Those are the words I heard early one morning this past week in regards to the interview I had Tuesday. It's one of those bee stings we get in life that really is more annoying than anything these days, as the mantra of college graduates receiving rejections is growing with each passing semester. That's also weighing on the fact that college graduates even spearhead the objective of being interviewed for a position, whether it's for a nuclear physicist or a McDonald's cashier.
Like Groundhog Day, life is on repeat. It's the same day playing over and over again, the same looping experience of workforce rejection and the corporate shunning most of my brethren are feeling. As one of my friends put it, we're the "Lost Generation."
I thought on this for a little bit as I strolled about the neighborhood, clearing my head of all its swirling imaginations, fixations, and ramblings. I came to the conclusion that all the time I had been wasting by filling out job application after job application I could have been wasting playing video games. With either option, there would have been no difference in how I spent my days. They're both counterproductive, and they're both eating away at the valuable time I have, right now, to do something.
I've come to the decision that it's time to go back to being creative and artistic. It's time to pick up the video camera and do what makes me feel the greatest each and every day. The direct correlation of making a piece of entertainment, publishing it online (either book or video) and watching it potentially flourish into something is far greater than having no consequence at all (as the case with job applications) or having no direct connection to one's productivity.
When I make something, there's the idea that it's tangible. I can watch it. I can read it. I can interact with it, and I can share it with others. There's no waiting for a response or waiting for something else to randomly happen that was an indirect result of my work.
Sure, I'd love to make more money and live the wealthy, lavish lifestyle most Americans fantasize about while they zone out to television. It's human these days to crave a life of decadence like Harold and Kumar craved White Castle. As White Castle put it so succinctly, it's "what you crave."
However, I want that feeling of accomplishment as well. I enjoy that thrill and satisfaction of having created something. My effort directly resulted in Product A. While it's not selling well because I'm still learning the ropes of online marketing, I have a book I spent countless hours working on. China Town Warrior. Some day, it will make money. I just need to re-appropriate my time away from job hunting to getting it out there.
It also helps to know that I've got support. The best kind of support. A beautiful woman whom I admire and respect, one that sends me reeling through the clouds both physically and mentally. She's in the same both, and I feel we give each other strength, trying to think ourselves out of a box advertised to us by universities and investors with their hands in those universities' piggy banks. This is where Bob Dylan comes in.
The man in me will do nearly any task
As for compensation, there's a little he will ask
Take a woman like you
To get through to the man in me.
Storm clouds are raging all around my door
I think to myself I might not take it anymore
Take a woman like your kind
To find the man in me.
But, oh what a wonderful feeling
Just to know that you are near
It sets my heart a-reeling
From my toes up to my ears.
