Generalists, polymaths, multipotentialites

5.0.03

Instead of CVs and cover letters, a professional life as a story

Carried by the (electric) current

The professional world demands that we think, speak and write in facts. Digestible, catchy, concise. We sell ourselves as the specialists in the bullet-points of our CVs. But the soul screams: "this is an act, this is not the whole of me, this is not my nature". Taken out of proper context, the facts make no sense, they generate a distorted image, or even present a completely different person. The soul lives in stories - and this is how I narrate my professional life, what others often call "career". I apologize in advance, but I can hardly detach it from many weird turns in my personal life's path. Yeah, it is too long - but wait - it was my life and if I at least tried to live it well, it should not be a subject of one page summary.

I happened to be an A-grader student at primary school - in pretty much all subjects. Admired and hated. Although not a one-subject genius, as some other exceptional kids. I was still unsure of what my true vocation could be. I had an early proclivity to be an annoying "memorizer" kind of nerd - at least that were the expectations and that was the way that subjects were taught at that place and time. Slightly on a "he's not a kid that will play football with the rest" side, but still with some movement-talents in other physical disciplines. Even this disbalance improved a lot in my later years (gym, yoga, natural movement, cross-inspiration with contemporary dance and physio-therapy methods). For some reason I developed a trauma of "inability to fail", "all eyes are on me" (to see me stumbling), and an anxious need to please everyone. This was the hardest thing to work on in life, the task still not finished.

When I look at my first infatuations - I could be a train engine driver, a baker, a cartographer, a film director, a graphic designer ... for some of those possible paths I had no guts, for some no "preliminary experience", or too vague talents, for some just not enough resources to study and start off with a sense of security. One's parents' wealth can influence what sophisticated toys you play with, what early skills you develop and even the "rational' choices you make. For better and for worse. I felt disadvantaged but in the same time "lucky" to be forced to play with the little and invent the fictitious worlds with the limited tools I had. If I lacked in resources, I definitely did not in imagination. Still, this unmediated experience prevents me from being the "equal opportunities" televangelist. The family circumstances influence one's starting line, the choices we dare to try.

I chose "rationally" a "prospective" technical high school (electronics). Partially because I've already developed a secret but strong resentment towards "memorizing the dates of events" in history, "life trivia of authors" in literature, or "enumerating industry fields for each town on the map" in geography. The post-communist Eastern European education. Mathematical or physical equations seemed at least ... navigable, logical, understandable.

Ironically, in a few years even the technical subjects turned into memorizing of pages of text (!), or even memorizing circuit schemes (!!) thanks to the teaching style of some professors, no explanation, not even any available materials on how things work. Even on personal level, my interests soon started to diverge from the technical topics. I was not the kid who'd solder the green boards with transistors at home. I learned language(s) under the desk and dedicated my free time to a nascent love of cinema, as well as writing. As the "only gay kid in the world" (with no available media reflections) I had to vent my frustrations and state my opinions. I lived my identity, my sexual life, my first intimate stories - in my imagination, on the paper.

Anyway, I still excelled - both in technical subjects and those few compulsory humanist subjects that were left. I just had to finish this school to satisfy my family and of course to get out of poverty. I did not believe this would be my career choice. It was too early for that. Parts of my family had a proclivity to believe ... and so I held on to the imaginary idea the "for sure, somehow, something would happen" that would toss the switch to get me on the good track... Instead, the first derailment appeared. I finished high school with fabulous As ("hey, slow down, we can't keep up with you"), except the practical exam, where I almost failed (some "mercy" was involved) in creating a functional electronic device. The first great fiasco of my life, that haunted me for long.

Thanks to this event, I had no other choice than to end up at the technical university. There I was again one of the few best students of each year, but liking it/IT probably the least. I got even appraisals and an award at the end of these gloomy 5 years - but secretly I felt like a total fraud. My mode of survival was trying to understand the disliked topic at hand (math or physics problems, electronic circuits, optimization algorithms, software code) and that's how/why I did well. Most of my tech-savvy and tech-enthusiast peers just wanted to pass the exams somehow - and, ironically, they were the ones memorizing (or attempting various cheats around) a lot of subjects. But I envied them their passion, that this was "their life", that they did all the homeworks and studies at home with a genuine interest. They were at the right place, right school, this was to be their preferred career, even if their grades were not so excellent. As good as I was in the exams as little I liked anything in the field. In my free time - I learned Persian and Iranian history and culture (why not), attended movie festivals, and explored even more diverse interests: psychology, anthropology, spirituality, cooking, arts. I chose the "image processing" thesis just to be somewhere close to the photography and audiovisual theme.

