aggressive braking, however, I was convinced. No need to spend that extra cash on Teutonic stoppers.
I could turn my heart to other shores. Bellisimo.
That evening at home, bathed in laptop blue light, I concocted an invoice that was not only accurate, but that totaled $100 more than the cost of a sparklingly beautiful, although used 2002 Ducati Monster that I had found on the web, being sold by a very kind man just south of Philadelphia.
He emailed me to say, "You take your time and get your money. I'll keep her warm for you."
That's her. There. Clad in grey carbon. Sitting in the nice man's driveway. Swoon. I still don't have the dough to make her a Jersey girl. And I saw in a 'net search this evening that he's posted her back up for sale. He gave me a nice long wait. Good guy.
Well-intentioned, with a Lack of Forethought
I turned in my invoice, so excited at the reality that I was actually about to purchase a great European treasure, all without the need of The Man. No cowering to a bank or loan company; I had completed the work, billed for it, would get paid, and then secure the prize that all my study and effort had won.
That's when The Man called me into his office, and slashed my invoice down to less than a third.
"You know, Sam, we normally withhold a week's salary from the first paycheck. Lots of companies do. But we paid you a full check for your first pay period. We've decided to deduct a week from the amount on this invoice."
I don't recall if my mouth was open wide. I really don't. All I do remember was realizing that the HR manager had spoken about that during orientation...but when I got my check, there it was. The whole kit n' kaboodle.
And there it went...along with the carbon fiber mufflers.
Now what to do?
Traditional financing wasn't an option. The cash simply didn't exist in my checking account, especially after needing to retire the old family van this spring. (Emily loves her brand spanking new Mazda. Sigh.) Summer marches on, and I'm a full month out of class. The instructors urged, "Get a bike. Get a bike soon. Borrow one. Don't let these fresh skills lapse!"
People Helping People. Maybe.
Last night, after combining a little moping with a little Googling, I came across a fascinating website that you may have already heard of. Prosper.com is a people-lending-to-people site. The organic, grass-roots feel immediately hooked me. So I filled out a profile, submitted to their ID checks, and blammo, I have a listing.
If you wanna show a writer who wants to be a biker a little kindness, you can go do the signup thing, find me, and leave me an "endorsement." It's like leaving a comment here in Vox, only it's a character reference. You tell the world I'm Emily's hubby and therefore, pure as the white of our dog Kairos' belly fur. Supposedly, endorsements are huge towards getting funded. Go figure.
My screenname there is Pneumadeux.
But this saga is filled with revelations that continue to line my ever-deepening misanthrope's soul...
As I was browsing other folk's profiles, particularly those with pretty lousy credit ratings (like yours, truly) I learned a sad fact: the dark side of capitalism has even contaminated an organic enterprise like Prosper – those with D, E, and lower credit ratings, who reside in states with no caps on interest rates, tend to get their loan requests funded by others. People like me, who have high balances but excellent payment records, combined with residing in a state with a paltry percentage rate cap (15.36% in New Jersey) don't get their loans funded. Why? There's no profit in us.
Just like that, I found myself back in a Philadelphia conference room at the pharmaceutical agency I was working at as a Creative Director. I listened as an executive at a large drug manufacturer explained that, although they had developed a powerful and efficacious drug for a rare disease (known in the industry as an "orphan drug") they had chosen not to bring it to market. "Only 20,000 people in North America experience this condition. The realities of scale make this segment inappropriate for our business model."
For what it's worth, those underserved 20,000, who experience a horrific and painful condition with no approved treatment, are forced to smuggle drugs from Europe that have long since been approved.
Despite the fact that I'm "good for it," and despite the fact that my profile demonstrates that in 7 years I've had -two- delinquent payments and a much, much lower debt-to-income ratio than the average American, I'm very unlikely to be funded.
Because I'm not going to make you tons of money.
