Question Meme

[teaberryblue]

furiosity asked me this question a while ago and I keep flaking on answering it.

Are you in your current career for good or is it a stepping stone to something else for you?

It was funny, because I think in some ways this question highlights the difference in the way F and I approach life, and kind of in a Slytherin/Gryffindor dynamic. Sorry, non-Harry-Potter-nerds on my list. Just trust that it makes sense.

Because it wouldn't even occur to me to think about that!

I haven't read or seen Yes Man, but the way I approach life is very similar to that premise. I generally do whatever seems like the most exciting and fulfulling thing to do right now is.

Right now, I love comics and I love being around them all day. I enjoy my job, my coworkers, and what I do. Will I do it forever? Probably not, but only because I might find something else I love more! Or life might take me somewhere else.

I don't believe in fate or destiny and I do believe in human agency. So life taking me somewhere else isn't one of those "well, I'm meant to do THIS now!" But I do believe that there are always a million options open to people to do all kinds of things. So I will do this until either I get bored, I find something else I like better, this naturally morphs into something else, or there is no longer a need for me here. I don't do five-year plans, unless you're talking about places I want to visit and liquors I want to taste.

The benefits of this job (and every job I have ever had) are that I get to immerse myself in a subject that I want to learn more about all day long.

This is not to say that I don't have any ambitions. It's just that my ambitions are not structured in grand overarching plans. They are more project-oriented-- one of them will be completed in a couple weeks, another one is being completed as we speak. I work a lot better as a piecemeal kind of person and I don't have the patience for long plans. I think the old AA One-Day-At-A-Time way of looking at life is something I subscribe to everything I do. Today, I will draw a comic. Today, I will mix a new cocktail. Today, I will write a page of a novel. And I end up finishing things because all those little todays build up into years, but I don't often look down the road much more than a month or two.

I hope that answers your question! Would anyone like a question? Please comment here!

Comments

[dragonmagelet.livejournal.com]

Since apparently I am still getting kicked in the ass by this virus, knock me out with a QUESTION!

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

OK!

Tell us about one book, movie, tv show, or other pop culture stand-out from your childhood that you loved as a kid but that you now realize was problematic from a social perspective (due to issues of race, gender, sex, religion, socio-economic class, whatever)?

[dragonmagelet.livejournal.com]

Oooo, good question! Whenever this happens I am always really torn, because honestly my tastes--and my value system, honestly--haven't changed very much if at all since I was a child. It also happens relatively infrequently because I was educated in a very politically-correct environment; few of the books we read in grade school were about WHITE people, let alone RICH ones!

The other source of media input in my childhood was my mother, who read me a lot of books from her childhood and with whom I watched a lot of Star Trek TNG and Fred Astaire. With anything from a long time ago, my mom was very careful to provide me with context. Reading that stuff now--books like HALF MAGIC or MRS. PIGGLE-WIGGLE--I'm startled by the bizarre behavior of the adult women. But I wouldn't say that those issues were problematic because, when I was reading them, it was like reading about a fantasy world where mothers have nothing better to do than bake brownies and meddle in their children's lives, where everyone has plenty of money and crime doesn't exist. It didn't have an impact on my expectations or my value systems. The points those books made that were relevant to my life, about friendship and good manners, aren't problematic at all. I think the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books actually teach kids really important lessons about personal agency and responsibility.

On the other hand, thanks to Disney films I persisted for many, many years in the belief that one's beauty as a female was judged on one's singing voice and the length of one's hair.