My orientalist interests combined with a lack of resources generated envy. I envied my peers from wealthier families, who compensated their semester's hard work with traveling. All those stories set in exotic places that I had heard from them. My substitute travel-agency was the cinema. It is not easy to describe the intensity of the story-addiction that developed from me digesting the hundreds if not thousands of art movies from any place on Earth. The escapes through the dark halls have become a parallel life, sort of. In the same time, my early friendships shipwrecked in the shallows. I lacked more openness, honesty, depth, genuine interests and care - you probably know well. I felt stranded - culturally, economically, socially. And I imagined that one just needs to set the foot out of home - and the enchanting stories with the adventures and the intense human connections will unfold.

Here the "luck" enters the story. My first employment interview was like "do you know something about the IT?" and "are you willing to travel in any exotic country out there?" Yesss! In two years, I was sent to France (my first ever journey beyond the country borders), Romania, Tunisia, Pakistan, Cambodia. Well, I secretly thought: "Was it just me that turned my first employer into a travel agency?" The reality was significantly different from the usual traveler diaries. Staying in one city for months, mostly in the server rooms, with limited possibilities to "explore" in the evenings and some weekends. Most of my colleagues seemed oblivious to the fact they are thousands of miles from home, they preferred to play computers in the hotel rooms, to getting out. Virtual reality only. Technical minds ... have become my curse. After two years - storyless, friendless - I felt equally stuck as when I was a student at home. Even if enthusiast multiculturalist by default, through the first hand experience I developed certain level of cross-cultural disillusionment. And I acquired some exotic bugs that undermined my health.

Towards the end of my contract, it was the first time in 26 years I felt financially secured and "not having to". Finish this school to get to that school, than work hard to get to another game level, then suspend "the fun" just to get a good job. Now I finally owned myself, not being passed like an object from an institution to an institution. I was able to break out of the vicious circle and just pause. Stay at home, look around, think of what to be in life. Just no IT please! However, at that time, the concept of "sabbatical" was unheard of in my cultural space. Both family and friends were "well-intentioned" to remind me that this will be a gap in the CV, HR people will ask me weird questions and generally: "this is not a normal thing to do". And I stubbornly resisted, for four years!

Under my own terms

Well, I did not just sit an look at the ceiling. As a byproduct of my "invent your life in the stories, on the paper" habit, I had a lot of topics whirling in my head - and I wanted to write a few of those ideas down. As a byproduct of my technical background, I was able to code a website in basic HTML and CSS. As a byproduct of my image processing study, I was able to draft some graphics in GIMP. And for four years I was writing the essays - as an act of resistance to the conservative mainstream-complacency fashionable at that time. Finding unusual interconnections between the seemingly unrelated topics: Gender theory, fetish and economics. Emotions, narratives and politics. Sexuality intertwined with spirituality. Exploring the interdisciplinary space, resisting the narrow specialist dogmatism as a universal theme.

What lives - changes. I am lucky to be flexible and curious enough to not to stick with one idea (ideal, ideology) for long. Therefore, with a decade of distance, I can acknowledge a certain bias at that time, that I do not persevere with nowadays. I do admit that some of my writing was esoteric, "alternative", leftist and what not. The initial attitude I had might be easily compared to that stubbornness that many contemporary conspiracy theoreticians possess (and I had some taste in alternative explanations, or lack of experience with sorting out alt-facts), but, well, I did not stick with them, I kept a sense of perspective and soon moved in the opposite direction. Staying curious, staying critical. I might have started with some preconceived opinions, but I made an extra effort to research the diverse theories. Subtly, I shifted into the center.

