On Networking Part Two.

So I've been calling and calling around to English majors that went to my college back in the day to see if any of them have suggestions about what a flounder like me should be doing with my life. And in doing so I've realized the following.

1) NETWORK. Every successful person has--to some degree--been a serial networker. Now, if you're like me, and you still struggle to express even basic things in casual conversation, this sounds disheartening. But it is what it is. We are social creatures. Time to stop browsing listings on Craigslist and start being social. But it's equally frustrating, because...

2) Most people aren't exactly sure how they got where they are. "I took this job, talked to this other guy, one thing led to another, we started a business together." It might as well have been a drunken hookup. I don't know how much humility or memory loss plays in how people tell these stories, but it's frustrating that people can't\don't disclose their strategies for success. Chiefly because I'd love to use their experiences and wisdom to my advantage. But I suppose I shouldn't expect such a thing. Especially when the whole premise of "networking" is to reap the success of another by proxy. Right, right. And to "expand your contact list to the mutual benefit of all."

Alex and I 'networking' (i.e. trying not to get arrested) with the Christian radicals outside Ft. Benning, GA, 2009.

3) Place your flag FIRST.  Most people seem to think that you should move somewhere after you've secured a job. I was surprised to learn that many people swear by the opposite: that you should first find somewhere you've always wanted to live, buy a plane ticket, put a deposit down on an apartment, and work your way into the local community (take small jobs, seek out friends/family/alumni, join clubs, "network" and other vague social strategies.) I like this approach namely because it makes me feel less like a fool for wanting to move to CA next year because I want to learn how to surf.

Tisk tisk, boys.

4) The only failure is giving up. If you keep putting yourself out there, something will happen. Probably the theme I heard the most and easily the one I'll be keeping close to me in the dry months to come. In order to keep my sanity since I came back from working abroad, I've had to think of this job search as a game of numbers. If I put myself out there 1000 times and 1 prospect opens up, that should be considered a success. Even if its only a temporary one. As frustrating as that might be in the moment, its the long term attitude I must adopt. Again and again and again. Say it in the shower. Say it on the bike ride to work. Say it as you're watching the numbers dwindling in your savings account. It's a tough one, especially when I consider the $20,000 student loan (with interest!) bearing its teeth at me for a sacrifice every month. As Robert Greene said, you have to respect the process. Nothing worthwhile happens automatically.  

Let's just hope the government doesn't seize all my assets before then...

On Networking and Finding a "Real" Job. Or: how to turn a Block of Wood into a Real Boy.

A blog should be written in. Yes. Not abandoned. Not abandoned to the Internet, again. Not like a neglected plant.

***WARNING. Rant about compromised ideals. ***

I am currently in search of a Real Job. Resume tacked up on every billboard. Can write. Can read. Can apply the psychology of Sigmund Freud to almost any situation. Likes tigers and milkshakes. Seeking employment.

Will "act" for food and water .

Not that waiting tables and teaching ESL part-time to baffled Japanese engineers isn't "real," that is...

It's just that I have this gnawing feeling that is constantly reinforced by the subtle comments of family ("when you get established...") and friends ("its a good job for now.") that I'm still not anything. Nothing more than a flesh-and-organ ball of selfish genes trying to replicate themselves. Than a bundle of misguided sexual energies internalizing themselves as neuroses. Than an individual trying to acquire and express the needs of power.  Than an oppressed peasant struggling to control the means of production. Or at least get his say in his 401k.

Sometimes it's funny. Most of the time it just pisses me off.

So in the meantime I'm counting on that some hot shot executive picking at his fried fish dinner in the restaurant one night realizes that his server is EXACTLY what his company needs right now: a fresh face with excellent people skills, competence in complicated, high-stress tasks, and superior writing skills (as evidenced by the Frank Norris book peeking out of his back pocket.)

And other such fantasies that my expensive English degree has inspired in me...

But really the harsh truth is that things don't work that way. You got the degree but what you really needed were the connections, kid. You shouldn't have alienated that professor by disagreeing with the premises of the research that she put twenty years of her life into. You shouldn't have been reading books that you thought were better than the ones the professors assigned. You shouldn't have been planning ways to shock the campus into a spiritual consciousness or whatever other misguided, arrogant pursuit your mind concocted that week. No, you should have been schmoozing. You should have been at those campus organizational function things. You should have been NETWORKING, baby.

So that's what those job fair things were for.

And that's it. That's the magic word. It isn't about God. It isn't about Darwin's experiments. That stuff doesn't matter. It's not about what you know. It never has been. Its about--let me bite my lip here--WHO.

I don't mean to sound cynical here. Its just that this way of thinking rubs against almost everything I've ever believed in: hard-work gaining proper recognition, self-reliance in its purest, most independent form, ideals and intellectual\spiritual goals that are beyond the concerns of most people caught in the money/power rat race...

