When is My Big Break?

So. It's been a while.

I've gotta say, it's been an incredibly hard year and a few months since I moved to New York, and the bubble of lowlights and foiled attempts at success I've been living in have just not been conducive to musing about anything. I've been talking with a few close friends about adulthood, and that I just don't think I'm anywhere near it. Subsistence living, running in place professionally, and being stuck in a big city full of richos has me in a near state of arrested development, and it turns out I'm not alone.

At first I thought this was because of a lack of (trust) funds, especially in the form of my parents' help, but I have plenty of other friends who are fortunate enough to come from certain means but have found themselves in a similar emotional position. Then I thought it was just this damn city. And yeah, that is definitely part of it—the rent is too damn high, especially compared to my midwestern roots and life in Chicago only 18 months ago, and I do strongly feel like I'm bleeding money every time I leave my apartment. But that's not all of it.

In short, I think my despair, and that of some of my friends, is rooted in the fact that our cohort has been profoundly screwed over. Most especially the class of 2008, my class, who graduated the very same summer that the financial world was seemingly collapsing around us, has fallen into a sort of holding pattern from which it feels like we'll never recover. You'll notice I'm using a lot of qualifiers and subjective language, and it is on these conditionals that hinge the bulk of my fears. I am more than willing to allow that one's twenties are supposed to be hard, that these will be the hardest parts of our lives, that we're really "figuring out who we really are." But at this point, I'm 27, and I'm over it. I've learned my lesson; I've done my soul-searching. Where is the reward for all the nail-biting and tears and handwringing over missed bills and rising credit card debt and dignity lost in borrowing money from family yet again? I'm happy to look beyond this to the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, but for some of us there is a real fear that it will never materialize.

All those months of economic uncertainty and hiring freezes represent a lot of lost time for the class of 2008 (and fine, 2009 too), and at times I don't see how we can recover. By the time companies slowly started hiring again, there were at least three classes of newly-graduated job seekers, meaning three times as much competition and a third as many excuses for lack of relevant experience. Sure, many individual hiring managers out there might understand that there was nothing we could have done besides take irrelevant jobs to make ends meet, leave the country, or rack up more debt going to school. But on the whole, we just don't look as good on paper. Even when I have made strides in my own professional career, I find myself plagued by an incredible case of impostor syndrome, and I'm constantly underselling myself.

More than five years after all of this, most of my friends have fortunately either found work or graduated from their programs, but there is a profound dissatisfaction or anxiety that I've been picking up from them and feeling myself stemming from officially reaching our late twenties. I'm 27 and will be 28 next month, but while my 30+ year old friends are buying houses, getting married, or even having kids (and some well-faring friends my age are admittedly doing the same), many of my friends from my graduating class are nowhere near that stage in their lives even if they want to be. How can I even think about raising a kid when I can't make rent? How would I fund a wedding when I can't find a steady job? Meanwhile, some of my younger friends have been struggling for what seems like the acceptable amount before landing their jobs and getting on with their lives and enjoying their early-mid twenties. The bigger things are easier to focus on when the smaller matters are taken care of, and vice versa.

I find myself most anxious that the anxiety will never end. I remember being an (albeit hyper-self-aware) angsty teenager and looking forward to being in my 20s when all these feelings and high school drama would finally subside. I want to look ahead to being 30 and knowing more than what I do now, chiefly that things will, on the whole, turn out alright. One thing I have figured out in my 20s is that there will always be problems. I will always find something to hate about my job, there will always be "first world problems." But the peace of mind that can come with a steady paycheck and food on the table is one that I hope will not be lost on me when I finally make it out of this.

Stasis

Shuffle this evening: Ryan Adams - This House Is Not For Sale Sufjan Stevens - Holland The Magnetic Fields - Meaningless Snoop Dogg - Beautiful Battles - Snare Hanger There is a point at which one's music library ceases to collect and hardens into a time capsule. I'm beginning to think now is that time.

First Impressions

It can be incredibly unnerving to have your reputation precede you. It is simultaneously flattering, frightening, and intimidating that others have spoken of you, that their friends have formed a picture to which they will compare you from then on. Whether positive or negative, you can add to that portrait or shatter it.

I am perpetually frustrated that I am doomed to be trapped inside my own head, never able to see myself without an intimate knowledge of myself and my own neuroses. What does what we do for our own reasons look like to everyone else who is not privy to those incentives? What do other people see when they meet you? How does that change as they get to know you?

Anyway, one of my closest friends, JW, had an engagement party (in celebration of her engagement, of course, but also her civil union -- her husband, JD, is from out of the country, meaning lots of paperwork ahead that they'd like to settle sooner rather than later). When I met 2 of my fellow bridesmaids, her other best friends from college, the first words out of their mouths were, "this is the Tiff?" "It's so great to finally meet you!" Of course I had heard loads about them and was happy to finally meet them as well, but I was immediately caught off guard -- what does that mean? What could they possibly know about me that I don't? We talked for a while, and JW came over. "She's so great! I love her!" they said. "I know, right?" JW responded, as if there was something I wasn't in on; they'd clearly talked about this before. I honestly don't get it. I thought they were really nice and really cool, and we certainly share some interests, but I kept getting the nagging feeling there was something I was missing, and it weirded me out.