I rediscovered myself as a "natural taoist" - not a religious person, but rather being "made" to see the world as a "harmony of contrasts". Avoiding simplifications and aiming for holding the complex nature of the reality. Shifting from (macho) proclivity towards competition (seeing it as a universal biological "nature") towards the cooperation and the inclusion of diversity. No hockey mentality, no Abrahamic take on dualism (who's right and who's wrong, who wins and who loses, who's first and who's last, are you with us or with them, are you for or against, are you on this team or that team) but rather trying to seek as many perspectives as possible and presenting their union as well as the possible intersections as the "state of current knowledge" and the Truth. And that I still deem as a needed skill, as scarce or as shunned as important. And an added value still valid to this day.

Taken from the other end, I see that many "professional" mainstream journalists and political or economic commentators start writing in the similar fashion (aiming for perspective, embracing the complexity, searching for the center between extremes, abandoning "right idea versus wrong idea") as I dared to do a decade ago. Well, they are the studied experts, those that "have the right to talk about those topics", their opinions (still simplified and half-way for my taste) are generally respected. A bit of bitterness, a bit of spite. You know that feeling: sipping the tea, watching the expertly machos arguing and competing, waiting until the "authorities in the field" come to the insight that you already have. Not because you are genius - I am humble enough to feel quite dumb most of the time - but because some perspectives (The Perspective) comes naturally to you. Being in-between is your nature.

Speaking of being "all-wise", as I got from zero to reasonably wealthy in two years, then in the four years of philosophizing and writing I spent all of my newly found fortune. Back to the zero. Was it necessary? Was it a reactionary if not slightly "understandable" compensation for the previous 26 years of "not belonging to myself"? Was it somewhat too extended? What I can say for sure, digging into the topics I processed felt like answering to the inner pressure, a spring of ideas gushing out of me naturally. It was a sort of trance, a state of being mesmerized, captivated, possessed, "feeling an urgency to manifest this", being in the flow - as I hear many artist describing when they are in the creative rage. Or those people who "meditate" when preoccupied with their hobbies. Perhaps this is my communication channel with the world - I was not gifted to speak, sing, paint, or express with my body in dance or sex - but I can write a 10 page "what's up?" email in one breath. I know, not that popular channel nowadays - everyone's saturated with texts.

Chasing the butterflies

In the last year of my Great Pause, getting already slightly tired of myself, the still water was stirred. Through the workings of Fortune, a friend of a friend invited me to work in a movie production crew. Yesss! Dream come true? ... no. Dream come nightmare. This happened to be probably the worst half-year of my life. I arrived in a role of the assistant director - in a film jargon: the lightning rod. Having no means to do anything, but being responsible for everyone else's insufficiencies and particularly those things beyond anyone's control. Aside of being a sarcastic cynic when typing, socially I am a harmony junkie. I want to be friends with everyone. I avoid confrontations, I suffer from the conflicts - even those unrelated to me, of the other people, probably more than those involved themselves. Here I found myself in a role opposite to my nature.

I was supposed to move several dozens of crew members to do the work they knew the best. To make sure it takes only as many minutes (literally) as the production scheduled. Talking into the work of professionals. Them having the industry education, the years of experience, me none. Imagine a devops person arriving in the operations room to manage surgeons. The mission was challenging: make them do it fast, but don't create any pressure. I was the n-th in a row of quickly replaced A.D.s, they - whom I was supposed to manage - were the irreplaceable staff of the company. Inadequate position to the task at hand.

Usually I do not flaunt my IQ or education, I try to stand for the excluded classes and underdogs - but here I was around mostly medium-educated and let's say "simpler" blue-collar co-workers trying to prove their superiority above that university-educated intruder. The intelligent people usually refrain from throwing their broader or deeper insights disparity into the face of less endowed. It is almost a folklore of the average trying to project conceit and dismiss the gifted people with phrases like "what do you think of yourself, that having schools make you something better?" Well, yes, apparently it does. The knowledge gives me perspective, complex insight, ambiguity - and therefore more compassion and restraint.

Even if I was invited to stay at the end, by some of the people I worked with (the less a star or pro one is, the more amicable and cooperative they were), I refused. I had enough of the provincial celebrities, their pampered dramas, poses, egos, needs ... and particularly holding the responsibility for other people's insufficiencies. Great artists, perhaps, but so hopeless in organization or time-management. I was disillusioned, because I was already losing probably the greatest love of my life - towards the cinema. I was not able to watch series nor movies for many months afterwards.