Eat those words, kid. Cause those are just illusions, too. Power exists. Deal with it. You don't like it? You'll be on the bottom like me. Unless you know the right people. Or persuade the right people. Or seduce the right people. But that's a whole different story...

So I'm sold: Networking is the key to success in the universe. Done deal.

Never ask for a job directly, of course, that would be violating the social norm: that we aren't allowed to acknowledge the power game of networking for what it actually is. Sly smirk.

Stock Questions that Slide the Conversation onto Your Searching for a Job.

I've asked almost everyone I've met in the past two months:

1) Do you have any advice for a recent college graduate?
2) Where has your degree in [X] taken you?
3) What did you do when you were in my situation?
4) What are the characteristics of a successful person? 

Well how about that: I'm exactly the kind of person you're looking for!

Hipster?

Guess which 6 of these 10 people I find absolutely adorable.

I'm always astonished that a lot of people see me as a "hipster." Especially since 1) I'm still not even sure what "hipster" means (even though some people say that lack of awareness is itself is a distinctive "hipster characteristic") and 2) Because I'm probably the most uncool person you've ever met: I get excited about Medical Training and Evolutionary Psychology. I enjoy Ke$ha and Katy Perry un-ironically. I constantly wish I could just be "one of the boys."

But then--sometimes, in my occasional moments of self-awareness and clarity--I do notice that some of the facts add up.

1) I wear "Buddy Holly" glasses. But only because contacts are obnoxious and thick-rims are easier to find in the morning when I don't have glasses on.

And because they are an excellent disguise when working illegally in Eastern Europe.

2) I sincerely believe that anyone that doesn't appreciate Bob Dylan "just doesn't get it" and probably doesn't have much to offer me in the long term at all.

Blasphemy.

3) I am open to talking to almost anyone but often realize that I despise about 96% of the people I have to interact with day-to-day. It just bothers me that they seem to mesh so easily into society whereas I have to pre-script conversations to get anyone to treat me like something more than the member of a low social caste.

4) I really do divide the world into the "cool" and the "uncool" and base my decisions on those distinctions.

5) I do appreciate irony. In fact, some of my friendships are constructed on ironic character stances that I never dropped upon getting to know the person better. My "love of cycling fashion trends" and my "interest in the darker side of musical theater". My whole life, in fact, may just be one ironic joke about human futility. Wouldn't surprise me.

Me and Augustus at the Coca-Cola factory in Atlanta, GA. 

I really see the hipster impulse to be cool in its evolutionary sense. It helps us stand out, be different, be a source of fascination, be a magnet for attention. In turn, these characteristics become a force of attraction to help us catch the eyes of a quality mate.

And that's when I think that I can't be a hipster. Because at the end of the day, the only reason I want to be different is because I want to be liked.

And that's terribly uncool, isn't it?

On Joining the Military. Or: When Ideas that Seemed Really Bad In the Past Suddenly Seem Like Really Good Ones...

Yesterday, the professor of my EMT course stopped class for a good four minutes* to pay tribute (via an impromptu applause) to a couple members of the class for their dignified existences; for their service in the United States Armed Forces.

 

Four minutes: The amount of time brain cells can last without a constant supply of 

oxygen before becoming severely damaged.

Two years ago, I would have covered my eyes in shame for such hawkish propaganda. For encouraging a system that has sent so many of our nation's boys to early deaths for ideals that probably have more to do with big business interests than with notions of "honor" or "glory."

But this time I didn't feel that way. I only had a pang of jealousy, and a brief, crippling notion that my life would always have a sense of incompleteness until I donned a uniform and earned some of that tangible respect. I mean, let's face it, people may have celebrated out of courtesy for you at your college graduation, but no one really cares about your Liberal Arts degree in English. No one stops class to give you a round of applause.

  

Unless you're Robin Williams.

But it goes deeper than that: I've always carried a notion with me that one can not be truly human without coming to terms with one of its most played-out scenarios: war. To be a soldier seems to me an essential part of life. To stand up for yourself and your country. To seek an almost inhuman amount of physical and mental discipline. To experience a level of belonging and community that unites only those who prepare to fight for one another.

Oddly enough, these are the very things I told my brother not to consider when he signed up for the Marines last month. Ideals get quickly dashed in the muck of Reality. Especially when you have to wake up at 5 in the morning to jog in circles. But something of the attraction still remains for me: that aspect of overcoming adversity, that dedication to something greater than yourself, that decision to test your own limits, maybe even--dare I even say it--that sense of pride. Those really are the badges that I want to look back on my life and have.

And, to be honest, I'm starting to wonder if the U.S. Armed Forces might be a grueling, grizzly way to finally achieve that sense of accomplishment that has always eluded me. I haven't come across it yet. That challenging task and environment to dedicate my energy toward.

 

Like catching eagles with anchors.

And maybe, in this post-college greyness that's swept up my life in the past two years, that's exactly what I need.