About twenty years ago, after I had stopped out of grad school, quit my job at SuperShuttle, and was so broke that I made all my family members collages as Christmas presents, my father sat me down for a fireside chat. The gist was: Dude, you got to get it together, figure out what you want to do with your life, and just do it. The problem was, as he put it, "You don't seem to do anything."
Was I a lost soul at that point? I suppose I was. My band (Spanking Machine) wasn't going anywhere, I was unemployed, and, frankly, very depressed. When I returned to San Francisco from my demoralizing holiday in Los Angeles, I got a temp job (thus launching my current career, oddly enough) and wrote my father a letter.
Aside from the fact that the main point of the letter was to ask him for money so I could fix my car (yes, I did that), I also took issue with his criticism of my do-nothing lifestyle. On the one hand, as I pointed out, I did actually do stuff like write poetry and surrealized beatnik musings, play music, and hang out with my friends. I also reminded him that there were quite a few cultural and spiritual traditions that emphasized doing nothing over doing something as the true goal of life and enlightenment and that I was not unsympathetic to their views. Moreover, the idea that our lives and the world at large were there as a resource for us to do something with was symptomatic of our metaphysical age, as Martin Heidegger explained in his essay concerning the question of technology.
Here's where it gets deep (so watch out). To this very day I bristle at the existential imperative, whether in secular or religious garb, that says you have to do something with your life. There are so many things that are wrong-headed about this notion that I don't know where to start (or finish), so I'll just highlight two logical inconsistencies that dog this everyday ethical commonplace.
First of all, "your life." Aside from the fact that even scientists struggle to define life, what exactly about the life you live is yours? You are, after all, 90% water, which, if I understand it properly, is made of hydrogen and oxygen that has been part of this earth for some billions of years. Add to that the carbon, nitrogen, and other trace elements comprising you as physical entity, you quickly realize that none of them are "yours" strictly speaking. Indeed, your genetic peculiarities are a melange of your father's and mother's, as their's were of their's, and, in any event, consist of amino acids that are of rather ancient provenance. Etc.
So, the living matter provisionally associated with your life is freely borrowed from the environment and the vast surrounding universe to which it will inevitably return (yes, I'm referring to "your" death). But what about this "you" that is supposed to "do" something with this "life." First of all, your "youness" is inextricably linked to this particular physical entity that perpetually changes (replacing itself every seven years or something like that). Not only that, your sense of yourself, your personality quirks, and your interests are totally contingent on your genetic makeup, your lived experience, and your physical condition. If you doubt this, please experiment with severe brain trauma and review the results.
But turning away from the impermanence and ineffability of your youness, how could you do anything with your life in the first place? Usually, in order to do something with anything, you need to distinguish between you and that something. But how can you stand outside your own life which, as we know, is not a thing in the first place? And if people mean, "Create an interesting story or artwork from the events and experiences of your life," when they say, "Do something with your life," why don't they just say that?
Because, frankly, they don't mean that. They mean, "Do things as part of your life that, retroactively, will have made your life a meaningful something instead of a meaningless nothing." But, as everyone knows, "meaning" is entirely contextual. Nothing means anything in isolation. Which means that you can never be the judge of whether or not your life is a meaningful. That can only be decided by deciders who stand outside of your life and understand all its ramifications, not just in your little world, but in the history of the universe. And the number of deciders who are in a position to do that are either zero, one, or three, depending on your persuasion, none of whom are you, let alone human.
If you've read this far, you get the picture. From here on out, whenever anyone tells you to do something with your life, and you don't have the time or wherewithal to explain to them what's wrong with that statement, please have them contact me, and I'll do the dirty work.
You're playing word games, man. While you may have been "doing things" by writing poetry and hanging with your friends, none of those things support the basic necessities of life, like eating and providing shelter. Or fixing a car.
You've read Heidegger, that's great and in some circles it's impressive. And while you may be right about there being "quite a few cultural and spiritual traditions that emphasized doing nothing over doing something as the true goal of life and enlightenment", that's not the culture of America where, like it or not, you live. If that's the kind of tradition you want to be a part of, then go find one and get out of the way so someone who doesn't mind "doing things" can have your job.
This blog post doesn't help anything. It's a filibuster, and if this is what Aquent pays you to write about, I really wonder about Aquent. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your blog is called "The Aquent Talent Blog: Career Advice and Insights for Marketing Professionals". Are you advising me to respond to straightforward questions with quotes from Heidegger? Is that good advice? What's the insight here? "Many cultural traditions support doing nothing"? I'll make sure to bring that up the next time my boss and I have a performance review.
I had high hopes for this blog, but as of this post I'm unsubscribing. You showed with your design contest idea a few posts back how little you understand appropriate design culture. You've illustrated through this one that you're more concerned with avoiding your father's accusations than with using your position to help people. What a bad taste this is in my mouth. I'll check back on Aquent when you publish another salary survey.
-Braden
Braden -
I appreciate you taking the time to comment on this post.
If there was any advice to be heeded here it was and is, "Think." Think about what you do and why you do it. Think about the messages you get from parents, teachers, bosses, etc. Think about your life - what it is, what it's for. Think about what "doing something with your life" actually means. Why do people say it? Why do we feel so compelled to listen? And why do we feel disappointed and even ashamed if we don't live up to this standard?
This post obviously provoked you to think and respond. Ironically, that's what I was hoping for, though I wasn't hoping it would end your engagement with this blog altogether. Still, if you don't find any value in this stuff, why should you read it?
Since, however, you were subscribed until now, was there anything you liked here before this? Was there some career-related question or situation you were hoping I'd address but never did?
Ideally, this should be a kind of conversation. Please let me know what, if anything, I could do to hold up my part of it.
Matt
I've decided to subscribe to replace the stiff herbert that unsubscribed, and also because I respect the important work of Spanking Machine. I am also here to assure you that the review of your life and the lives of your readers may include a number of entities other than zero, one or three - just as a forewarning. Be prepared, as every boyscout knows, nicht? As for talent, I personally believe talent is not enough - you also have to have gone through a kind of limbo of indirection or misdirection in your life to bring your latent talents to the fore(ground). Sincerely, a happy new subscriber to The Talent Blog
Matt: I really like this post. Some folks might have no tolerance for philosophical musings, and I suppose you can't change that.
All any of us can do is embrace those who understand. And part ways with those who don't--and that shouldn't seem a great loss, seems to me.
which person are you in the spanking machine photo? Do you have any material recorded by this band available? Why didn't it go anywhere? What was the goal of the band as a creative project, and how much of the failure of the "project" was because of external forces the music industry, not reaching the right audience. How many people did you realistically hope to reach with this band?
In what ways is this blog similar or dis-similar to what went right or wrong with spanking machine?
Dear Frank, I'm not sure to which photo you are referring.
I would say this project failed due more to internal pressures than external.
I can't say how many people we hoped to reach. Our idols at the time were bands like the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets, so I think we were angling for that level of indie fame. Since our sound and approach was not dissimilar to Pavement, whose first recordings appeared several years after we disappeared, I think that our hopes were not unrealistic.
This blog has virtually no similarities with that project. Aside from the fact that this blog is a self-consciously commercial endeavor, sponsored as it is by generous contributions from my employer, Aquent, I would say that much more thought goes into cultivating an audience and actually addressing their needs and interests than ever did in the case of Spanking Machine.
As a nihilist, I can appreciate this.
NIhilism is simply the realization that nothing is perfect.