While doing the intense research for my website writing, I explored even more areas - particularly ecology, environmentalism, permaculture, alternative lifestyles, communities. It was a natural (pun intended) outcome of my ruminations on various tried and proposed political and economical systems. I switched to organic food, ecological products, radically cut my consumption habits. I started to get interested in the natural building and subscribed to a weekend workshop of strawbale and clay construction. I was running of money, but still stubbornly resistant to return to the IT or corporate world. A drowning man catches at a straw - quite literally again - in a sort of a last cramp I researched wwoof and helpex and workaway possibilities around Europe and applied for a stay in an alternative eco-community (officially: "a life without mortgage"), to help out with a strawbale house construction. I risked and traveled to Danemark with the last money in my pocket.

I lived in a strawbale outhouse and had the best sleep of my life. I worked hard for a month - and the family was so satisfied, that they invited me for a workshop with some of the world's most renowned lecturers in the field - for free. At the end they connected me to their friend in a neighboring village to help out on his organic farm, while still living at the family's place. Yesss! My green dream was coming true! Things started to fall in place finally. Then I fell - from the bike - just after the second day of my work.

I was alone on the farm that weekend, spent a feverish night during a great storm, then I had to hitchhike (first time in my life) to the hospital, where they found out I had a broken bone (first time in my life). I knew I had to return home, without any money, live off my mom again for a bit and probably find a quick and easy job in IT. Curiously, a wave of relief passed through my body. What was it? Why was I almost happy about another dream collapsing? Was there some unspoken tension with the family that I stayed with? Some dissonance behind the cold smiles? Or was this new dream too "heavy" to live - for my soul? Was it my own personal deity that summoned this punishment-liberation? The organic farm was a mechanized industrial-feel hangar with cattle, forklifts, huge food-ducts ... quite far away from your usual back-to-the-nature imagery.

Humiliation, humbleness and home

Next half year at home the relationship with my mother (being "on top" and abusing this position) got irreparably damaged. I applied for couple of IT jobs, mostly rejected, then was admitted in a junior system administrator role for a huge and evil corporation. The only benefit I saw was that there were no night-shifts. I underestimated my skills - as usual, I prefer to surprise than to disappoint people - but soon realized that I am still quite experienced. I started to help people out - and because of this, the managers chose me to become a team-lead. And I stayed in the team-lead role for next 9 years, appreciated, people even wishing to work "under" me. To my utter dismay.

I was not the most technically savvy person among several hundred of the employees in the department. Rather somewhere mid-level. Definitely the least interested in tech, of them all. But if I got involved deep in some technical problem, I was persevering and learned fast. In those 9 years, I have become one of the most skilled and technically productive workers, while having also the extra few hours of team-lead duties. Well, I got the best A&D evaluations on the team every year, my co-workers were looking up to me, managers were constantly praising me, they tried to promote me to the manager role already in the first year. And I refused, stubbornly, for 9 years.

Mostly, I felt like a total fraud. I even did not understand how I could be so good in this, if I had no interest in computers and the IT world as such. I was not a person that would join nerdy-techie kitchenette masturbation about the newest gadgets or trends, nor would I code or build systems at home, in my free time. I did not feel like possessing the natural alpha authority either - commanding and being obeyed. I let the skilled experts speak on technical matters. I was able to communicate, connect people with the right subject-matter experts, explain, mentor, train, or just send them in the correct direction. I was not rejecting them and did not manifest this self-indulgent narcissism that many of the tech-nerds professed. We had many of those, as well as the weirdos, asocials, psychopaths and whatnot. A kindergarten of the adult kids, with extensive technical knowledge, but poor soft skills. It was not that difficult to stand out.

I called myself "an omega team lead". Leading from the bellow - through being helpful, through service, through knowing where to seek for help, through not being bossy, through asking people nicely. Sometimes begging, joking, bribing. :) I admit that the tough experience of the film crew paid off. I even appreciated the usual normal hierarchy in the corporate environment. If you work well and don't create drama with various "bad boss" projections, you will be evaluated quite farily. And promoted. And rewarded. I asked for the lowest possible salary when applying - humble because of the gap in my CV - to find myself surrounded by many lazier and less bright people who got paid more from the very beginning ... because they dared. Nevertheless, in 9 years I was not asking anyone for any promotion or raise. I was not eager to climb up the hierarchy, I completely avoided the "corporate competition" that some of my junior colleagues indulged in. I felt a fraud and stayed low-key. If they did promote me, I thanked them, not promising anything. And I went as high as it was possible in that department, at those times.

