Dreaming Into Existence: Putting Values Ahead Of Vocation
As I approach planning for the new school year, I have been set upon by the vocational gremlins again.
This keeps happening to me.
I try to get off the merry-go-round of “what is my purpose?” or “what is my gift?” or “what would lead to the greatest fulfillment as an encore career?” and yet I fall back into the same trap, again and again.
This last time, I decided to run my personality type and astrological chart through AI to see what it thinks would be my best encore career focus. I first ran it through an app and then did it online.
The problem with the app is that it just reflects back to you what you have already told it. Thus, if you want to do this, I recommend the anonymous route and the app route so you can compare.
It basically told me what I already know.
If you want to make money in your work, it will never suggest a path of art. It will suggest pragmatic paths that lead to some sort of reliable remuneration if you apply yourself.
The good news was that the app and the anonymous online queries were somewhat similar.
The app gave me three answers and ranked them this way:
Depth Psychologist helping people understand their personal myths so they can live more authentic lives.
Poetic, Psychological, and Philosophical Songwriter
Organizational consultant helping organizations and teams shape their identities, brands, and effectiveness.
Oh, you don’t say, AI?
Of course you do, because that is what I have been telling you I have spent a good amount of time learning about and doing in my life already.
The anonymous search was a bit more interesting, since it didn’t know who I was or what I have done or am interested in as a person.
It gave these five career options:
Creative Futurist or Trend Forecaster
Cinematic World-Builder
Social Reformer/Philosophical Author
Curator of Sacred or Niche Spaces
Academic Psychoanalyst or Archetypal Researcher
What?
Where’s the traveling troubadour in there?
It was fun to see, and it keeps confirming what I know.
If I want to have a career, I should focus on a role as a transformational Agent of some sort.
This is aligned with something Cal Newport calls “career capital,” and he recommends you power through the yuck of building it and don’t waste it by switching to a different career field in order to be happier or follow your bliss.
Well, I say a big F’ you to both, metaphorically speaking.
Because This Points straight to the tension I am dealing with.
It is part of Authentic Becoming.
But, am I more interested in authentic doing or authentic being?
If you are like me, you have been conditioned most of your life to focus on the doing versus the being part. And this is understandable.
It is a great way to have and build a fulfilling and meaningful life, perhaps and likely being in service to others through your contributions.
All noble and worthwhile considerations. And it can lead to remuneration that can get you to FIRE.
But I think it is a vocational trap that I keep falling into.
Last night I had a dream that seemed to signal this to me.
In the dream, I go to the upper floor of a building.
It is like the loft or attic space of a building.
It doesn’t have 8-, 9-, or 10-foot ceilings. It has walls that stop at 4 or 5 feet and then angle to the pitch of the roof. The gables have little cubby spaces by the windows.
Got it?
I used to go to the loft restaurant at the Salish Lodge, and it was like this. Unfortunately, that space has been converted into their spa area. Whaa. It was a great place to get something to eat and drink. A very cozy pub space.
Anyway, I see my brother and sister, but they leave soon after I arrive.
To my right is one of the windows, and in the comfy cubby space by the window are seated four people, two on each side facing each other as if in a group discussion.
I believe they were all women.
One or two of the women get up and leave, and I go to sit down in the space closest to the window. Someone else sits to my right.
I look across, and it is Meg and Debbie.
Who?
Meg and Debbie.
Two girls from my former middle and high school years. I had a crush on both of them.
Meg was sitting across from me, and Debbie was on her left across from me. They were older in the dream, but still looked a lot like I remember them.
they represent a kind of dual pair in my mind.
They both seemed unavailable to me at the time, but in all likelihood, they would have probably dated me if I had ever gotten the courage to ask them.
Second, Meg has been on my mind since the first time I met her. Her brother and I were in band together, and that was how she came into my life.
One day, my friend Mike and I were walking through our neighborhood, and behind us came Meg riding up on her horse.
Yes, a horse, in a suburban neighborhood.
We exchanged hellos, and she offered to give me a ride on her horse. I will never forget that ride. I was in heaven.
This was probably 9th grade, and I had had a crush on her since 8th. The crush continued all the way through high school and even into today, I guess.
And the masculine/feminine role reversal in that moment is not lost on me. It was a very Jungian Animus/Anima moment in real waking life.
Debbie was almost a counterpart to Meg. She was someone I really only got to know in 11th grade, and in a way was a substitute crush for Meg.
They were similar in looks and attractiveness overall. But Meg was always my deepest crush.
It seems the two of them appearing together in my dream reflects my Gemini psyche.
Anyway, now that you know a little of the history, back to the dream …
I am sitting there and start getting very shy, just like I did whenever I was around these two ladies back in our school days.
It’s a feeling as if I don’t know what to say or do with myself. So, I decided to just sit there and listen to the conversation they had continued.
All of a sudden, I heard a distinct voice saying, “So, you’re into extremist groups?”
What?
This shocked me, and I looked up to see Meg smiling at me.
I knew she had asked this question in a flirty and fun-loving manner to get me to engage with her in a conversation.
However, the other thought that occurred simultaneously to me was that she had been reading my mind.
The dream concluded with us going down to the sea and observing an army barracks or Large warehouse about a mile ahead of us under attack as we stood by the water near a boardwalk.
But back to reading my mind.
You see, I am nearing the end of reading Ramblin’ Man, a biography of Woody Guthrie.
Last night, as I was reading chapters towards the end of the book,
I began to appreciate how much his “vocational calling” was not music per se.
His musical talent was minimal, He simply Possessed a gift for Prolific and Catchy SOngwriting that connected to people. It was just something he did.
His “true” calling was a desire to help uplift the downtrodden and oppressed.
And he paid dearly for following this calling, losing many opportunities to make money as a result of his close connections to radical unions, communists, and other radical organizations of the time.
I believe this was what Meg was referring to in the dream when she asked if I liked extremist groups.
To answer that question, first, let’s talk about the abject poverty that Woody Guthrie experienced most of his life as a singer-songwriter.
And not just any singer-songwriter, but one of the greatest of the 20th century.
His first, and one of his only real commercial successes, was when his cousin, Jack Guthrie, recorded one of his songs, “Oklahoma Hills,” in 1946.
His cousin had removed his verses about the Native tribes to make the song more palatable to country and western audiences.
Woody hated that, but he got paid anyway.
His first royalties were $1,117, and he asked that it be paid in $1 bills.
That would be the equivalent of almost $17,000 today.
He put the bills in a shoebox, went home to his wife and daughter when they lived on Coney Island, and started throwing the dollar bills all around the apartment, saying, “We’re rich!”
Bottom line, he lived like a pauper most of his life.
So, to answer Meg’s question, am I into extremist groups?
No, and I don’t think Woody was either.
He wrote and sang songs because he could.
He wrote and sang songs because that was him just being himself.
Woody as Woody, not much else.
He cared deeply for the downtrodden; he referred to them as “his people.”
That was what moved him towards radical and extremist groups, as he thought they cared and could help his people. Nothing more.
And he felt he had to try to make a living to support his family, and music was a way that opened up to him … sort of.
But in the end, he was not really a performer or a musical artist.
He was a poet and a songwriter.
He hated the Hollywood and Broadway commercial music of his time.
He hated being controlled by “the man.”
I can relate.
God bless the top 10 streaming artists of our day.
But that’s not my aim or desire.
I just want to keep developing the freedom to be myself.