The Long, Winding Road of Unemployment

This blog has been sadly neglected over the past couple months because I am unemployed, and as I recently relocated I have doubled down on the job search. I say "unemployed" because although I am certainly working sporadically in my spare time on occasional freelance projects (and the major writing project I took up a few months ago), it's making a negligible amount of cash, and like I said, I have debts to pay off.


This is Part 2 of my personal problems confessional--though, like in my last post, these problems are certainly not unique to me. Today, I discuss the issues of unemployment.

I have never had a "regular" job: that is, one with not only full-time, regular hours (I've had those), but also a salary, benefits, and a guarantee that you'll be working there for more than a year. Not so surprising for a person my age these days. And at this point, I'm not so sure that I want one. Not with all the trouble the search for one has been causing me.

Source

Many of my friends, at least, have a job--even if it's not in their chosen field. Others don't have all this debt to worry about, so they can live in a city for a couple months looking for work--provided they find something within those months, of course. And some people have it worse than I do. But at what point do I give up my pride and do something that I'd rather not do? After less than three months of my relocation, I am all but prepared to take drastic measures for my situation to change. I am sick of debt, sick of no fun, sick of putting up with my parents' maddening idiosyncrasies. There was a reason why I left in the first place, and I'm already being driven insane.

Oh, I've gotten the interview--twelve times so far this year. And that's not even counting the ones I had since last August. And that's good, I guess. But life has no meaningful buildup, so it tells me nothing, other than the fact that I look good on paper. I have some ideas for Plan B's in the event of a failure to find gainful employment--go abroad, follow through with that startup idea, work with my mom at her dreadful dead-end job--but this will require discarding my debt, either actually or just ignoring it. And that won't be so easy.

Coming across this old article in the New York Times the other day, then, obviously struck a blow close to home for me--and it rings quite false. I want to go places, but I would prefer to not own a car for at least two more years; did the author take into account the fact that many young people live in cities with good public transportation systems? How expensive everything is? And what is so bad about attributing luck as a major factor is success--because it is true! Not to mention that a lot of college grads are riddled with debt--it's quite understandable that we aren't so keen to accumulate more debt when we're so uncertain whether we can pay off what we already have.

Sure, I don't have typical career aspirations, so as long as I don't give up hope that I will make a name for myself. But I'm just so tired of spending so much energy on this, and I want it to end--my last interview  was on Tuesday, and I was thoroughly exhausted for the next two days. I want this to be over. I want things to change, but I have hardly any power to do so. Some days I feel like I'm not doing enough, and other days I feel fine. Fridays are the worst. I'm angry at a lot of people, including myself. I wonder if I shouldn't have relocated, if I should've started looking for internships earlier, if I should've tried harder at networking. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired. I'm so, so tired.

I can only console myself that it isn't my fault, and just try harder next time. Perhaps this will be over sooner than I think, but if I've learned anything throughout this agonizing search, it's that I can never, ever get my hopes up.

*now that all that's off my chest, we will return to your regularly scheduled programming*

Class and Making Art

Part 1 of some personal thoughts that have been running through my mind over the past year, and  need to get off my chest--even if it means admitting weakness and anxieties. Today, some self-doubt about my "true" calling: do people like me aspire to things that are "above our station"?

In December 2010 I graduated college, and my parents took out loans for a few semesters at my alma mater (I was so relieved to find out that they didn't have to take out loans for all of them). But since I'm the beneficiary/recipient of the loans, I'm the one who has to pay the loans back.

I have been paying back the 30,000+ dollars that I now owe...which will be even more as time progresses and interest mounts. And as I have failed thus far to find steady employment, it will take longer than I expected... unless I win big. This is partly my fault, of course: I took no part in the financial aid process, allowing my mom to do it instead. And I probably should have started looking for jobs and internships sooner than I did. Like a fool without a trust fund, I focused instead on my studies, art, and social life instead of my financial future. Who did I think I was, cavorting around with a bourgeois lifestyle instead of living within my class?

The main thing I'm concerned about is how long will I have to be in debt. I'm going into writing, publishing, and possibly academia, after all. Two of these have the potential to pay well and pay off, but two also do not. I'm afraid that I won't be able to succeed, that I will become poor and be forced to live with my parents...who are already suffering from the side effects of aging and economic woes, and still have two more kids to put through school before they're out on their own. In this context, I guess my biggest fear is that my dreams will remain unfulfilled, and worse, that debt will further prevent me from seeing them become more than dreams.

Famous writers have been in debt, of course: but for their education? If I went back to when I was looking at colleges, I would again choose to go to a private, artsy-fartsy college like my alma mater. But I can't think of any writers who struggled through student loan debt...maybe it was because they didn't have to struggle.

See, to study writing is a professional and artistic endeavor traditionally relegated to the privileged few. It was something until relatively recently only those whose parents or spouses were wealthy enough to provide well for them. There were some educated among the poor and minorities, but they were few and far between. And not many of them made a living on their writing, or even lived to see it published. This goes for all the fields of work and art where formal schooling is often necessary, but the arts have a particular privilege that is more evasive than many other fields: the fact that most artists, musicians, and writers will not make much off their work, if at all. This compels them to find other work.

Now I'm not saying that all artists should be able to just do art full time--sometimes we may need the discipline of a workday to get our shit together--but it helps if you have benefactors to support you. It's related to the fact that unpaid internships are more viable for rich kids than not-so-rich ones, and how girls like Rebecca Black are able to make music videos in spite of a desperate need for voice lessons. Wealthy relatives are able to make connections, get their kid a leg up on the rest: this includes attending the best schools. Rich kids are the only ones who get to study whatever they want unscathed of financial burden, unless they're disowned or something.

I've occasionally wondered during my tenure at college if I was aspiring to be a member of a class that I am not a part of. What good is what is basically an English degree in today's world? People do still read and write, and ebook technology, coupled with the internet, is adapting the industry to this brave new world. But will I ever make any good money doing what I truly love to do: telling stories? Statistics point to "no". I've wondered if I should have studied astronomy, or psychology, or computer science, thus getting a degree that was actually "useful."

I do not regret it.

It should not be that people have disadvantages coming into this world, just because of the parents they were born to. I realize that though I have at least a decade of debt (unless I get lucky or desperate--or if the world ends, of course) ahead of me, I have plenty of advantages over others because of my parents, who support me no matter what I choose to do. And if us artists decided not to study our craft--or even do what we want to do and put it out there--art would remain the realm of only the rich and the white. Will student loan debt really be able to prevent me from putting myself out there in the age of the internet? Probably not.

I guess my fear is really the fear of all of us who have this insatiable drive to create, but teeter on the brink of poverty when our voices are just beginning to emerge. The fear of disappearing into a life we do not want to live. And all because of a lack of funds. It's more than unfair--it's criminal, robbing us young people, and society at large, of our contributions.