Things I want.

Greetings.

The theme of my writing at least since last spring, and perhaps even before, but I have been too lazy to check, has centred on the uncertainty in my goals.  In short I never settled on a clear career path, and those I have followed have fallen short, at their worst causing harm to my mental health.  It is reasonable to assume that I will have similar issues in the future, if the next job is too much like the last it will tired quickly.  So during a brisk walk past the port through the fog and smog, I tried to talk myself into having vision.  I failed.  The ideas I do have I don't know how to turn into money, and jobs I can imagine I can't imagine sustaining.  The thinking was not all wasted, and after an extended period of simply ignoring the problem it was good to give myself a pep talk.  So then what did I come up with.

1: I currently can't conceive of a job that I am confident I would like and enjoy/endure for a long period.  My limited experience and even more limited imagination in this department make sure of that.

2: More often than not I am a singleton.  It is my default habit to pursue most actives solo, and I seldom think to invite other people into what I am doing.  By extension, I seldom ask for help.

3:  The degree of isolation implicit in point two compounds point one.  That is in the absence of new inputs, dialog and advice, I will not have new ideas.  This is especially important in areas of employment and career where my imagination fails.  And if it is one thing I have learned in watching others is there have been a great many notions that I found literally unthinkable.

4: This train of thought leads me to one of my least favourite buzzwords in life, networking.  Because I cannot ask let alone answer the questions that might help get me unstuck and or employed, I may just have to admit I need to get out more and pick peoples brains.

5:  Though generally agreed by my friends and instructors and occasionally coworkers as a intelligent person with a reasonably quick brain, I am hard pressed to define my employable qualities. This is compounded by the majority of my jobs being junior and or short term.  I have a mishmash of skills form tangentially connected jobs that I have difficulty bundling into a concise description.   The value or transferability of the following is questionable.   The ability to break rock with an economy of force, to accurately eyeball the sizes of things between 0.5m and 1mm.  Clumsy coding in Visual basic, making middling quality maps, using a compass, working safely near and in helicopters.

6: Whoring myself out to industry is good money if I can get it, but.  The but being, the industries I have worked in are full of climate change denial and other difficult to tolerate regressive mentalities, long term exposure to such things leads to friction and I suspect not do my mental health any favours.   So the continuing trend of trying to get out of junior mining and other directly exploitive industries continues.

7: Less a product of todays walk and more a general complaint.  My attention span sucks, Facebook and the internet have made it worse.  I want what little focus I had back.  The desire to log off and find a quite place to think and write is persistent.  But I must be mindful that much of the noise comes from inside and changing the space may not fix things.  What I do want, and must practice is thinking bigger thoughts.  Careless web browsing can lead you to content free Buzzfeed lists, where despite multiple megabytes in gifs they have not matched the value of 1000 words of content.  Similarly BusinessInsider will gladly masterbate your existing biases in a comforting 800 words. To reason with any depth or quality more time must be spent on more substantive content and its digestion.

While ambition is not my strong point I can aspire to somethings, many would be much easier with a steady supply of money, but are also worthy of it in their own right.  I want to learn to be handy.  To be able to build a book case that could be proudly in the main room not tucked away in the closet, for reasons unclear to me I would like to build a bed frame.  I therefore desire a modest collection of power tools.  I would like to build a bicycle wheel, and after that a bike from the fame up without outside help. Moving farther into the realm of day dream, a wood fired outdoor oven.  I also would like to garden, and if I could live for longer I would garden trees.

It is tough being a hobbit in a human's body. I only have the appetite for one breakfast and the world wants me to live fast.  I want the world to slow down.  In all likely hood I will be forced to take the first job offer made because, there are so few, and I will struggle with staying productive and comfortable, especially after the initial buzz wears off.  So what is your vote, what should I do when grow up.