I've been submerged in so much stuff that I need to do (and not knowing how to do 99% of it) ever so quickly that I'm left wondering to myself, "Garrick, when the hell did you become an adult?" 13-hour work days pass me by like a motion picture. And everyone around me is doing the same, so it seems normal - I like how the firm brainwashes you to think that. The other day Larry calls me at around 8:30PM to ask what I was up to. I replied quite irritably, and to the effect of, "It's during business hours on a Monday.. What do you think I'm doing?"
When I start up my computer to continue work at home, luckily, yet unfortunately, I find people on the firm's internal messaging system up with me cranking away til whenever. We'd try to encourage each other and say things like, "We'll work til 1:30, then off to bed." 1:30 will come around, and we'll sort of 'hit the snooze button' and push for just half an hour more. Funny how that works.
Anyway, I digress. Time. (By the way, the song Time, by Pink Floyd is cycling in my head as I'm writing this.) The more I do, the faster it seems to pass, the further I feel I am from the version of me that is not what I am now: an underpaid automaton that is, like many others, the subject of corporate slavery.
"You can check-out any time you'd like, but you can never leave."
--DON HENLEY and THE EAGLES, "HOTEL CALIFORNIA"
This time last year, I had three beautiful dates for VDay. This year, I'm married to my haggardly & abusive job. But God forbid the bitch divorce me.
For all practical purposes, Wikipedia does a good job of providing some context as to what I will be commenting on:
Existentialism is a term that has been applied to the work of a group of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.
blah, blah, blah...
One of the major concepts of Existentialism is that known an absurdity and reason, which combined refers generally to the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it.... Existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on the meaning to them rather than rationally. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom.
Lately, I've been putting a lot of thought into what my end goal in life is: (i.e., to try new and exotic things, to meet new people, to spend time with those whose company I enjoy, to own expensive things, etc.) I don't know what that goal is, but I do know that to have a job and work is, in and of itself, not it. My career should be a vehicle to what I want in life. That is not to say that a job cannot be an end goal - sure, if you love your job and love what you do, then God bless you. But for me, and many people I've spoken to as of late, my job is nothing more than a generator of angst, unrest, and doubt as to what direction I would like to take.
I'd like to lend a quote from the film American Psycho (2000) where Christian Bale's character is talking to his significant other and she asks:
EW: "You hate that job anyway - I don't see why you don't just quit."
And Patrick responds satirically,
PB: "Because I want to fit in."
I think for a lot of us, we're unable to allow ourselves to fail. It's simply unacceptable. Our rationale is a combination of the following statements we make to justify inflicting malice on ourselves: I've invested 4 years of college to earn my degree in (fill in the blank) just so that I earn my rite of passage to work in a (prestigious company of your field), one which the oblivious general public in other fields deem as successful, glamorous, and reason to be proud. I've also taken several certification exams that tell the world that I ought to be well qualified for my job and love it ever-so much, yet in actuality, I would rather trade all of it for a simpler and more enjoyable way of life - step away from it and never look back.
BUT, we fear that society would view this alternative of pursuing what you want in life as an epic fail. People will view that not as a defiant act of doing what you want to do on your own terms, but as a deviation and weakness because you have "given up" when things appear difficult. Hence, I too, do my job "because I want to fit in," which is the stem of all these Existentialist thought about life, what it means, what gives ours meaning, and most importantly, can we find the courage to depart from what "reason" dictates, and instead embrace our own freewill towards the pursuit of happiness.
I should probably start by explaining what the title of this blog symbolizes. Sprezzatura is Italian for DHV. What exactly does it mean, and what implications does it allude to? Firstly, there was a Renaissance author by the name of Baldassare Castiglione who lived during the 15th century. He spent a great deal of time as a noble in the court of Duke Guidobaldo Montefeltro of Urbino, which became the basis of his most famous written piece: The Book of the Courtier. This piece goes into great detail about the philosophical and cultured discussions that occurred at Urbino, and from which casted a paradigm for the ideal Renaissance gentleman. Now, if I can lend some knowledge from Wikipedia, which I have reasonable assurance of its validity:
Sprezzatura, is a term that originates from Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier. It is defined as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”. That is to say, it is the ability of the courtier to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them”. Sprezzatura has also been described “as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance”.
Well then, I guess that was a long-winded way to say that one of the goals in life will be to achieve greatness, but not just simply that, but to do it in a way where it seems easily done at my whim no matter how painstaking it is in reality to achieve. So if ever one saw me and told themself they can do it too, then I've done my job, because that's exactly what I want.