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Oh, Utah
Monday, August 14, 2006 I volunteered at a folk festival this weekend, and I think my brain fell out when I hit the festival grounds. Or at least the brain I've become accustomed to did, and it's Utah's fault.
Utah Phillips was at the festival, and I don't know how he does it, but whenever he opens his mouth and starts speaking, I have to struggle to hold back my weeping. He told a hilarious story about a bull with a moose calling horn shoved up his butt, and I was blinking back water. He told a story about how difficult his anarchist friend, Ammon Hennacy, could be to talk to, and I swiped tears from my cheeks. He talked about places he had seen while walking around Cityville, and I almost needed someone to hang onto to keep me from going to pieces. He makes me lose my shit. It's a good thing that I didn't get the opportunity to speak to him personally, because I probably would have crumpled to the ground and wept on his shoes.
He made me feel like I'm having a mid-life crisis a little early. It's terrifying but fucking fabulous.
I have been doing the wrong kind of work for years, and I've known it, but I have stayed with it because I am scared of jumping out into the unknown. I hide behind the fact that I never finished my university degree and my inability to decide what to go to school for and my ongoing student loan payments. I tell myself that my job is perfect for me, because I don't bring it home with me and I have excellent benefits and a good chunk of vacation time.
Except that I do bring the stress of my job home in so many ways, and I probably don't even realize how many aspects of my life are being affected, because it ties up more than forty hours of my waking time during the week and pulls me into a whole world of stress that I carry with me physically and emotionally. It leaves me feeling impotent and anxious.
Utah made my heart feel broken when he spoke, because he made me see how out of place I am. He's brilliant. I wanted to curl up inside the warmth of his shirt pocket.
So, this begs the question: WHY DO I VOLUNTARILY SPEND SO MUCH OF MY WAKING LIFE IN A SITUATION THAT DOES THAT TO ME?!
Even writing this out has got my palms all sweaty, like now I might have to do something, say something, be something out loud. What now? School? Open a business? Ride the rails? Start wearing patchouli, go vegan, and buy a pair of earth shoes? Start following Utah from festival to festival like he's the Grateful Dead?
Sweet Jeebus. I spend three days at a folk festival and come out wanting to follow my bliss. I feel like this guy looks:
Places I've been recently: riley dog, forksplit, and Styrofoam Kitty.
Reader Comments (18)
Okay it's really really funny that when I went to post a comment there were ads for anti anxiety medication. I knbow how you feel. I am just beginning to follow my bliss and while it is sort of blissful it is FREAKIN scary. Cheers to fears today my friend
I was one of those who picked a career, got the degree and have been doing it now for 20 years and i feel many of the same "what next" feelings. Is it feeling some pressure that this next step should "stick" and therefore be permanent? Why does it have to be? I always envy those people with slashes in their resume "physicist, bee keeper, cyclist" or "painter/mechanic/nudist"
I know, for me, to change gears would be a severe reduction in pay. bummer. But I'll do it one day. I thought having a richer personal life might diminish my work's impact on my life, and it did, but to the point of making me realize even more what a dumb job it is. Not quite the result I expected! But it does make it easier to just consider it my day job and put it in perspective, until the time I feel comfortable making a change.
I think the hardest thing is picking a path. I'm afraid if it was something I "loved doing" it would just eventually turn out to be a job. but maybe that's not a bad thing either? I'm a graphic designer and my daily life is so full of doing creative things, that I have no inspiration to do my own creativity at home. I think if my job was let art related, the more art I'd commit on my own behalf.
I think it's a big step to be asking yourself these questions outloud.
You need to be still and listen to that voice inside you and trust it. All the answers are there.
yes! utah rocks!!
i'm so sorry i wasn't there. we could have stamped our feet together!
the big questions are hard at first but they get easier after a while.
If you're going to burn down our apartment building or make a major life change, I'll need 48 hours notice.
