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soldier-poet-king · 8 months

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career anxiety which turned into existential dread which turned into me guiltily defending my use of stories as narrative framing devices for my own life & human existence as storytelling more broadly (smthn smthn sometimes you gotta be a little mentally unwell to be mentally well)

what is possibly the longest cringe worst thing ive ever put on this webbed site, but i gotta get it out in writing to clear my head and i type more quickly than i write and if there's a post length limit by god i'm gonna find out

with my deepest apologies if this readmore doesnt work

so we had a Big Fancy Meeting at work today, with a group of information professionals from an Outside Institution (some of whom i had met previously), and which i got to sit in on/play tech support for, which was all fine and well for the actual presentation portion of the event, but afterwards when it was informal chatting and the like it was just???

The following things are true:

i actually got to speak with people close-ish to my age and in my profession

it was a very nice and enjoyable experience and we got to talk both seriously about professional things and also jokingly shoot the shit about shared woes with this one outdated archival software that everyone under the age of 60 hates with a passion

i was also incredibly jealous of this group of archivists & librarians because they're all /friendly/ with each other and i am lonely being the youngest person at work

i am also jealous because theyre working on very exciting projects at A Big Institution with Actual Resources and Technology and PROCEDURES my beloved, and not the slapdash kinda thing going on at my work

this in turn made me anxious because there were certain elements of the conversation i couldn't follow and i worry about my professional development at my current job, and that my technical skills are either atrophying, or not growing in a way that would enable me to get hired at A Big Institution like this one (which is the ultimate goal)

this in turn made me more stressed about my current job, which i just got promoted to fulltime permanent for the following

beyond the skill atrophy fear there is also the fact that my boss is grooming me to be her successor when she retires in 5 yrs and i very Much Do Not Want to be here in 5 years

this adds several layers of guilt

i was just promoted so im getting really sweet messages of congrats from random ppl in other departments who i didnt even think knew/care i existed - the people at this workplace are extremely nice, even if im like. meh. about some of the work/procedures/etc

a large part of my promotion being approved hinged on the fact that im undertaking this big technical project that my boss doesnt have the technical know-how to do. so i cant just bail and leave them high and dry without feeling guilt. but also. it's not so fancy a project that someone else couldnt do it. anyone in my field worth their salt and not super old should be able to handle it. sure i work hard and im friendly, but surely that's not that rare in an employee

i dont even KNOW if there's better opportunities out there. but i see stuff on the listserv all the time, and assuming i could land those jobs, they pay better and are at larger orgs and more in line with what i want

there is an element to working non-profit adjacent that is guilt inducing as well as [redacted thing about my work that would make me feel even guiltier for leaving, i cannot say what, but it is Significant]

this of course, tapped into my larger, ongoing sense of ennui and being 'stuck' and fears about unchosen monotony and purposelessness and all that mid 20s recent grad existential bullshit. i cant really do anything to solve it bc yknow, unprecedented housing crisis, rent is insane, im stuck living in a dysfunctional household which traumatized me as a child, etc etc etc. but broadly:

i am afraid of being stuck in a mediocre job forever. my boss has worked for two (2) archives her whole life and has always done non-profit adjacent work and is like. a one man small archive thing. i VERY MUCH DO NOT WANT THAT

i feel guilty for wanting

idk how to want things or be a person (separate issue), but i know very much what i want career wise. i know what makes me happy and satisfied. and i know what im good at. im doing fine at my current job but i know i could be so much MORE and i want that desperately

if my personal life is always doomed to be dismal, as is my family life, can i at least have one thing

i gave up academia for my mental health and some degree of financial stability, can i at least satisfy SOME of my ambitions here?? just a few??

yes this is pride. yes this is ambition. just bc i spent so long extremely depressed and with 0 self esteem does not make me immune to ambition, even if non traditional.

