Phase 19: Coffee break's over - Time to get back to work.

     Well, I find myself in a weird transitional time here. I've been given a bout a week to transition between the world of unemployment that I have been in for the last five months, to the world of 'traditional employment'. I define 'traditional employment' as any paying gig that occupies the 8 hour hole that we define as work.
     Having had plenty of time to think about this whole notion that we 'work', I have come to some new definitions and some new conclusions.
     Life, is basically divided into three periods; Education, Work and Retirement. I know this is a very 'Western' view of life and that people in other places may look at this cycle differently. But since this is where we live, let's go with it.
     I'm pretty sure that my first category is true no matter what society one is born into. We are born, nurtured by parents, taught by elders and prepared for adult life, to become productive citizens who can provide for our families, and through our work, secure comfort in our later years. Seems pretty simple, eh? Well, as we know it's a wee bit more complicated than that.
     The Work part is not quite so easy to define or understand. Even in the most remote societies, people are expected to contribute to the community, those that don't are often culled from the group, left as outsiders either living off the fringes of the larger group - legally or illegally. Part of the problem in more modern times is that we define those who are either unemployed or who don't work within the framework of what the collective views as 'traditional employment' as outcasts, almost untouchables - to use the term from Indian caste society.
     Busy with making our own ends meet, we, my self included in past times, look past these people, shaking our heads, shrugging our shoulders, and, if we are smart, we thank our lucky stars that 'we' have not become one of 'them'. But as I have found, as a result of the current economy, the line between 'us' and 'them' is precariously thin. I used to joke about it, but some one once told me, "Most people are two paychecks away from poverty." Not to be too over dramatic, but I found that in my case, it was not too far from the truth. Had I not had a decent sized pension fun to cash in, we may not have made it this far. I can now fully understand what it means to be on the edge of disaster. If this period of unemployment had stretched too much longer, we would have been in a bad way.
      So, while I looked FOR work, I began watching people AT work. An interesting experience, but not one I would recommend for the casual observer. As I have mentioned before (Phases 2, 5, 10) not having a 'job' leaves serious practical and emotional gaps in our lives. As adults in American society, like it or not, we are defined by what we 'do', and doing nothing - as in being unemployed is unacceptable.
     I watched my wife and others get up, do the morning thing, go off to their job, while those of use without work, do nearly the polar opposite. The stress of this process has been evident in my posts, though usually couched in humor, believe me the stress of being jobless has been difficult to handle at times. Thankfully, I, unlike many, have been blessed with family and friends who helped get me through the toughest days, and I would be remiss if I did not give them proper thanks - thank you one and all.
     In my discussions and observations of both the employed and unemployed I have found some interesting peculiarities.
     First, most people that ARE employed, don't like their job. The reason they keep on keeping on is very, very, simple - it provides a paycheck, and without a paycheck things get very, ugly, very fast.
     Second, for the unemployed, their mental state depends on the length of unemployment. No, big surprise there but there seems to be a cycle that develops; shock, blame, relief, pursuit. The number of times an unemployed person goes through this, I believe, more it drags on your very spirit - these are the people that become the 'long-term' unemployed, those that have given up even trying to re-enter the 'traditional workforce' and I can understand much better than I did before.
     Third, and this is the one I cannot figure out, for many who have lost their jobs, when the enter the 'pursuit' phase I see them trying (at least initially) to find employment doing something that they 'like to do, something they have always dreamed of doing' but they couldn't do this because they were tied to the paycheck offered by their 'traditional' job. The other thing I noticed over the last few months that a good many of the unemployed began seeking jobs in 'alternative' or 'non-traditional' fields - particularly in the arts! Past accountants now turning into ceramic artists, auto-workers picking up an a guitar and joining a band, downsized secretaries turning a love of cooking into selling home made salsa and former Technology Directors attempting to turn my love of art into a living. Strange that! It seems that many people who have been 'un-shackled' from tradition are suddenly free to express artistic creativity as a means of making living - outside the traditional confines of how we define 'work'.
      Remember, that I said this is part of a cycle. I find myself at the end of the pursuit cycle and, realize that reaching this point has it's own dangers. I must confess that as philosophical as this discussion has been, the real and present need for immediate income is forcing me (once again) to push the more artistic dreams of making a living to the back burner. But, this time around, I understand the situation and plan on doing things a bit differently.
     So, I have been offered a 'traditional job'. I start Monday. While I am excited at the prospect of earning money to pay my bills. I will work to keep sight of objectives to make a living creating and selling art work. Unlike past efforts, I don't plan on backtracking to the point where I was creating art just for fun. I, like many others in the same situation, have discovered that there is a real market for what we do creatively and that with good planning, marketing, development of networks, and etc. my vision of making money in the world of art is just as viable as employment in the 'traditional' world of work. It won't be easy, but that is the plan... today....