The gulf between the generations

09. February 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: Novels, SW I-IV: The Jeremiah Chronicles · Tags: , , , , , , ,

I just watched a fascinating interview with a 1960s White House intern who claimed to have an eighteen month affair with President John F. Kennedy.  But the most interesting thing wasn’t the affair itself, but the way the President’s staff, the “fourth branch” of government (AKA the media), and the entire general public of 1960s America seemed more intent on keeping the secret than on facing the truth about JFK’s many affairs.

It seems that my parents’ generation had so much trust in their government that nobody would even raise the question–that to raise doubts about the integrity of the man who held the highest office in this country would itself be unconscionable.  Rather than face the facts, the American public seemed unwilling to do anything that would shatter the gilded image of the man who led the free world.  And that, quite frankly, is a mindset that I simply cannot understand.

In contrast, my own generation has very little trust in our government.  We’ve been raised in an age of ambiguity, where the enemy doesn’t wear a uniform or pledge allegiance to a flag, but live quietly among us, until they strap a bomb to their bodies or turn a commercial airplane into a weapon of terror.  Or at least, that’s the excuse our government gives us for an increasingly invasive security regime that infringes on our basic liberties, enables the military to hold us in detention indefinitely, and sends our soldiers overseas to fight increasingly senseless wars to “liberate” the people of oil-rich nations who don’t even want us there.  As if that weren’t enough, the economic crash has taught us that all that stuff our parents taught us about equality and opportunity is really just a pack of lies–that the rich get bailouts while the rest of us foot the bill, and all that stuff about changing the world and being whatever you want to be…yeah.  Lies, all of it.

My Dad had an interesting rebuttal to all this, though.  He said that it wasn’t his generation that put the president on a pedestal–it was his generation that tore the pedestal down.  During the 60s and 70s, the Vietnam era and the rise of the hippy movement, his generation fought back and made it acceptable for us to question the president, or to criticize the government, or to do all the things that we take for granted today.  In fact, he said that we’re the ones who are backsliding into complacency, with our deafening echo chambers, our social media inanities, our reactive attachment to corporate brands and advertising, and our almost religious sense of  entitlement.

I’m not totally convinced he’s right, but I do think there’s a fundamental gulf between these three generations.  Our grandparents’ was the silent generation, where people were expected to keep to their own business and not rock the boat.  Our parents’ generation was one of top-down media, where ABC, NBC, and CBS ruled the airwaves and told us all what to think, buy, and believe.

Ours is a much more peer-to-peer generation, but I worry that we’re turning into a collection of mindless herds who are turning the culture wars into a messy riot where we abandon civil dialog and rational thinking for a much more destructive mob mentality that isn’t really building anything, but tearing it all down.

Sometimes, it gets so frustrating that it makes me yearn for the days of the frontier, when anyone could leave it all behind and reinvent themselves somewhere out in the west.  That’s probably why I’m so drawn to science fiction, where space is the final frontier.  There really are times when I wish I could go to the stars and escape to it all, and I think that shows in my writing.

Maybe that’s why I feel so compelled to write Star Wanderers.  It’s basically 80% wish fulfillment, about a guy who goes from planet to planet on the kind of spaceship I wish I had.  It’s not all rosy, of course–space can be a cold, dark, and lonely place–but so can this world, when you’re lost and you don’t really know what you’re doing with your life.

Anyhow, those are just some of my random late-night thoughts about the situation in this country and how much things have changed over the decades.  If I had a time machine and got a chance to go back to the 60s (after seeing The Empire Strikes Back on opening night, of course), I don’t know I’d be able to recognize this as my own country.  But really, I don’t think I recognize anything as my own country anymore.  Like Van Gogh, all I can say is the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Let the job hunt begin!

17. October 2011 · 6 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , ,

Pull!

All right, I just updated my resume to account for the last year or so, and I’m ready to start looking aggressively for work.  Given the state of the economy, I’m not optimistic that it will lead anywhere, but hey might as well give it a shot.

The ideal job would be something part time that allows me to write on the side while teaching me useful skills like book selling or copywriting.  Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to have interesting coworkers (especially female coworkers) and a fun work environment, too.

I’ve got to be honest, though; there aren’t very many jobs here in Utah Valley that are awesome enough to keep me here.  In September, I finally got my TEFL certification, which means that I could probably land a decent job teaching English abroad if I were to look for one.  In fact, if I showed up in Cairo or Amman with $500 USD in my pocket, I’ll bet I could establish myself.

So while there are a few jobs here in Utah that would make me decide to stay, if I can’t find anything satisfactory in the next few weeks, I’m probably going to go with teaching English abroad.  My friends who have done it say that it gives you tons of free time to write, though generally more if you have a private apartment than if you’re living in a homestay.  Even so, I think I’ll try out the Teach and Learn with Georgia program first for a few months, just to test the waters and see if this is something I actually want to do for a career.

That’s the tentative plan anyways.  Things that could derail it include:

  • Finding an awesome job here in Utah.
  • Getting signed with my band.
  • Selling a bazillion ebooks.
  • Falling in love.

But either way, something’s gotta change.

