The UK has been under 'lockdown' since March 23rd. Thankfully, because the weather has been unrelentingly and unseasonably nice, and I have a garden and decent parks and beaches within a 20 minute drive, it hasn't been as terrible as it could have been. We've just spent most of each day in the open air letting my just-turned three year old daughter scamper about to the point of exhaustion. (And unlike almost every journalist, police officer, politician or commentator in the land, I've actually read the relevant Regulations and know what they say, and understand what limits exist on police powers.) And we are comparably lucky here - our government has at least blanched at the miseries being heaped upon those poor souls over the water in France, Spain and Italy.
With all that said, I hate everything about this situation. Regardless of how necessary all of this actually is (and I am prepared to accept there are differing views within 'the science' and we may indeed never know), I am not well constituted for this sort of life. I am used to being 'out there' and I can't abide sitting in the house doing nothing, just watching TV or glued to a computer screen. A day spent out and about doing things is one well spent; a day cooped up indoors is one wasted. And, for whatever reason - I blame the parents - I am psychologically incapable of obeying orders or abiding by rules. I do not get depressed ordinarily, but this feels like this is driving me there.
However, I have been able to take a step back and reassess things. I have read a lot of - let's call a spade a spade - crap in the media about how the Covid-19 thing is a wonderful opportunity for us to live life differently. The only real result of all of this is that life will be either a bit shit, or really, really shit, afterwards for quite some time. Yet I, like I expect you, have been reflecting over the last few weeks on how my personal priorities might need to change. We are heading for straitened economic times in general, and I am no longer entirely sure that my safe career is going to be all that safe. I don't expect to be out of work, but I do expect that the nature of the job will have to change quite radically, and in a way which I will not really like. I am, unusually, confronted with the possibility that I could re-orient myself.
Nassim Taleb (half genius, half buffoon, 100% arsehole) has useful career advice: you should pick a job that will guarantee you a decent income and which won't be particularly taxing, so that you can devote your free time to esoteric pursuits. This way you are not exposed to risk (you have a safe steady job to fall back on) and your weird hobby might, just might, some day come off. This is what Einstein did: patent clerk by day, theoretical physicist at nights and weekends. Being a patent clerk paid the bills. Eventually the hobbyist interest in physics paid off big time.
Most writers also follow this pattern, deliberately or otherwise. Stephen King will be the most well known to readers of this blog - a school teacher who wrote on the evenings and weekends and one day popped out Carrie. Michael Punke would go to his office at a law firm at 5am so he could spend 3 hours writing what became The Revenant before starting work for the day at 8. Scott Adams did something similar when he was originally doing the Dilbert comics. I am a big James Ellroy fan; when he was writing his first few novels he made his living as a golf caddy. He would be on the golf course for most of the day just thinking out his plots, and then he would go home in the afternoon and write all evening.
I have devoted a lot of time and energy to my job, like I suppose most professional people do, over the last decade. I have got a lot of fulfilment out of doing so, but I now start to wonder whether I would get more out of putting a bit more into creating RPG-related things. In other words, maybe it's time to stop treating my career like an end in itself, and instead do the Einstein thing: think of my job as simply being the means necessary to provide me with what I need to pay the bills while I do more unconventional things. Maybe.
All I know is that while I have been sitting here ostensibly 'working from home' every day, I have spent almost of the time I have supposed to have been working writing 'Northumberland Yoon-Suin' stuff instead. Mum's the word: don't tell my boss.
Nice piece. Living in the north east of England makes me want to see this rpg work you're looking into doing. Coronavirus is crap, agreed
ReplyDeleteWell, it'll be finished within a few months I think.
DeleteI was made redundant from my education admin job a couple of years ago and I decided that was the opportunity to gamble and try my hand at doing what I have always wanted to.
ReplyDeleteI would be lying if I said it hasn't been difficult at times, but I've been happier than I ever was in a decade of office work. But then, the pandemic has struck and has made my future in this field uncertain, as my main source of work is in trouble.
All that said, I think you should give it a go, because you have the talent and drive to make it work.
Congratulations on your change.
DeleteI think all our main sources of work are going to be in some degree of trouble... Except insolvency lawyers.
DeleteYou're not wrong, noisms.
DeleteEnjoyed that. Taleb is somebody I put great store in, in terms of risk management... though his attitude this past few weeks has left me somewhat cold. That said, I feel your NNT hunch is spot on.
