Talk about the passion

Everyone knows that when you interview for a position you’re not entirely yourself.  I’m not saying you lie during interviews.  At least I don’t and I hope you don’t either, since you’re competing with me for jobs.  But while we don’t lie, of course what we present isn’t entirely representative of ourselves.  If it were, introverts would never get jobs.  Nor would anyone who dares to want a job for the money more than anything.  And since people need money to, you know, live, there aren’t many people for whom the money isn’t one of the top draws.  And then there are people like me who are just desperate to have a full time job in a horrible economy, but we’re sure as hell not allowed to be honest about being desperate.  No, if we had to show our true faces during an interview, no one would ever work.

So what’s the hardest part for me to fake?  I can hide my desperation, I hope.  At least, I don’t come right out and say I’m desperate, or that I need the job, or I need the money.  I can also generally hide the fact that I’m shy, given that there’s not much chance for me to show that I am.

Nope, I would say the hardest thing for me to fake is passion.  Having to act like “Oh my God, I LOVE being a librarian and it makes me so HAPPY to do this!”

 I used to be able to feel something like that long ago, before my current job broke my spirit by degrading me in every way at every opportunity.  But even back then the feeling would be ephemeral.  The truth is, I am not a passionate person.  Not about anything.  In fact, I’ve gone my whole life wondering if there was something wrong with me because it seems like everyone else can feel so strongly for things, and I never could.  I can enjoy things, but not enough that I’d want to do them for the better half of my waking day, five days a week, no matter how I feel and no matter what else I could be doing.  I can’t understand the mentality of anyone who could love anything that much.

There are things I can say I used to have a passion for, but I couldn’t sustain it.  Art, for example.  I was one of those kids who was always in at least two art classes any given semester throughout high school.  Then it just stopped, and when it did it was like a light switch.  One day art was my thing, and the next day I had no desire to draw or paint, and I knew I never would again.  And I never did.  Sorry I never used that easel you bought me, grandma.

I have no tattoos and I strongly doubt I ever will, because there’s nothing I care about so much that I’d want it on my body for the rest of my life.  Honestly, I kind of think people are idiots when they get band tattoos, because surely someday they’ll be 40 and explaining “oh yeah, that’s just the logo of some band I used to be really into.”  But band logos aside, some people apparently just love some things so much and know they always will to the point that they’ll draw it on themselves permanently.  And I know I never will.

When I first started to do fieldwork, I got a rush from helping people directly.  Instruction work made me feel like a rock star.  Now?  I spend every moment I’m not at work dreading going to work.  If I could have sustained that passion under normal conditions, I sure as hell couldn’t do it working in a place like this.

But I know that when I go into an interview, I have to spend all of my energy trying to put myself back in a place where I had that passion and enthusiasm, when in reality all I really want is to get a full time salary so I can live whatever little scraps of life I’m allowed to have on a full time schedule, and if I’m really lucky, do it in a place that doesn’t degrade me on a daily basis.  I just want to live my life and get by, that's all.  Yet there I am, forcing myself to pretend to be upbeat and enthusiastic for half an hour or more.

And it is fucking exhausting.

I still think there’s something wrong with me.  I still don’t understand why I can’t feel like normal people.  Why I’m so fucking broken that I can’t love things and activities unconditionally.  I can find interests, I can enjoy things, but there will never be anything that I eat, breathe, and sleep, and want to be my life.  Never.

What piece of the soul am I missing that everyone else has?

I believe in Billy Corgan

This is likely the last post I’ll be making regarding the big event that happened recently.  Not because I’ve been given a gag order or anything, but because it’s the last thing I have to say about it that will be relevant to this blog.

As nice as the drive was, I found myself with unexpected stress almost right away upon the realization that I’d forgotten to bring something I’d planned to have with me.  That something was the double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins.  I did remember their Siamese Dream album, but I especially wanted Mellon Collie, specifically disc one.  Don’t leave yet, there actually is a point to this related to applying for library jobs.  I’ll get there.  But back to the story, I had many potential “signs” that things were going to go my way, and this was the first potential “sign” that things weren’t.  I don’t believe in signs, because if God or the universe—whatever you want to call it—were in the business of giving signs, it would know not to bother since the potential for them to be mere coincidence prevents them from being any comfort.  But I digress.

And why would this be a supposed sign?  Well, for one I could have sworn I packed them.  I have the actual memory of sliding them into my CD case, so I was shocked and flipped through my case several times before finally accepting they really weren’t there.  And second, well this is the part where we get to why this was important to me and why it has crap all to do with applying for jobs in our poorly chosen field.

The song "Tonight, Tonight" was my theme song during that whole application process, from finding out they wanted to call me for an interview to getting myself pumped for making the trip down there.  And the reason is this particular line (and for your own good, do not imagine me signing it): “Believe in me, believe that life can change, that you’re not stuck in vain.” 

Here’s why that line meant so much to me.  It’s because I really do believe that the thoughts you put out into the world can, at least partially, influence causality.  Not in some crass “the secret” kind of way where all you have to do is think about it really hard and you can have anything you want.  No, not like that.  But self-fulfilling prophecy is a real thing that can influence what happens in one’s life, and even beyond that, I just believe that what you imagine happening can be part of what causes it to happen.  The problem with that line of thinking is that I don’t foresee myself ever, ever, ever in my life getting a full time job.  After living in this ugly fucking basement for the past 5 years, failure after failure after failure, I have a damn hard time envisioning my life ever being different.  Can you blame me?

Like I said before, this was the job I wanted and where I wanted it to be.  I went all in with this one.  I told as many people as I could to cross their fingers for me, hoping that they’d think positive thoughts about me getting the job.  I can’t believe in myself anymore, but maybe other people can.  And I listened to that song, trying to believe in Billy Corgan as he asked, and believe that my life can change after all this time, and I’m not going to be alone in a basement, working a miserable part time job that causes my “moderate to severe depression” forever.  That was what I wanted to tell myself, and now it’s what I want to tell other people in my position.  Just try to believe.  It didn’t help me when I needed it the most, but maybe someday it will help.  That’s my advice, believe in Billy Corgan.  Think positive and try to keep thinking that way, no matter how hard it gets.  Billy Corgan wouldn’t steer us wrong, would he?

http://www.savevid.com/video/billy-corgan-talks-about-chemtrails-to-audience.html

Umm, Billy Corgan wouldn’t steer us wrong twice, would he?