Difficult choices and keeping perspective

21. September 2011 · 7 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , ,

So I have some news, and it’s probably going to freak my parents out a little bit…I decided to turn down the full-time job offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

The company is great, they treat their employees well, I got along well with everyone there–so why not take the job?  Because it wasn’t helping me make progress toward my long-term goals, it wasn’t teaching me any new or useful skills, and it wasn’t in a field where I’d like to make a career.  After weighing the benefits vs. the costs, especially the opportunity costs, it just didn’t make sense to stay.

I know what a lot of you might be thinking: “Dude, a job’s a job.  In this economy, you should take it and count yourself lucky!” I reject that, though.  Last year, I managed to cut my expenses to less than $950 per month.  I’ve been saving up my paychecks, and I’ve got enough to float me for a couple of months until I find a job that fits better, hopefully part-time.

The big thing I’m worried about is whether I’m digging myself into a hole.  Since graduating in April 2010, here are the jobs I’ve held:

  • Conducting unsolicited phone interviews at a call center.
  • Picking, packing, and shipping at a costume company warehouse.
  • Delivering phone books from my car.
  • Miscellaneous unskilled labor at a candy factory.
  • Miscellaneous unskilled labor at an alarm company warehouse.
  • Processing inventory and shipments at an alarm company warehouse.

So yeah, nothing all that great.  I’ve been doing some volunteer stuff in the interim, though, especially with Leading Edge and the “class that wouldn’t die” article from last year.  But in general, it feels like I’m getting stuck in a rut, and that the longer I stay stuck, the harder it’s going to be to break out.

What I really want is something that will expand my mind and/or give me another major cultural experience.  That’s why I’m thinking seriously again about teaching English abroad.  But grad school is definitely another attractive option, especially if it gives me a chance to work on my Arabic.

With that in mind, here are the options I’m considering right now:

  • Travel to the Caucasus in January and volunteer teach English with the TLG program.  It’s not particularly lucrative, but if I can balance my writing career on the side while having an awesome cultural experience in a region of the world that interests me, it might be perfect.
  • Study Arabic and/or Middle Eastern Studies at a university in the Middle East, ideally AUB or AUC.  I don’t really want to be a security analyst, but I would love to make a career as an Arabist of some sort–provided, of course, that I could balance it with my writing.
  • Pursue a graduate degree in History, Anthropology, or Sociology in the United States.  I’m less sure of this option, mainly because I don’t know if I’m passionate enough about any of those subjects to really succeed at them.
  • Take a chance and travel to the Middle East to teach English.  I’d probably go to Jordan or Oman, where I actually know people, but Egypt, Libya, or Tunisia might be good too, especially with the Arab Spring opening them up.  It might also be dangerous…but hey, at least it’s an adventure.
  • Finding a graveyard desk job, like night auditor at a hotel, and use that to support myself until the writing career start to take off.  Even though this is the most boring option, it’s probably the most likely one I’ll follow…which probably isn’t a good thing.

The main goal, of course, is still to go full time with the writing career.  That’s like the holy grail.  I’m still optimistic about that; it’s just a matter of finding something useful to do in the interim.  The last thing I want is to settle, or to get stuck in a comfort zone, or lose sight of my long term goals…

…I don’t know.  I’m still figuring all this stuff out.  But regardless, I just don’t think working full-time at an unskilled labor job is going to get me anywhere–and that’s an opportunity cost I can’t afford to take.

9.11.11

11. September 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

I realize that by the time you read this it will probably be September 12th, and most of you will be breathing a collective sigh of relief that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is over and done with.  I apologize for bringing up the subject again; I’ve been putting off writing this post because I feel exactly the same way.  And yet it doesn’t feel right to say nothing, so I figure I’ll just get this off my chest and return to my normal blogging routine tomorrow.

To be honest, there’s very little I can say about 9/11 itself that I haven’t said already.  Last year’s post pretty much summed up everything I could say about my experience that day, and I won’t try to do a better job here.

There’s a reason I chose to spill everything last year as opposed to now, however, and that’s because last year was the final year in a decade that I think it’s safe to say all of us would rather forget.  It started with the 9/11 terror attacks and ended with a global financial meltdown and massive recession, with two ultimately fruitless wars and millions of shattered lives in between.

I almost want to call it the “Decade of Lost Dreams,” which is sad because many of those years were the prime of my life.  It’s true, though; the world has gotten a lot darker and grittier, at least for us Americans, and there are very few places we can look to for hope.  President Monson wrote an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post on that subject, coming at it from a more spiritual perspective.

I wish I could be more positive, but I don’t expect things to get better anytime soon.  These are dark times, and even if the specter of terrorism isn’t as bad as it used to be (thanks to the brave men and women in counter-terrorism and the military, to whom I give my utmost respect), the economy is a hundred times worse.  With the crisis in Europe, I wouldn’t be surprised if we fall into a second recession; it may be that the 00′s were merely the “Decade of Disillusionment,” whereas the 10′s will truly be the “Decade of Lost Dreams.”

I actually want to do a series of posts on this later, because even though things are grim, I still think there’s a lot of options open to us–possibly more than at any other time in history.  But that’s a subject for another time.

Basically, I just wanted to say that I feel like after 9/11, the country took a nosedive off a cliff, and that’s something I would rather put behind me than commemorate.  Fortunately, we don’t need to let that define us–I know I certainly don’t.  And as for those who have been working hard to make this world a better place since then, I tip my hat to you.  We need a lot more people like that right now.