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***Post got un-uploaded, originally published yesterday***

I spent an entire day going through all my folder of bookmarks on Firefox and found this old Mark Fisher post I had saved however long ago. It is one of the most relatable things I’ve re-read in a while, and some remarks from another bookmarked essay by Alan Kirby resonated with Fisher’s (and my) sentiments on (un)employment after university.

For me, it was absolutely a question of being projected into a space between classes. When I did work in factories, I was either pitied or pilloried. Every job seemed impossible: manual work because of my feckless diliatoriness, graduate jobs because, well, I wasn’t the sort of person who could do them. Me, a teacher, a journalist or a lawyer – surely not.

Mark Fisher, “No I’ve never had a job” (2010)

This technologised cluelessness is utterly contemporary: the pseudo-modernist communicates constantly with the other side of the planet, yet needs to be told to eat vegetables to be healthy, a fact self-evident in the Bronze Age. He or she can direct the course of national television programmes, but does not know how to make him or herself something to eat – a characteristic fusion of the childish and the advanced, the powerful and the helpless.

Alan Kirby, “The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond” (2006)

I STILL HAVE NO JOB. I like being unemployed, but it’s starting to feel like a chore. For example, I make sure not to go do too much fun stuff on any given day, because I’ll feel guilty since I should be looking for a way to pay rent before my savings run out. No, it’s not guilt, I would just rather not run out of money, but I cannot seem to care all that much. I’m dragging my feet and not taking it all too seriously. I’m not that pressed. I have time. I should be making the most of acquainting myself with the city. That has been fun—walking around, no headphones, no nothing. My days of unemployment are coming to an end, I feel/fear. I’ll probably have a job by the end of the month. My dad likes to describe it as finding “gainful employment,” but what exactly am I gaining? It’s a negative gain: I have the privilege of selling myself in order to fend off starvation and homelessness. (Another bookmarked page offered a comparison between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on suffering. Schopenhauer, influenced by the translations of Buddhist texts made newly available to the West, asserts that life is indeed suffering; therefore, to experience pleasure is only ever temporary relief from the ongoing, natural human state of pain. Nietzsche agrees that the uniquely human consciousness of time contributed to the life-as-suffering dilemma, but to pessimistically resign from the world was to admit defeat. I agree with Nietzsche actually.) In my eyes, nothing is more gainful than unemployment; however, to be unemployed fully on one’s own terms is probably next to impossible and most are unwilling to try. An idea for a future disappearing act?

I AM INCAPABLE. I feel I am too incompetent for any job. It doesn’t matter what: graduate job, graduate student, or any entry-level “unskilled” position. I am an “insect” like Fisher. I am no writer, I am no barista or data entryist. (Kirby’s “silent autism” that characterizes his “psuedo-modern” age is so scarily relevant, especially at the prevalence of that word un/ironically today and the seeming omnipresence of neurodivergence. Those hypochondriacs and self-diagnoses, ironic or otherwise, were correct all along: we are all autistic.) Yet, I felt I had to leave the validation bubble behind; everyone goes on and on about how you shouldn’t go to grad school in the humanities: it’s not worth it, they say, as they are currently in or have already gone through the academy. Maybe I gave into the pressure to get a real job. I don’t know, maybe not. I did put a lot of thought into it first. I didn’t feel I was ready to teach others anything. I was scared. I can barely explain the things of which I am most knowledgeable. In other words, moving to the largest city in the country with no job or long-term plan for the future is the most elaborate and expensive way for me to build my confidence. I don’t know how long I’ll give it a shot out here on my own. You always hear late night talk show tales of big-name actors moving to LA or NYC and giving themselves an arbitrary deadline—”if I’m still getting nowhere by 30, . . .—before they were going to pack up their dreams and go home. For them, it’s never not a success story.

I CANNOT FOOL MYSELF. The human penchant for delusion is extraordinary, but I do believe I am being honest when I say I am an academic at heart and I need to be around people who actually know a thing or two about the thing or two that I know (and care) about. If I keep going down this hole, I’m gonna will myself into feeling bad about myself and whatever it is I am trying to accomplish, or let alone simply do out here. But as it stands, I’m definitely not as big a depressive as Fisher. I feel good. My initial goal was to be closer to more opportunities, but I’m still typing into a vacuum and getting nowhere. At least, I’m enjoying it. Networking sounds abysmal, but it can serve as a half-baked justification for maybe finally going to a movie theater or visiting more galleries and museums on the slim off-chance I meet someone who likes the things I like. I am the most active passive person.

I KNOW I AM CAPABLE. Where are the days of just walking into a manager’s office, making solid eye contact, extending a firm handshake, and landing a cushy, useless executive position at some company that was destroying the planet before anyone really cared about that? On the one hand, I know I can literally do any job if given the opportunity, but sometimes I cannot help feeling like a helpless child. That’s why I don’t like the person I become around large numbers of family members: they’re accomplished and I am only reminded of my complete lack of real-world skills. The salesman might as well be good as dead. (Sorry, Dad!) But now, my relationship with my parents seems stronger than ever. Distance is good here, necessary I would say. I’m being funny and charming again “around” them. I can’t even remember the last time I made my dad laugh that much during our most recent phone call almost two weeks ago. Who knew all I had to do was leave home without so much as a word of warning?

I AM WRITING AGAIN. That feels really good. I’m getting new ideas. But, I need an actual computer to enact a good deal of them. I joke that I’m gonna befriend an NYU student, so I can use their school ID to get access to the computer lab with Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s more than likely doable; I looked it up. The six or seven year-old laptop I brought with me as a temporary understudy (and quick cash backup plan if I ended up needing money that badly) allows me to write when I get free café or library Wi-Fi, but it can’t edit video and has a wonky USB port, and I have a lot of things I am itching to get finished. I feel like my headspace changes so quickly that I have to churn out whatever I’m working on while I still have whatever feelings that motivated the idea in the first place, otherwise I get bored and move on and relegate yet another probably-never-to-be-completed work-in-progress to the purgatory pile.

I NEED FRIENDS. I think all this half-doubt goes away as soon as I make some new friends. That’s another thing I think myself incapable of, but it works out every time. Having a roommate is fine, I guess, but I feel like her role at this point is just to say “what are you doing?” every time I start making random sounds to myself. We don’t have a whole lot in common in terms of interests or character. I’ll make some friends eventually—it is a priority for me—but I am a social camel. Honestly, I’m not really that worried about anything. It’s been more than a whole month; it’s only been like a month. Ya know?

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