Don't Go There

One of my college homework assignments, back in the days when the USSR was going strong, was to read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. I studied better with background noise (I still do), so I sat in my dorm room with the door open. My hall-mates would pass by and peek through the door to see what I was doing, and several of them were scandalized by what they saw. They seemed to think that merely reading this forbidden treatise would somehow pull me over to the dark side. I might begin asking questions about things that should not be questioned. I might begin to think independently. It was all very dangerous.

People like their ideas neatly contained, finite and easily managed. In the movie The Truman Show, Truman Burbank grows up on the elaborate set of a reality TV show, but he's not aware that millions of people are watching his every move. Christof, the director of the show, rationalizes this manipulation by saying that he's enabling Truman to live an ideal life, free of the pain and violence of the outside world. When Truman begins suspecting that all is not as it appears, Christof uses every means at his disposal to prevent Truman from discovering that his friends, including his wife, are actors and his world is an artificial construct enclosed in a bubble.

This year has been an exploration outside the bubble for me. I'm exploring who I am and what I like to do when I'm not constrained by the necessities of getting up early every morning and commuting to a cubicle. I'm listening with a sense of amusement to politicians talk about "takers" who don't pay income taxes. I'm one of those "takers" this year, but I'm taking the resources that I earned through my own hard work. I'm listening to talk of jobs and assignments and stress and evaluations with the ears of someone who is standing outside of that culture. And I'm realizing that after my experience of life off of the hamster wheel, I'm not sure that I want to go back.

Now that the year is coming to an end, I'm getting a lot of questions about what kind of a job I'm looking for. Friends and family are genuinely concerned about me, since I had told them that I wasn't financially ready for retirement and I would have to find a source of income after my year is over. I have been trying to use the term "source of income" rather than "job", because money can come from a variety of sources. What would be the point of taking this year if I merely went back to the same life I left behind?

Some people get that idea, some don't. For some, "money" means "job". Job means office, commute, benefits package, managers, promotions, and performance evaluations. Jobs mean productivity, efficiency, being a team player, and working hard so that some executive or business owner can live out his dream (and if you're lucky, you can live a few of your dreams after you hit 65). Some part of my mind believes that, too. My career has been such a big part of my life for so long, it's hard to think in other terms. No one in my immediate family has been an entrepreneur for any great period of time. My sister and I have both done freelance gigs, but they tend to span the periods between job-type jobs.

Some people have told me how brave I am to be breaking out of this mold, but they could never even consider doing something similar. Some people are distressed when I tell them that I'm not sure what my next move will be. I tell them about the freelance projects I'm doing, the work I'm publishing, the little networking opportunities. That seems to reassure them that I'm doing something that might get me a job and bring me in from my wanderings in the wilderness. It tends to reassure me that I'm not just wasting my time, waiting for the money to run out.

For the time being, my savings are holding out rather well. I'm well aware that I will need to step up my efforts very soon. But it feels like cutting corners on my grand adventure to start looking too hard too soon for another niche in the machine. Might it be possible to make a life outside the office? If I succeed at that, would it disturb those friends of mine who are silently suffering in jobs that they hate, but have told themselves they must endure? Is it safer if we just don't ask certain questions?

Prison on a Pedestal

I read Chris Richards' concert review in the Washington Post today (Bieber Live: Less Than Believable) about last night's Justin Bieber concert at Washington DC's Verizon Center. The fans had a great night. The business side of the Bieber Empire had a great night. Apparently, The Biebs did not have a great night. Richards wrote, “The star didn’t seem to want to be there. His audience didn’t seem to want to be anywhere else.”

One photo that ran with the article showed Bieber descending onto the stage, strapped into a harness that sported 15-foot "angel wings" fashioned from cymbals, guitars, and other musical paraphernalia. This was no angel, just an 18-year-old kid who had posted a little music video on YouTube just a few short years ago, and who had been transformed into a hugely successful commercial product.

Beiber's fans have created an image in their own minds of what he must be like, incorporating a large dose of their own hopes, dreams, and needs, with a small sprinkling of what's left of the actual human that is Justin. The business end of his mammoth commercial enterprise relies on the human that is Justin to occupy this larger-than-life persona, born of the union between preteen fantasy and savvy marketing, in order to continue generating the huge amounts of money that the enterprise needs in order to perpetuate itself.