i feel immense guilt over this but i dont stop wanting it

ofc, my brain is a web, all existence is inextricably interconnected, and im listening to the tge audiobook on my commute and rotating csevet in my brain, thara is more personal, more beloved maybe, but csevet is my fave lil guy babygirl and i have a thing for fantasy secretaries, so i am now thinking even MORE of ambition, and how i have it, and how i love that im good at this one complex but boring thing, i am thinking of kip mdang, of kamet, of muire lo, of how some of my deepest loves, in no particular order, include: organization and scheduling, devotion, competency, well-ordered policies and procedures, righteous anger, boring skills being used to change the world for good, small kindnesses, Duty, loyalty to a person or ideal which goes beyond the functional and the expected and which extends into unprecedented levels of intimacy - whether it be friendship, qprs, romance, etc, and also, metadata and research

so. as i sit there sorting this all out in my brain i am like. wow you are a pathetic human being. you are not even a person. like. why is everything being framed in terms of narrative and story. why does everything relate to a Broader Theme or Arc or Meaning.

i am forcibly reminded of being undiagnosed, unmedicated, aged 18/19 and trying to explain smthn really personal about myself to someone i knew from youth group and him being like. wow. you describe everything and relate to everything from stories.

to this day i live in embarassment over this moment. but also. lowkey. fuck him. and tradcath circles be WILD, the social dynamics BAD, and it was not the place for me to be, even tho i latched on to it lacking any other social contact at the time. if a complete mental breakdown, latent OCD, and a really painful loss of friends is what it took to get me out. like. i cant say i dont regret the loss, but also, i like who im becoming much better now

ANYWAY. i got thinking about stories and why i am and am not extremely cringe

i am a big believer in storytelling is the oldest human activity. it's the most fundamental human activity. this isn't some nihilistic devaluing of the human person, the soul, the human experience, it is instead and elevation of the story. because like. stories are what we do to live. it's why we live. it's how we communicate. storytelling is how we turn to another person and we attempt to communicate the innermost secrets of our heart. language is a flawed tool always ultimately falling short. but we use stories to share ourselves with each other, to be recognized and known, and throughout the ages, to share our grief and love, to know to oneself, no, i'm not the only one, others have experienced this before too. stories are balms and inspirations and are ultimately reflections of their creators, they reflect some Truth about the human experience back to us

im not even talking like. published stories. tv shows. mcu ification of media. i mean /stories/. in whatever form. from whatever time. this isn't a fandom thing - though there is overlap, im not talking about consumption for the sake of consumption, or consumption as a personality trait

i mean like. stories as the bedrock of humanity because it is the only way we can attempt to understand ourselves. stories are foundational because the human person is too complex, having too much of the image of the divine in it, to ever be really fully successfully understood. and so of course. of course we turn to stories in times of trouble, and triumph, and all the times in between. how could we not turn to stories to attempt the divine understanding that is always ultimately beyond us?

(i have a whole other locked and loaded series of thoughts on storytelling in faith traditions, and specifically how the bible is a literary work as well as a spiritual one, and the reasons for this reflected in the human soul, but i digress)

so really. maybe i am pathetic and cringe and a fake not real person (i am all of those things), but i hope it's not because i think in stories, in themes, in arcs. everything is tangled in my brain, inextricable, i can do nothing else, i know nothing else, i would not want anything else, unless it were the full divine understanding beyond mortal means

and besides. i am trying. to be better. to be more. to have comforts and hobbies beyond this. the crafting. the cooking. the career ambitions that arose when i found something that i was good at and enjoyed and was /me/. my insatiable need to learn to dance.

i dont know where im going with this. i barely know where i started. it's stories all the way down, because it's people all the way down, and we are all mirrors of each other and we are all connections with each other in a vast caring world. or. so i like to think

#franposting #long post #im so sorry but also i needed this so.#smthn smthn you go to the circus (my blog) dont be surprised when there's clowns (me) etc etc #i had to take a break in the middle of typing this bc i got worn out emotionally #should that have been a sign to stop? maybe. but i cant read so that sign wont stop me etc #this is the most embarassing cringe thing i have ever posed in my ELEVEN YEARS on this site #ah well #gotta weed out the weak. natural selection for my horribleness #and now. i am going to play bg3 for a bit. and then read. and then bed bc alas. commuting

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