The Bed of Procrustes
is a book of aphorisms by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Here is a selection that struck me:
“Decomposition, for the most part, starts when they leave the free, social and uncorrupted college life for the solitary confinement of professions and nuclear families” (page 41).
This quotation was like a bow and arrow pointing at my heart. On my commute to work in the morning, I see so many bleary-eyed people—of all ages—that look defeated by the way in which they earn a living. How many adults talk joylessly, or resentfully, about their jobs? This, in contrast to the you-can-be-anything cheerleaderism of childhood.
As a teenager, I never understood why people would self-medicate with tons of caffeine, or other drugs, to get through work they hated. Why not just take a different job? I didn’t understand that the time-consuming nature of full-time jobs makes life into a balancing act: between work, sleep, basic bodily health, a social life, and hobbies or projects. Trying to maintain the balance requires so much effort, it’s hard to examine one’s life with any critical distance. That’s how people “wake up one day” and realize something about their lives, rather than knowing it all along.
It’s so easy to spend time alone when you’re a grown-up. I live by myself and come home, tired, disinclined to do anything but mindlessly browse the web. College surrounds you with people your own age, but the working world does not, necessarily. I go out at night when I don’t really feel like it, and drink booze when I don’t really feel like it, so that I can hold something in my hand as I talk to another person. Because I want to talk to another person.
If I have learned anything important over the past six months, it’s probably this: There isn’t any job description, anywhere, that contains everything I want. Nothing encompasses all of my interests. My main creative act (in this stage of my life) is not going to be my writing; rather, it’s going to be piecing together jobs, and projects, and ways of living, so that I can do and be everything that I want. That is how, I think, to win the game—and I definitely feel like I’m playing a weird, capitalist game. It’s so imperative to resist the overwhelming current toward mindless routines, social isolation, and self-segregation.
IN SHORT/for the tl;dr set
Once, my mom, her boyfriend/life partner, and I were all in conversation about work.
“You know those tall office buildings that go up for 20 stories? Do you think all those people in that building love their jobs?” he asked.
“No, I don’t,” my mom responded, exasperated. “But some people don’t believe they have to be happy, so they don’t try.”