Autumn will be here soon
When the leaves are turning colors and the air is musty and sweet with the sleep of trees, I will watch bikers rumble past with a certain mix of feelings. For most of the year I will have studied and planned to join them on the road. And yes, eventually, I will. But for now, I'll muse on the lessons I've learned about economics, philosophy, and the Reason We Work. I'm committed to finishing my book about getting to know my Dad only after his death and through memories. I'm committed to setting up my painting area in my new home, and creating lots and lots of images. I'll be fortunate to be only 15 minutes from my work, unlike the hour and a half commute of the past 18 months; more time spent with Emily and the kiddos, and walking the pooch.
I'll try to learn to work within these systems that I'm finding to be less and less human, and try especially hard to succumb to the temptation to abuse those systems. (This morning, in the shower, I actually considered contacting a few friends that I know live in "uncapped" states - soliciting them to sign up on Prosper for loans $1000 over the small amount I'm seeking to finance for a percentage rate that would be deemed "desirable." I'd get funded, pay them a grand for the trouble, and be riding down the road singing La Dolce Vita. Then I cut myself shaving and snapped out of it.)
Here's to Emily's tomato garden and walks with her on the boardwalk. Here's to my son Ben's wicked curveball. Here's to Kairos the foxhound's musical bray echoing through Jersey woods. Here's to maybe getting a book published, or finding a buyer or three for a painting.
There will be time for riding. There's always next summer.
I so shouldn't be up.
What time is your alarm clock set for? Do you use the snooze button?
I set my cell phone to "auto power," meaning all the chirps and buzzes that would normally alert me to incoming e-mails, thereby thwarting my ability to sleep like a toppled caboose, are blissfully silenced, yet the phone will come on just in time to serenade me awake...at 6:30 in the morning, eastern standard time.
Most alarm tones are as pleasant as fingernails on a blackboard. Of course, they're supposed to wake you. I prefer, however, to be "shifted" from slumber to the realization that my indentured servitude must continue for yet one more day.
I promptly find the little bugger, nestled into some fabric on a pile of books near my pillow, and squint hard into the bright little screen to determine that it is, in fact, 6:30am. I have often slept for many minutes through the gentle midi tones, sometimes to as late as 6:45, before I realize those otherwise annoying notes are meant to rouse me, and are not a part of yet another perverse dream.
Then I hit "snooze."
For the first time.
A cell phone alarm with snooze. There's something kind of whack about that.
I'm ensconced at the kitchen table, which is freshly covered with a crimson, plastic tablecloth and the finest polyester runner impulse money can buy. Kairos, our rescued American Foxhound is semi-dozing behind me in the amber light of dimmed candelabra bulbs, dusty and high above my crew-cut head. The floor beneath my bare feet echoes with the feint thunder of my eldest son's exploits on the PlayStation in the basement. I think Berlin is about to fall yet again to another young American onslaught.
The lights just flickered to the tick of the central air coming on.
It's summer. It's June.
My 42nd is in 3 days.
In the midst of catching up on social e-mail, I was responding to an invitation by another writer-friend to share a shaving of my current labor. After spelunking in my hard drive, I'm still a little slack-jawed at what I discovered.
What follows is that discovery - a brief Note To Self. I was beginning to craft what I had hoped would ultimately form a prologue to my still-unfinished memoir about growing up Taoist in a Baptist world. It's a shamelessly self-involved bit of prose; a veritable diary entry that deserves to be given a death by firing squad. Instead, I share it with you, offering it up to the immolation of snickers that it justly deserves.
Note the date, which follows the sign-off.
Damn. I feel so lazy.
_________________
I’m writing this book because I really, really need to buy a motorcycle.
It's amazing what we think will save us...
See, I’m 41 years old in a few days, and I’ve yet to prove to myself that all the insights and stories I keep sharing with myself while zipping along in traffic, or with my family at meals are actually worthwhile and helpful to the world at large. So now, just a few months into a new job (that I really didn’t want) and a new city (that up ‘til now has never held sway for me), it’s time I belched all those interesting anecdotes out and through a keyboard, in the hopes that lots of you out there will find them charming, insightful, funny, relatable, and yes…will pay for the privilege. Then I can make like a lot of other 40-plus year old men, who have spent their professional careers inside of offices, and overcompensate for a misspent couple of decades with something decadent and dangerous.
