It's a Hell of a Thing
I always feel compelled to write some thorough, sufficient state of the union blog post that covers the factual information about my current state practically, in terms of work, hobbies, events, and who I am or am not associating with on a given night. But further, there's also this desire to write something poignant, something along the lines of genius, that accurately yet necessarily ambiguously describes my current existential state in light of the static past, unknown future, and unclear present.
As Max said, "Pipe dreams Dad, I'm a barbers son."
It's frustrating having friends like Mesh & Holton, while clearly on different ends of some type of "writing" spectrum, always seem to consistently write and express on their bad days, far better than I do on my best.
You might surmise that I'm taking this blogging thing way to seriously, that I'm giving it more weight than it deserves. Well, I guess I'm a true believer in this whole blogging medium, which I'm fairly certain stems out of my fascination and love of a well put sentence and an emotion or sense movingly described.
This tension too perhaps is indicative of the greater insecurity I have concerning my calling. Mesh recently wrote, and John concurred, that a person's being isn't their job. While I understand, and sympathize with the freedom they're seeking in that position, I think its more or less the product of how God set things up that we equate "how we are doing" with our surety in "what we are doing." I suppose that's just a re-hashing of the idea of "calling." It just happens that the easiest thing to consider our calling is our jobs, perhaps merely by proximity, perhaps not.
Given that I'm not into identity as a static thing, the idea of "acting" makes a great deal of sense to me when we think about who we are. I'm Josiah, I _____" which you can fill in with whatever it is I do in general. The kicker is, I've still got this firm belief that there's something I can or should be doing, now, that is the ultimate thing in that moment that I should be doing.
Now I'm really rambling.
Josiah Q. Roe | By Josiah Roe | 12:38 PM
Comments
Deserves got nothin' to do with it.
I think the guy who John quoted was a different Aaron. I too wonder where we're supposed to get our identity. There's something to the idea that what we have passion for becomes what we are, and lately I don't have passion for a whole heck of a lot. I suspect you sympathize.
I have more thoughts on this, but I'll wait. Marty probably already said 'em anyway.
Posted by: mesh at September 9, 2003 12:47 PM
I think it's much easier to think of what your identity isn't than it is to nail down what your identity is. In my case, it's easy for me to acknowledge that I don't define myself by my call-center day job. But how would I define myself? I honestly don't know.
However, as I was writing that post, I began thinking about my plans to finish college, go to seminary, and enter the ministry. I can see being able to define myself somewhat by that calling when I am actually walking in it. I think that's because it's something that will affect every part of my life. It's more than a job I'll work during predetermined hours performing some tangible task. It will, to an extent, consume my life and my soul, much the way an artist's life and soul are consumed by the working of their art.
Passion, just as you said, Mesh.
Posted by: John at September 9, 2003 01:55 PM
I think I agree with Mesh. I definately have a passion for something I know I can find that fire deep down to apply myself to things and produce results that I would consider normally beyond my capacity... the problem is finding out what it is that drives this. I know it isn't my work... at least not this work. So maybe I need to find a different job, though that wouldn't solve the whole identity issue.
It seems to me that you are more defined by the honor that your live your life... but that is an entirely way too complicated issue for a blog comment. The best I can summarize it as is that it doesn't matter what you do, be it trash collecting, programming, flying airplanes or eating bees as long as you do it honorably (ok well maybe not that last job).
Posted by: mkrueger at September 9, 2003 02:41 PM
Anyone who's talked with me for an extended period of time will know that I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole calling thing. It seems a lot like divination to me. A lot of people want some kind of divine assurance that they're "supposed" to be doing x. Recently, Covenant has started talking about "Big-C Calling" and "little-c calling" to distinguish the call of grace from vocational pursuits. I still don't like it.
That being said, I also think that there really is something to your concern, Josiah. I'm convinced that there is a corollation between how we are doing and what we are doing. Work is something given to man from the beginning, and we're supposed to keep ourselves busy. Not necessarily because there's just so much to be done, though there certainly is, but because it's what we were made to do.
As I've got basically a month or so to figure out what I'm doing with my life (graduating without anything to do afterwards would not be cool), this is something that's been on my mind quite a bit. See my blog for a long-awaited update and further discussion.
Posted by: ryan at September 9, 2003 08:01 PM
If I had to choose the career I wound up in, within a month after graduation, I would have missed it completely. I always liked computers, but every teacher pushed the math aspect of that career. I didn't want to become a programmer, I liked tinkering with computers. At the same time, I always worked on newsletters and brochures. I never would have thought of combining the two. At least not in mid 93.
I guess what I'm saying is...relax. The world isn't going to end if you take a misstep and "choose the wrong career". Because who knows in 5 years if it doesn't turn into something completely different. I know lots of people who’s major is completely opposite their career, and have no problems.
Posted by: Mike at September 9, 2003 08:28 PM
If you need a calling, you could try campaigning against this
Posted by: Maphet at September 9, 2003 11:09 PM
Oh, I'm not really worried about finding what I'm going to do for the rest of my life in the next month. But I do kind of need to figure out what I'm going to do for the next ten odd months. We'll start with that and go from there.
Posted by: ryan at September 10, 2003 12:47 AM
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