I tend to interpret this weird experience in a way, that the key to my mysterious (almost unwanted) success was that I did not want to achieve anything. Total zen. Just being there. Allowing things to happen. No ambitions. No pushing. No zeal. I always felt like being there just temporarily.

The dance of escapes and returns

Let's talk "temporary". Originally I was repulsed by the idea of supporting the big bad capitalist corporation - I just wanted to get out of the debt and stand up on my feet. I despised the glass and steel buildings, the white walls, gray carpets, shirts with collars, air-conditioned open-offices. I particularly dreaded the moment when I gradually give in to the petty office culture and even possibly the worst: fit in. Well, a gradual transformation occurred, indeed. Though, the corporate culture was relatively civilian, our managers were as sarcastic about the fake enthusiasm around the great ideas of the chief officers - as were the employees. No one really acted and no one really pushed us to "submit" to the office fashions. We knew we are the "factory workers" with limited perspectives - and found certain cynical ease around it.

Many evenings, most of my weekends and all my holidays I could dedicate to the alternative activities: Permaculture designer course, cooking my own organic food, pottery, oven-masonry and scythe workshops, nature hiking, naked bike rides, European fetish scene, photography, writing, even discovering various communities - from the Rainbow Gatherings to the Radical Faeries. Particularly the last one was a sort of "discovery of my life", when a lot of life-long barriers miraculously fell - well, we call it a faerie "magic" - I experienced a spontaneous 180 degree turn in some aspects of thinking and acting, I got more vocal, comfortable in social environment, heard and appreciated, revisited my "you are such a hard worker" label and even managed to bite into my "inability to fail" anxiety. I found new friends and lovers, but also a bit of that elusive "conviviality" that I hunted (and that haunted me) most of my life.

I was enchanted by my new community, a secret world I had access to - that was far away in physical sense as well as in the human development one. Not only beyond Eastern-European attitudes, but beyond the western mainstream, beyond the gay mainstream, beyond your usual activism, beyond the deluded esotericism. And, quite important to me, after my childhood traumas, this was not any sect - there were no leaders, no ideology, no complacency, no forced smiles and positivity. A certain folly and a healthy humor around anything serious - from the garden work to the playful rituals. There was a space for tears, anger, anxiety, sadness, depression, withdrawal or dissent. A society of outcasts, made for us to bloom in our uncategorizable uniqueness. I can't imagine anything more far from your usual CV trivia - but in the same time more important as one's life experience, skills, patterns. I believe many of this spilled over to my corporate role - et vice versa - there was a "vivid conversation" between these antithetical spaces that I've inhabited.

The inbetweener ancestors

Of course, there's quite some theory behind faeries, their prominent figures - intertwined with queer history as such. One of the most inspiring discoveries happened during studying the anthropology works on the two-spirit people. I find this such a fundamental topic closely linked to the multipotentialite experience: Many Native American tribes recognized more than two genders in people. If a boy or girl did not fit the usual preconceptions of how boys or girls behave or what interests them, they organized a ritual for them. In a very early age - but those of us who remember where both our sexualities but also general interests started to diverge, can feel a resonance here. if the young one chose a "dissonant" tools, he was since then raised and respected as the third or fourth gender. Dressing up ambiguously and living the social patterns of the both prevalent sexes.

Here the story gets interesting. Since these people were believed to manifest both "man and woman in one body" (two-spirits), their purpose in life was to bridge and appease the male and female world (war of sexes). Two-spirits often excelled in the craft domains of both sexes, they were prominent weavers, cooks, pottery-makers, but also lead men to battles or tended to the wounded. Unlike men, they manifested more compassion, among women, they manifested unusual bravery. They were often less "hot blooded" and more wise, vocal. They did not necessarily compete and climb up the hierarchy to the tribal leaders, they were held in respect in their own specific role. Still they have become the esteemed authorities - to an extent that they believed that the tribal cultures would disappear without these people.