ReplyDeleteI have stopped really paying attention to what people are saying on Twitter about all this. Twitter is a mad house at the best of times.
DeleteI do my best, but the struggle is real.
DeleteI don't know Taleb, but this thought I agree with. A lot of the good things in our life have come from people having idle thoughts, and having the opportunity to develop them. That requires peace of mind, and a degree of freedom to pursue one's thoughts. Of course, there is the question of subsistence, the things which keep us living - but the things which make it worth living, or at least make it all bearable, are beyond the daily grind.
ReplyDeleteAlbert Einstein is a dramatic example, but we can cite many more smaller pleasures of life, from children's books to confectionery, which exist because someone had the off time to think them up. From a purely rational perspective, they were wasting their time and their employers' (or the taxpayer's) money; but their waste would become a major public benefit in the form of literature, poetry, philosophy, or just a new idea. Of course, many people would never be Einstein, but they at least lived a dignified and pleasant life, which is not too bad, from a social point of view.
In the end, I am not even convinced being supremely busy is even good for the day job. A measure of contemplation is beneficial for labour, giving it craftsmanship (even in the case of a fine chair) and intellectual/spiritual depth (even in the case of a fine chair). I certainly think I wrote better academic articles before it all became about that wretched Q1/Q2/IF game, and we were ordered to write blog posts, and half expected to waste our life beeping away on Twitter (to "generate buzz" and "join the conversation" - nauseating stuff).
In other matters, I refer people to Tim Kreider' eloquent Lazy: a Manifesto (also published in the NYT as The Busy Trap - https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/ ), and more recently, Tom Hodgkinson's The Joy of Lockdown Laziness, at https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-lockdown-helped-us-rediscover-laziness/ Read them, preferably at your job.
I completely agree with you.
DeleteI'm not familiar with laws in UK, but from my familiarity with USA and Canada, I'd agree there's exaggeration of how much has actually been locked down.
ReplyDeleteThere are obviously a lot of bad aspects of both the pandemic and the various responses to it, but dwelling on them more than necessary is no good, either. I'm trying to focus on the good sides of these times. A silver lining on a cloud of piss is better than nothing.
"Work for income, free time for hobbies" is how I've approached professional life in general. I'm happy about how it's gone.
Yeah, what's happening is that government ministers are issuing all sorts of 'guidance' and police, journalists and the like are acting as though that guidance has any sort of legal effect. It doesn't. The police in the UK enforce the law, not government guidance, and the law is clear that you can leave the house if it is 'reasonable'.
DeleteAlright, basically the same situation as this side of the Atlantic. I'd guessed as much, but thanks for confirming 👍
DeleteThe "situation" on this side of the Atlantic is totally different from that. (Also there are 50 different "situations"). The overwhelming majority of states have issued enforceable orders, not merely "guidance." I haven't seen one using the sort of catch all "reasonable" exception noisms describes.
DeleteI used "situation" to refer to enforcability of laws/orders vs. guidelines/recommendations. Obviously every individual government will have its own actual laws.
DeleteThe Taleb idea works fine until you have a family. I did it for years. But once you have kids...heck, once you have a spouse...you basically start working the equivalent of a second job. Or a third, depending on how demanding your spouse is or the sheer number of offspring you produce.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of time one has to enjoy "esoteric pursuits" dwindles fairly quickly (and more as your children get older). Heck, I can't even find time to read a book.
The older I get, the more I am of the mind that folks should pursue a career that allows them to do the thing they want to do most in the world, and then find a way to make ends meet after. It saves a lot of frustration, disappointment, and stress.
[unfortunately, some of us find our "callings" ...or only admit to them...rather late in life; i.e. after we've already established ourselves. Transitioning at that point is a rather tough go]
I dunno. I've got a spouse and a child. Not watching TV helps.
DeleteThe single three year old was a much different ballgame from the 9 and 6 year olds I have now.
DeleteSome spouses demand more attention than others, for sure.
I just finished reading The Peridot. Years ago I read Yoon-Suin. They are both great. I searched your name to see if you'd published anything else. So, for what it's worth I'd buy your books. I don't think many people make their entire living RPGing, but if your hobby can pay you, why not? Whenever Yoon-Suin comes up online people praise it, so you've got some net-cred.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for this great discussion. It's given me some good things to think about. A middle way between doom-and-gloom anxiety news and some rainbows-and-unicorns positivity.
ReplyDelete