Job Interview – my response to HR…

Yesterday was an interesting flashback into my life 20 years ago. I have lived on the fringes of society for the past twenty years and to be honest, I am quite comfortable with fringe, nomadic, gypsy life. Thank you for being so kind – I know that I am pretty rough around the edges. I sometimes think I have been away too long.
To quote Merton,
“Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.”
I have found that I can not live a life of quiet desperation. Society today places so much emphasis on material wealth and so much is derived from job, social standing, vehicle, address….I am who I am because of my last twenty years. I know that no one can understand why I am happy but I know I have to be me for my son Jake.
So, I am being honest with you…a factory job horrifies me because it is everything that I left behind. I am in no way judging anyone working a factory job but I know I could never work in that environment. I have led an exceptional life. Emerson speaks of Experience in his wonderful essay American Scholar – he defines man as… “An individual may live in either of two states. In one, the busy, “divided” or “degenerate” state, he does not “possess himself” but identifies with his occupation or a monotonous action; in the other, “right” state, he is elevated to “Man”, at one with all mankind.” While I have not achieved “one with all” I have a bank account of experience that is quite full and a material bank account that is empty.
Finally Merton –
“No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man’s despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.”

― Dr. Seuss – “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is you-er than you. Shout aloud, I am glad to be what I am. Thank goodness I’m not a ham, or a clam, or a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam. I am what I am, what a great thing to be. If I say so myself, happy everyday to me!”