I admitted this to SM the next morning: what is it that people see that I can't? How drastic a difference is the sense of our selves we get in our own heads from the self we are actually projecting to others? Obviously I know no one else is privy to my inner monologue, but one thing SM brought up that I hadn't thought of before was that what I take for granted may be what others lack and what they like in me. For example, he said, his mother finds me to be "warm," and he used the word "genuine" too. In discussing what those descriptions could possibly mean, we mapped it back to what I always thought was just asking questions about people and things because I actually wanted to know. Apparently not everyone does that? I've also been accused of far worse -- being cold, being moody -- but in my head, there's always a reason, whether it's not knowing what to say; trying to internally wrestle with whether or not I'm doing the right thing; or watching my precious plans crumble before my eyes, leaving me helpless and clueless. Fortunately SM has learned to pick up on all of those things, and he knows how to read the situation and act or not act accordingly.

I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for everything, then, right? Is getting to know someone just familiarizing yourself with the differential between the inner workings of one's brain and the person you met that first time, the projection of that person in that first impression? Can you be close to someone without being familiar with that differential? Is Person X really such a bitch in their own head as they are in real life?

I'm reminded of a 30 Rock scene in which we see that Liz's impressions of high school -- mainly that everyone shunned her because she was such a nerd -- were completely devoid of reality, and that it was she who was really the one who was harsh and outspoken. I had a similar experience with a friend a few months ago. It's less about what others think than the idea of not knowing myself: did I really do that? Did I really hurt you? I had no idea. The oblivion is unnerving. If really knowing someone is indeed somewhat dependent upon being okay with that space between the inner workings of my head and the outer manifestations thereof, then I don't really think I am very well acquainted with me.

A Post for JK: The List Issue

Some people hate lists. Admittedly, as I peruse my Google Reader every morning, the Top 5s or Top 10s give off a faint waft of desperation, a thinly-veiled call for more traffic on a website before they go all out and post a video. We all have to admit, though, that the ploy works. People are interested in spite of themselves.

Of course there are others who thrive on lists. This is my camp. There is so much information one can gather about yourself and others from a list-making session with friends. My favorite lists are those that smack of sharply personal preference, the ones that hint at an involved back-story or require an impassioned defense. I also enjoy the time capsule dimension of list-making; like Rob in High Fidelity (also, Rob's creator, Nick Hornby), I recognize the value of grooming one's lists and keeping them updated with one's current state of mind. They are always cumulative of your experiences until that point -- what you choose to remember and what you have since forgotten -- which is so interesting to think about: is the new roster a complete overhaul from the last? When did this element become a mainstay for nostalgia's sake as opposed to an earnest addition? Sometimes I like looking back on them to see what my limits were at the time or where I'd been. Sometimes it's a more tangible manifestation of my interests. I've encapsulated my current views below. There is no order to these rankings, and they are all subject to change, of course.

My top 5 books thus far (no order)
In the Heart of the Sea
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
East of Eden
The Once and Future King
Lord of the Flies
HM: A Farewell to Arms

Top 5 favorite authors
John Steinbeck
Jack Kerouac
Michael Chabon
J.D. Salinger
Doris Kearns Goodwin

My favorite movies of all time thus far (no order)
Pather Panchali (India, dir. Satyajit Ray, 1955)
The Passenger (Italy, dir. Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
Apocalypse Now (USA, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Les Enfants du Paradis (France, dir. Marcel Carné, 1945)
Bringing Up Baby (USA, dir. Howard Hawks, 1938)
Breaking Away (USA, dir. Peter Yates, 1979)

Top 5 favorite cinematographers
Vittorio Storaro
Ellen Kuras
Haskell Wexler
Robert Elswit
Ernest Dickerson
HM: Subatra Mitra, Roger Deakins

Top 5 favorite bands of the 1990s (no order)
Alice in Chains
Soundgarden
Built to Spill
Beck
Radiohead
HM: The Sea and Cake, Stone Temple Pilots

Top 5 favorite contemporary bands
The National
OK Go
Vampire Weekend
The Black Keys
Spoon
HM: Animal Collective (but they haven't put out anything new since 2009, and I didn't like MPP nearly as much as anything they'd put out previously) and Wolf Parade

Top 5 favorite contemporary artists that aren't bands
Santigold
LCD Soundsystem
Jill Scott
Erykah Badu
Mayer Hawthorne

Top 10 favorite albums of all time
Graceland - Paul Simon
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
Kid A - Radiohead
The Band - The Band
Brothers and Sisters - Allman Brothers Band
Feels - Animal Collective
Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
Billy Breathes - Phish
Weezer (Blue) - Weezer
Note: there's no Beatles album here for fear that the debate would turn into a completely separate post. There's a Beatles album for whatever mood I'm in: looking for all killer, no filler pop? Rubber Soul. A crazy awesome wannabe concept album? Sgt. Pepper. A great transitional album into the world of weird? Revolver. The problem with these judging and ranking these albums for me is the trade off between albums of all 4-star songs, like Rubber Soul, or an album full of plenty of 5-star songs among a glut of 3-star songs. It's a long debate, and I don't want to get into it...yet.

