Vocation, Voluntary Work And Long Term Unemployment

For the first time in my life I think I understand what the word 'vocation' means. When I was growing up life seemed fine on the surface, but underneath-at every level of  decision making about how to be an adult-life ended up being accidentally catastrophic in ways I will save you from here, except to say that it has taken 35 years overall, including a long long term relationship and 15 years of coming to ECC events, to recover some memories and find some sense of a depth of kindness in my true self. Recovery is still a work in progress. Life when I was young seemed to be about adults taking children and bashing them into shape, with the children being square pegs being hammered into round holes. The process did badly by the children and consistently disappointed the adult. Being bashed into shape was mandatory, there was a sub-militaristic logic behind everything. Where I grew up was surrounded by RAF bases.

   After several bouts of counselling and some well tested friendships I have recovered a lot of memory and with that an instinct for who to trust, and sort-of-why, in the present day. I am one of the long term unemployed, and if I put the truth about my experience of employers down in an application form I am immediately asking to be rejected. If I put a lie I feel the lie, deeply, and feel disinclined towards telling it. With recovery I don't want to join the people who lied about me. If I were accepted on the basis of a lie then how could I respect such a credulous employer? I am living a paradox that should not exist. It is as if M.C. Escher were asked to illustrate what a job and adulthood looked like. I can't get my head around it and am not the only one. For those on benefits who are quite thoughtful and self disciplined in their personal life they are being set seriously illogical demands in the cause of 'fuller employment' which frequently come to justify the anti-depressants industry as props. I know that pressure. In school there was a joke Q;What do you want to do when you leave school? A;Go on benefits! But there proved to be much more than that to it later, these forms are now the texts to the M. C. Escher drawing to illustrate and explain the employment market.

  I have shared my contorted past with those whom I thought were wise and accepting people, and they have openly asked 'Are you comfortable sharing this?' to disguise their discomfort. Those who say nothing and accept what I say about that life are truly wise, and the conversation changes easily. I had a dog called Oscar for several years, 1998-2004. He was a lurcher who did not bark and was hugely affectionate. I used to joke that he was my Rogerian Therapist because of his obvious empathy.

 Well away from the competitive hurly burly of paid work I have wondered where to place myself, or allow myself to be placed, on the scale where altruism for short term limited gain is at one end and outright competitive living such as we cut each other dead with is at the other. My line to myself has been that the only job I could securely hold down would be one in where there is no application process, but acceptance is by a gradual process of osmosis. There would no competition because the job is unattractive for being uncompetitive. But to find work like that would be unique, how would I know I have the work if nobody say so? As far as I know the nearest employment practices get osmosis, and the smooth transfer of increased status, is nepotism. Even in this new apparently open and multi-cultural society we aspire to society has it's lines that are not for crossing, where people have to smuggle their identities past others by disguising them in plain sight, through code.

  I choose to do voluntary work, in my community/village and give my time for free because it is the only way of giving my time value. With that I can stand firm in the tug of war between time and money. I now have something that-literally-nobody else wants to do. It fits me comfortably and finally, but who knows for how long? I seem to be in the right place at the right time. It seems very odd but in my heart of hearts it is what I have and do is what I always wished for. Did I wish carefully enough?

  I still make enemies, and I am still partially misunderstood but I draw the conclusion that that is what neighbours are for, and my front door is where I leave all that behind. I care about where I live and enjoy the seemingly mild esteem of me that my vastly more wealthy neighbours offer me. For the first time in my life I think I understand what the word vocation means.

The Barley Cup Kid.