I feel you. Completely in the same boat. I want to go to grad school...but fow WHAT exactly? I don't know. That's more debt whenever I do it, but at least I won't be stuck in a 9-5 mindless web...will I!? Ugh.
Sister, if you quit your job you couldn't afford those earth shoes.
Good for you though, sometimes a little shake up is good for the spirit. Life is too short to spend so much time doing something you hate.
So been there, am being there, will be there forever. Do I find work I'm passionate about, or do I work a token job so that I can afford to be passionate about something else? There's so much conflicting so-called advice about this out there, and so many people living various degrees of each option, with varying levels of success. I struggle with this every day too, especially after those really good days at work that make me wonder if I really am actually passionate about my day-job. I'm not sure I want to be, because I've seen what that does to people I work with, who wind up burned out an used. Gah!
My favourite thing that Utah said was, "Following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked."
I loved him. He was fucking brilliant.
a big hello
as i very rarely comment on posts i won't here either. but i will say i loved your about me page. oh utah is right though. if that's him sitting playing the guitar (and i assume that it is) i dig that. nice pictures of A.M. (also assuming) anyway gotta gosee you around
You'll find your work. More likely, it will find you-- when you're not expecting it. Sort of like true love.
And the work that you do here on this site is valuable, soul-feeding (or at least it seems to be, from this outsider's viewpoint), and certainly contributes to building and sustaining a community-- don't think that it isn't/doesn't, just because you aren't making a living doing it (yet.)
Totally understand. I've spent years moaning about how I hate my job and just recently, have made a decision. It's a fly by the seat of my pants, just quit and hope for the best decision.
Sometimes, the courage to do that is all you need to make your life change for the better. Opportunities appear that you wouldn't have noticed if fettered.
Of course, though I've made the decision, I haven't yet had the courage to implement. I'm working on that part now... but, after talking it over with that fellow I share the bills and kids with, I was surprised to find spousal support.
Ahem... This is, in no way, an endorsement for schmutzie pickles to quit her job (ie, I don't want palinode hate mail).
It took me til I was 38 to figure out something I could do for a living that I wouldn't hate. I've been doing it ever since and I've been happy. But it was a huge risk at the start. Once I knew what I wanted, I just dove in, no safety net. It paid off but there were some dicey times at first, and I had a young child to boot.
It's the whole 'jump and the net appears' thing.
jaknow, its discovering blogging that made me jump, and go to school for something I can do across any field, which is web developemnt. So I figured, ok, I'll take the 9 years I have in the healthcare field and learn to write web based software that is more user friendly to healthcare support staff, so I have clear path, but with plenty of "room to roam". I cashed in some equity, cut my job to 3 days a week, got PEL grants, and now here I am, starting my first full semster to my AS degree on monday.
I had read over at smittens blog how she really wanted to switch jobs, but was scared, only they were her archives, and she had already done it, and she was fine, so LOL, I got to use her hindight for myself.
It worked.
Heres the thing. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Doesn't stop us from getting married, preggers, buying a home, or any other projected "fufilling" endevours, so why should our livelyhoods be any different. Its just a box, poke your head over the top and look around :) Whatever you do, it will be amazing, cause it will be YOU.
Oh, and ps, I love palinode's post :)that's exactly what I would have said :)
I'm right there with you. Law school? At 34? With existing student loans? Borrow more than $100,000? Am I crazy? Maybe.
I do believe that's the ghostly after image of Emporour Cloudinus VII, bidding farewell to the mighty province of Saskatchewan. Just to the left of "shoot me guy."
Maybe I'm getting predictable with the bits my ADD head latches onto, but the authorities haven't caught up with me yet. "See out of the place I am, curl up in the warmth of his shirt pocket". These are like finding extra big marshmallows at the bottom of a mug of quality chocolate. You're doing the good work. It's why you get such a glut of comments! :)
Wow…replica hermes|
Thanks for compiling this and posting it.
Raspekt from Chi-town.