Bieber did not work his way up through smoky bars and small-town auditoriums. He is not grounded by a small following of fans who have been with him since the beginning, and who know him close-up. No, he burst into international fame overnight through the magic of social media. His far-flung fans enjoy a one-sided familiarity, the illusion of knowing this person whom they have never met. Like Sovietologists, they search out and dissect the tiniest factoids for some small insight into this mythical being. One wonders if they would turn away in disappointment if they caught an accidental glimpse of the man-boy behind the curtain.

Chris Richards immersed himself in this online world in preparation for yesterday's concert and wrote an article about it earlier this week. Says Richards, "On Twitter, Bieber’s name is tweeted roughly every second of the day, and he’s amassed more than 29 million followers. ... Tweeting at Justin Bieber is like sending a prayer to God. You hope you’ll be answered, but the real comfort comes from believing he can hear you.”

Quoting one of Bieber's Twitter fans: “Dear Justin Drew Bieber...can you notice me and follow me? I EXIST.”

Watching Bieber perform, Richards mused, "Makes ya wonder: Did Bieber even want to be onstage? Were his dreamy doe eyes actually spaced-out stares of exhaustion? His vocals — a mix of live singing and pre-recorded backing tracks — lacked a pulse and frequently sounded Bible-paper thin." The commercial persona had grown so large that it was becoming too heavy for the human being to carry.

I have no idea what this kind of dual existence must be like on this scale. Not even close. I do know, however, what it's like to be burdened with someone else's expectations of what I should be like. I know how miserable I can make myself when I try to be the person that someone else expects me to be. Someone sees some small part of me that they like, or that fits in with their agenda. They don't really know the rest of me -- my hopes, dreams, needs, and desires. Nor do they want to know.

Sometimes, it goes beyond not caring enough to find out. I once dated a young man for more than two years before I could no longer bend and distort myself to satisfy his demands that I become the ideal woman that he had created in his mind. I was just as deluded about him as he was about me. I had mistaken his ego and coerciveness for confidence and leadership. I had thought that he would continue to care about me after I became a "sure thing". Had he bothered to know me on an intimate level, however, I would have ceased to be the blank slate on which he could draw his fantasy woman. Not knowing me was central to his agenda.

More recently, my need for comfort and support in the face of an impending job loss (mine) revealed the weaknesses in my year-long relationship with a man who had made his life into a shrine memorializing a traumatic event from his teenage years -- 30 years before. Again, I was just as deluded as he was. I mistook his appearance of vulnerability and his willingness to talk about his trauma for true sensitivity and openness. When I became the vulnerable one, however, it became apparent that he had no interest in reciprocating my care and concern. The painful story that he had shared with me was well rehearsed and intended to solicit empathy from tender-hearted women. When I allowed myself to step back and observe him, I heard him recite his tale many times, almost exactly word for word, and then bask in the rescue fantasies of his carefully selected audience.

One of my discoveries about the government contracting world is the extent to which contracting companies engage in creating a shiny, enticing product with which to win over the government agents in charge of awarding the contracts. This includes recruiting and hiring highly credentialed people to back up a rosy picture of what the contract could be at its most ambitious and innovative. Once the ink is dry and reality sets in, the job usually turns out to be much less challenging and satisfying than the picture in the contract proposal. The "science communications" job turns out to be aggregating dry prose for quarterly reports and cobbling together exhibits for trade shows. If your manager knew how deeply you yearned to write informative, engaging articles about research and its context in society, he or she would be forced to acknowledge how deeply unsatisfying your actual job was. It would be that much harder to report up the chain of command that all is well, and the worker bees are happily productive. So much easier just not to know. Your boss is not your friend.

I have also experienced real friendship and real concern for others in my life. The biggest difference that I see is that the more I find out about the person, the better I like them. I don't have to agree with the person, nor do I have to share all of their interests. Getting my preconceived notions blown to bits feels like a good thing. Here are real human beings, with all their strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and personal histories, and I like them better the more I know.

I do not normally join celebrity fan groups -- I left breathless boy-band worship behind with my adolescence. However, I am following the emerging career of Andrew De Leon. Like Justin Bieber, he became famous overnight (he auditioned for America's Got Talent, and the videos are all over YouTube). He has a very active Twitter account. His fan base spans around the world.

Unlike The Biebs, he was not immediately picked up by a high-level talent scout and catapulted to platinum-record fame and fortune. He's back home now, working his way through small-venue performances and sessions in a local recording studio. His family and long-time friends are in close proximity, and he still has time for trips to WalMart and The Cheesecake Factory. He makes videos for his fans, but they are the musings (and belches and funny faces) of a very normal 20-year-old, not the lavishly produced performances of a rock superstar. I find that very reassuring. Andrew is still a human being.