Being in between men and women, they were the natural "bridge", but not only between sexes, but also between the material and spiritual world. Hence, they've become the healers, shamans, rite-preservers, masters of ceremonies, storytellers - of their community. Not a "suffered minority" but a vital part of the community. Valuable because of their unusual uniqueness. In queer perspective - look at the cliche occupations that many LGBT people somehow prefer - caretakers, doctors (healers), scientists (knowledge preservers), historians (memory preservers), writers (storytellers), artists and presenters (masters of ceremonies) or even priests, sometimes. Less competition (compare with typical macho occupations: soldiers, sportsmen, stock-brokers) and more compassion, care, bridging, insight, perspective.

I can't say how this two-spirit topic resonates with straight folks. If it makes them more welcoming and even appreciating of the "weirdos" and "freaks" - awesome. Two-spirits are a historical reality (as the anthropologists say - "who experienced quite some constraints of their conservative culture too") but nowadays also a myth, not rarely adored and mystified by some queer folks. As with any other spirituality or religion, the role of myths is not to be 100% true in literal sense, but rather to inspire. Myths (or historical examples) are to be interpreted and paralleled to one's own life. There are universally applicable observations.

Compare the societies where "unusual minority people" thrive - the way how these communities get enriched and how they progress in any aspect of life - and the societies where uniformity and machismo rules and the minorities or dissenters are exterminated (Nazism, Communism, Middle East). The in-between-ers are a rare but vital part of any society. They really serve their role in the ecosystem. The communities collapse without their unique insights. Many of the generalists, polymaths, interdisciplinary explorers, multi-potentialities - possess the talents and can serve the role of these inbetweeners, bridges, peace-makers... or in those quite popular words: "those who hold all that mosaic of self-indulging experts together".

I saw many gay folks who got quite irritated by the two-spirit narratives. They don't want to be special or serve any unique roles, they just want to be let to exist, they want to be soldiers, sport stars, or IT technicians, they want to prove to the majority that they are capable of being experts and professionals and specialists and winners, that they are "normal" and "like everybody else". Well, maybe that is the storyline of their life - it is okay if they find satisfaction that way. And I think that the same way many straight folks who would not identify like as two spirits may feel the calling to be the inbetweeners, bridges, those who hold the world together.

For me personally, two-spirts or even the contemporary radical faeries inspired by them - were not the origin of my self-awareness. Just one strong and well described example of what I already knew.

Being in-between was my natural habitat.

As a kid I was stuck between at least two religions, but also the religious and secular-materialist outlook at the world. I was stuck between the urban world where I had to live and the rural one that I loved but visited only occasionally. Then I found myself between needing to fit in (belong) and honor my uniqueness (disagree, provoke, turn upside down - as a service to everyone). Later on between technical professional education/career and the humanist interest. Between straight and gay communities, neither of which befitted me fully. I found the good points both in leftist and right-wing economics, in liberal (explorer) and conservative (implementer) ideas. I love nature and wish to save this collapsing ecosystem - but I am not techno-phobic either and I cherish the scientific progress. I watch the world build on one-side idolatrous veneration of the competition (sports, school, work, family, even artistic competitions) in utter dismay.

My intimate proclivities are beyond monogamous. Polyamory is the concept that suits me the best. Poly - as holding love for multiple people, towards each one in a unique way. You know the book "ethical slut"? Well, work or love, that is me. My physical life is a story of its own. From gyms to yoga, through contemporary dance inspiration, physio-therapies, away from the competitive sports towards the MoveNat. A movement practice that cherishes generalist capabilities - playing in diverse environments, acquiring multitude of skills, moving with a purpose (not just to grown volume of muscles), body shape expressing the functional strength. I fell in love in it instinctually - even without thinking of its generalist theory.

When i was reading Dao De Jing for the first time, it felt like reading my own notes - including the side winks and jokes. So natural. When I saw the movies like The History Boys (a professor educating kids with an intentional folly and unspecific bits of knowledge, stretching over the disciplines) I felt like at home. Then I discovered all the two-spirit records. A soon afterwards I saw the Divergent movie (a dystopian society with the strict specialization, where the people who found themselves fitting multiple categories were persecuted) - and it all clicked together. Yes, those divergent of us, who have perspective beyond one field of expertise, who hold multiple spirits in our soul - are the rare but absolutely needed glue of the society. The less of us, the less space and voice for us - the more the community disintegrates into the egoistic experts pulling their ropes in their singular direction.