Favorite opening tracks
All I Want - Joni Mitchell - Blue
The Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon - Graceland
Airbag - Radiohead - OK Computer
Everything in Its Right Place - Radiohead - Kid A
The Song Remains the Same - Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
The King of Carrot Flowers Pt 1. - Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Poppies - Marcy Playground - Marcy Playground
Angel - Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Taxman - Beatles - Revolver
Pt. 1: Acknowledgment - John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

Favorite closing tracks
Turn Into Something - Animal Collective - Feels
A Day in the Life - The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper
Sweet Lil Gal - Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Pt. 3: Pursuance/Pt. 4: Psalm - John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles - Revolver

Top 5 favorite Beatles songs
Rain
Paperback Writer
It's All Too Much
Dear Prudence
Don't Let Me Down

Feel free to challenge me on any of these. What's on your favorites lists?

Inward Observations: Part 2 of ∞

Maybe I'm just drawing false connections, but sometimes it seems as if there are these clusters of meaning or themes that coalesce into something that begs to be divined. The tea leaves are spelling something out, and while I don't know why exactly, it seems foolish to pass them by without pondering them for a bit.

This time, I think the key term here is "mission statement," or some approximation of it. For one thing, tomorrow we're going to start working on defining our office's mission at work during a group retreat (part two, actually). For another thing, I sat down for crepes and chai with my friend MS for a couple of hours yesterday, and among other topics we talked about how she is sure to make a list of things that are true about herself, so that whenever she's not so sure or she's in danger of losing herself, she can look back at that list and gain a little more confidence and a firmer grasp on who she wants to be. We both talked about what our lists look like. I've never been one for seeking out inspiration in anything but a modest way, but I did find it interesting that, while I'd focused more on what I want out of a job, her statements had a lot more to do with herself without the job, without other people, and with little to do with time or place. It was as if she stripped everything away and then added the essentials back in. My job has definitely helped me define a lot of what I want, but I guess it's not the whole picture. It's about what's important to me.

So let's see here (I had some help from SM)...
- I think I'd rather be doing good than promoting good. And I don't mean that in a halo-earning sense, but rather in an actually-benefiting-someone sense. Even that is pretty broad, though, and I interpret that benefit pretty loosely, albeit as directly as possible.
- Authenticity is important to me, and thus try to put myself in as few inauthentic moments as possible. This leads to really enjoying time with people I actually like, and trying to minimize time with most other people. I don't want to spend time lying to myself or others; it's draining and pointless.
- My friends are very important to me. It's a given that I will always do what I can to be there for them, whether it's showing up at their events or listening to them.
- I will pretty much do anything for my family. I will always do what I can to support them.
- Learning means a lot to me. I like being informed, but I also like the act of learning. I also like learning about others learning and helping others learn in the best ways for them.
- I'm no fun sometimes because I take life too seriously, but that's okay. I think someone has to take life seriously because otherwise we wouldn't accomplish anything.
- I like understanding how things work and using that knowledge to get things done and make things work better. Practical application is fascinating (and necessary).
- Being resourceful and exploring the best way to do something means a lot to me. Taking the initiative to look for the best method is commendable and also efficient in the end.

I think that's a start. I'm not very happy with the list, actually, because it seems so narcissistic, but I think the concept is sound and certainly helpful if you ever feel so buried or disconnected from yourself. Do you think I'm missing anything from my list? What would you have on your list?

Inward Observations: part 1 of ∞

1. I think I need a career that can offer lots of independence. I like setting goals for myself that are tied to larger, more life-affirming, and practical aspects of life (i.e. education, conflict resolution, health, etc.), as opposed to being obliged to adhere to goals set for me that are tied to smaller, subjective, shorter-term initiatives.

2. The things I like best about my current job are the editing and the shooting, when I can fully immerse myself in the creation of a solid product. I don't particularly like troubling myself with the distribution or the client desires, but when I do, I am often disappointed with the relatively small sphere of influence, short term goals, and/or enthusiasm over what I see as proportionately small events/meaning.

3. I like working with something hands-on, and I learn better by doing.

4. I'm really bad at being fake, and I hate having to be fake. Fake smiles, fake interest, and fake enthusiasm tire me out. Relatedly, impressing anyone besides those I care about is never high on my list.

5. My hopes for something are almost always trumped by possible realities. I'll get really excited about something if the logistics are there to support its potential.

6. More than approval or praise, I want feedback.

7. I like when questions have a purpose, for example to come closer to a conclusion, when someone truly cares, or when the information will be used for something.

8. Inefficient systems and unnecessary elements irk me.

9. The test to pass is whether or not the issues one talks about in a meeting have any implications outside of that particular closed community. Immigration? Yes. The history of film? Yes. An upcoming community event? Doesn't excite me.

Given all of this, what is the best career for me?