Recently, he released a song, "The Devil's Knight", that he wrote himself. If you had really listened to his earlier interviews, the dark style and lyrics of the song would have come as no surprise. Andrew may have sung opera, art songs, and Ave Maria during the talent competition, but he made no secret of his admiration for Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie as well. He toned down his Goth makeup for his television appearances, but he also let it be known that he was a makeup artist for low-budget horror flicks.

Predictably, some of his fans were scandalized and let it be known that they would no longer be following him. I check in now and then on his Twitter page, and I could see it coming. The fans who had cooed and fussed over him, the ones who tweeted him as if they were sending prayers to a deity, the ones who begged him for just one little reply -- how much of their version of Andrew was really a creation of their own minds? The hyper-religious fans who left him because of the dark metaphors in his song -- well, really, what did they expect? One especially astute line from his song states, "Perfection to the blind, true devil lies inside. No lies when I tell you that my soul is in the night."

Unlike The Biebs, Andrew did not don the angel wings and dutifully shoulder his public persona for the fantasy-fulfillment of his fans. Part of the reason that he did not go further in the talent competitions is that he refused to be the clean, neatly packaged product that fills up the seats in the Las Vegas theaters. Andrew's reaction to the loss of his disillusioned fans? "Apparently I have lost my 'Christian' fans due to The Devil's Knight. How many f***s given? Zero. I still have you guys <3." (That's a sideways heart at the end, in case you didn't know.) Mr. De Leon isn't much of a diplomat. I find that very encouraging.

Update: On November 17, Andrew De Leon tweeted me: "I came across your article about me. I wish more people could be as understanding as you. <3"

The Storm This Time

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of days cooped up indoors, riding out Hurricane Sandy. Looking back, I realize how different this experience was from the time I spent in this same little home in 2003, riding out Hurricane Isabel.

Back then, I had been living in this condo apartment a little less than 6 months, and I didn't know any of my neighbors well. We were directly in the path of the hurricane. The power went out fairly quickly and was not restored for a week and a half. Only one of the building's backup generators was running at full power. One had partial power, and the other had none at all.

Fortunately, my kitchen was on the line to the fully functional generator, but it wasn't safe to use my electronic devices because of the power fluctuations. No television, no email, spotty telephone service -- and no lights in my bedroom. I suppose I could have sought out company in the building lobby, but I was afraid of being so close to the window wall that fills the lobby with sunlight on a normal day. I had never been directly in the path of a hurricane, and I had no idea what to expect. I felt so alone.

Fortunately, I had booked airline tickets many weeks in advance for a trip to see my family in New Mexico. Thus, after a few days (that felt like an eternity), I was able to board the plane right on schedule and fly away from my windswept exile. My sister kidded me that I had to go almost 2000 miles to get a hot shower and cash from a working ATM machine. I was just glad to be back among familiar faces.

This time around, the Washington DC area was hit with a glancing blow. Again, I spent a couple of days housebound, but it was a very different experience. The day before the storm, my neighbors and I chatted in the lobby. I knew that if I needed anything, I could knock on any one of a dozen doors and find a friend to help me. We never did lose power, but I knew from previous storms that our current building maintenance crew was diligent about keeping the generators ready to go. I didn't have plane tickets this time, but I didn't need them. I was prepared and well connected.

I thought that I might work on several projects around the house during the storm, but instead I spent a lot of the time online chatting with friends and family all over the country. I posted photographs and status reports online and kept up with my local friends who were doing the same.

I surprised myself by what I didn't do during the storm. I didn't turn on the television until late in the day. I knew from past experience that all of the stations would be broadcasting nonstop, breathless coverage of the very worst effects of the storm. There's only so much of that I can take, especially if I'm looking out the window to see how much damage is in my own back yard. I didn't watch movies or work on craft projects. I didn't do any writing (although I filled up six pages in my journal the day after the storm).

No, what I did was to seek out my friends and stay connected with them. It was a more concentrated version of what I've been doing lately during normal weather. I'm not nearly the news junkie I used to be, and I have a whole list of household projects that I haven't even started. Sometimes, I criticize myself for not being more "productive". Then I realize that I am doing exactly what I need to do.

When I started this year, my goals included improving my mental and physical health, making more time for the people in my life, working on creative projects, and finding a way to make a living that uses and builds my strengths. I have a pretty good handle on the mind/body thing, and now I'm working on building up my friendships. I'm making small inroads on the list of projects (paying and not), but for now, I'm building and strengthening my own personal community. The rest of it will come in good time.