Well…not exactly. My real goal is to finally purchase a house for my family (despite the fact that my children’s formative years have passed without a permanent structure and the history that comes with it), sock a bunch away to makeup for the fact that I have not one penny of savings despite my age and relative success (more on that in the pages that follow; trust me, bunches of you will relate. You’re so not alone.) and will do so well for myself that I’ll be able to make a truly ostentatious purchase that says, “cheer up, chap, you done did good. Now go get that license and pick up that shiny anthracite B’mer you’ve always had your eye on.”
Something like that.
Now I ask you; is such an honest confession offensive to you?
I earnestly believe that we all, every last one of us, have a story to tell. And every one of us has an audience that would dearly love to hear that story, for an abundance of reasons; some, to gain answers. Others, because they crave validation, and your story is just that kind of warm wrap around the shoulders they need. Others just want the entertainment. I don’t have the slightest idea who would want to experience this hodge-podge of collected experience. But I’m playing Hansel here, and dropping the crumbs anyway. I’m off on yet another adventure with this writing, and if I don’t make my way back, then perhaps you’ll enjoy munching on the rye, and will kindly contribute your thanks for the carbs.
Then I’ll tip my hat, accept the gift, and allow it to fund further observations and explorations.
Here we go…
Sam Lowe
June 16, 2006
Turn and Face the Strain
I turned in my resignation at my current workplace, today, after being there for only 4 months. And no, for those of you who are curious, I had absolutely no sense of guilt about that whatsoever.
My previous workplace, that I both enjoyed and struggled with for just under a year before they lost a key client that forced my departure, was one that evoked very strong emotions from me when the end came. In fact, I cried like a baby for days. The commiserating culture of artists is dear to those who know it well.
Artists and writers are emotional by nature, but advertising creatives have an additional disease: we're stymied. Constipated, rather. Our natural condition is to express, but our clients could give a rats about what we feel about them or their assignments. We're paid to retell. We listen to their stories, learn what audiences will resonate best with those stories, then retell those stories to those audiences in compelling ways that our clients couldn't ever dream up.
And that's as creative as we usually get to be.
Another Relo
7 years ago, the transition from Michigan to New Jersey was packed full of adventure, hope, and promise. I was excited and scared. 2 summers ago, that particular chapter closed. What ensued was dark, difficult, and nearly embittering.
For the first time since coming to Jersey, I'm looking forward, albeit with a tempered heart, to this new opportunity.
I'll be working as a Creative Director in Princeton, New Jersey, across the street from where silver-spoonfed late-teens are supposedly studying for their law degrees. I'll be the only creative in an agency that is exclusively focused on web sites for the pharmaceutical and health care industries. "How can you direct creative when there's no one there to direct?"
Perceptive you are, young Padawan...
The business model of this agency is unique: those who are building the agency's wares are all contractors and freelancers. They are affectionately referred to as, "The Network." I'll be managing and steering this vast unseen creative force.
Pay all your attention to the man behind the curtain.
Yeah...workin' for the devil, makin' his websites. That's the POV of many.
For me, well, I'm here to bring truth, humanity, and a little humor to a communications process that is all too often utterly stale and uninspired. Wish me luck.
42. Life, the Universe, and Everything
She's not the 25 year-old I first fell in love with. She's wiser, funnier, and in many ways, softer. Happy 42nd, honey. You're certainly the present I get to enjoy, every day.
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Recent Comments
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Little Odd Me said:
[this is good](Navelgazer put me on to this post.) May you get your truths to where you want them to be. read more
on I Think I Had a Normal Week -
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tondelayo said:
I can tell you would not like to have me as a boss... read more
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lostdwarf said:
know what the oddest thing has been? to hear other men at the office swoon over images of this bike,... read more
on Just too damned tired
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