I... had a dream. No, no. Not that dream. But, really.
Lately, I have had these intermittent "takeaway" dreams on the tail end of the last dream cycle. I wake up, recall the last dream, and I wonder "Ok, what was that one supposed to be about?"
Monday morning, it was about self-confidence. There are two things we often fear as we go into the day - how others see us... and how we see ourselves.
Lately it is on my mind how others' perceptions can be projected, how this is something some do very often to the detriment of others - and to the advantage of themselves.
More, far more, below the break.
The online world is full of wonderful writers. I am good enough to have a paid job where my primary responsibility is writing - it is a far different craft than blogging or even conventional reporting. What I do is industry research, product research, promotions, the occasional news release, event announcement, all the wonderful subsets of corporate communications.
Yes, that's right. I work for the metaphorical Man.
Well, the Man (metaphorically) tells me... let's see... that I do not know the subject matter. That I learn too slowly. That I am not personable. That my writing really, really needs a lot of work.
That perhaps it is not a bad idea to consider doing something else for a living.
Oh. Last detail: I have been receiving this feedback, more or less at this level, for five years.
Thus is an apprenticeship in the wonderful world of corporate communications.
I see advertisements all of the time for work that I could apply for - in marketing, if I choose to stay, or back in my old homeland of many years, financial analysis.
Mostly, I have spent the last four years - even before the Great Recession took off in earnest - saving up for a long, long sojourn if either my patience wore or off or if the long-feared endgame with my boss came to pass.
I know now for certain: That confrontation will never come, unless I force it. I am too useful, in far too many ways. I have far too many skills, most woefully underutilized in my current role, for my superior to pass on that option.
My dream was telling me something: For years, I have been made to fear myself, to internalize abuses, to accept that this - and no further - is my lot in life.
This is the boss who, the week before I went into the hospital two years ago, when I was already running a 103-104 degree temperature, said "Suck it up. We are on a tight schedule and you are behind the eight-ball already."
I came back three months later and swore - I will never surrender my health to anyone's power, not ever again.
Now I see this resolve must be extended to mental health.
So... I will not do anything more rash than post this rant (which might in this day and age qualify as rash enough but I weighed doing this for several hours and, well, here we are).
But I am definitely looking for another job. And I have years of time socked away to find it, if it comes to that.
I'll let you know what comes of it, but I am tired of fearing myself. Of being made to fear myself.
And I know this is the least taste of persecution - this institutionalized affliction against personal dignity that seems so important to so many. Why do people do this others? Are they just ... mean? Are we as a species so wicked?
No. I think I've always known the answer: Some people are like vampires. They draw strength, even life itself, from the suffering of others - the worse the affliction, the more the rush, the sense of vitality.
And recent research on primates - rhesus monkeys to be specific, upholds this notion: The status of the monkey in a troop is a strong predictor of its level of expression of immune system-related genes. Monkeys introduced to a confined environment first are originally accorded higher status - their demonstrably more resistant to disease. They are assumed stronger; their bodies become stronger.
Later, as natural variations assert themselves and the social order changes, guess what? Those who rise see their health and well-being improve. Those who fall? They decline.
I think this happens with people. I think this is why people who identify strongly with the rise and fall of a given party - even if that party is detrimental to their every interest - feel mortally threatened by that loss. For in a physiological sense, they are.
Especially if they are the emotional vampires of the kind I know in real life.
Which has me wondering: How much of my health and life has my superior taken from me... because my boss can do so?
I have been contemplating this for two years.
Now I am contemplating it closely.
I have given this person far too much of my every good thing for far too long.
But rhesus monkeys can change their status and well being. They do not sit still for arbitrary and unfair abuses.
Are human beings incapable of correcting wrongs? Making their world kinder and less afflicting to ... themselves?
For this is what rule of law, justice, equality, democracy are for: Not to tear down but to raise all, equitably, fairly, righteously.
Of course, I work in a large neo-feudal bureaucracy. Democracy has nothing to do with it.
Yet the lesson holds: Anyone over whom you hold power, has a right to claim decent treatment. They are, in small doses or large, giving you their lives.
They don't have to do that.
They can, at the very least vindictive, go away and stay away.
Then where would you be?
What I know is this:
We are being asked, where we want to see ourselves professionally one to five years ago.
And the only honest answer I can give, I cannot: Anywhere but here. I have put in my time. Five years in one place, eight with the same company. I am ready for more, far more. My current position will not take me there. My current supervisor will not abide my departing in good grace.
Yet I must go regardless.
I can't afford to keep fearing myself, for myself - that everything whispered into my soul is true. I did that for too long.
It is only a question of doing this tomorrow, or a month from now, or sometime in the next year. But between 0 and roughly 360 days, likely far closer to the first end of the range than not, I am so done.
Because last I checked, I'm a pretty smart guy. I learn fast. I have a strong portfolio of professional work. Oh, and I blog sometimes at a place called Dailykos. Sometimes, I even get on the Rec List.
Writing here helped me get this job, actually.
I think, after five years of hoofing it in the real world, I'll get another just fine.