It took me some time to appreciate being a team lead in the corporate environment - but when I did, it was upon realizing the fact that I was in my natural "inbetweener" position - seeing into the kitchen of the management as well as the regular tech workers, hearing both sides, what grudge or expectations or "raised eyebrows" they held towards each other. If possible, trying to appease conflicts, offer them some insight into the perspectives/motivations on the other side. I had to convince the projecting conspiring employees that the "big bad bosses" were not plotting to exploit or harass them, but they were the human beings with flaws and families as well. And to convince the managers that some of these lazy psycho employees had also a positive and useful side too. Often it was not the capitalists versus serfs, but mean cunning colleagues who parasited on the work of their own peers. All this was unexpected but at the end very welcome insight into the complexities of the world - that I just experientially did not have when I started to write my essays.

Even being somewhere halfway between doing the tech work and people work felt somewhat "more tailored to me". Connecting all these half-autistic half-psycho fluffy arrogant IT experts. :) I was continually praised as a TL - often to my own confusion, I did not think I do it well in the sense of authority - but I was sought by people from my own and the other teams because they liked to cooperate with me (well, I was not your usual bureaucrat nor your usual all-too-wise expert). Being friendly and helpful came natural to me. I drew satisfaction from providing service ... unlike most of my more tech-savvy peers who rumbled endlessly on "how things should be done technically" or "why this or that is not their responsibility" or even taking mean pleasure dismissing customer requests based on some "rule #1234". I even tried to do a hesitant "coming out" to couple of trusted colleagues: "hey, y'know, I am not fond of IT that much."

The job that I took as a "temporary flick" in the very beginning, stretched into a decade (!) I never wanted to be there in the first place - and I think this lack of career expectations or ambitions to climb up the ladder proved actually the source of my undecipherable "success" (in the eyes of the others, I wish I saw it that way too). They praised me, they raised my salary, they did not want to let me go. Even better, after some time I got "on top of the things" and the job barely bothered me, it did not spill out into my private life - and I had time to pursue my more "humanist" interests. The Einstein model? I lived quiet, comfortable life, well paid. Every free moment, weekend, holiday - I escaped to the different realities. I was not able to quit this employment - that I treated somewhere between indifference and contempt - particularly because all those things that I was doing "after the job" or "besides the job". Toil and reward, toil and reward - what was the first, chicken or the egg? There was no time for job hunting. Hobbies were a band aid after the work, work was a means to get the band aids I was dependent on to be able to do the job. You know the addiction dynamic.

So when are you moving on?

I slowly started to hate myself that I had no strength or diligence to break the circle. For some time I appreciated "the conversation among the spaces" that I inhabited, but after some time the fact that I lived in a wrong country and worked a boring job in a disliked profession became quite prominent - and even tainted my free time endeavors. As much as I have learned that the corporations are not the Empires of Evil, but rather a peculiar assembly of scared humans (on every level) wishing to live as comfortable lives with as little effort as possible ... I also learned that many of the folks in esoteric spaces and communities who hate ["capitalism", "corporations", "mainstream", "urban world", "consumption", "technology"] have no direct experience with their nemesis, they have opinions and attitudes and not seldom delusions. I needed to get the lethal dose of esoterics to get sick of it - as much as the whole society does nowadays, with all the conspiracies, alt-facts, qanons, anti-vax and anti-western sentiments.

One of the things that prevented me from moving on was the size of the problem as I conceptualized it. Change the country (move to the West) - without having a particular preference for any city or continent, change the job, change the profession (if possible) - without being able to decide what is my "calling", change the circles of friends that got me to the brink of several mental breakdowns. All in one. This big heavy burden to deal with. Nothing felt more important than the rest - and nothing felt clearer than the rest. If at least one of the variables in the equation was a constant.

Then, there is this mystical dynamic, when one continues walking in the circles that frustrate them, spending a lot of energy (hoping that walking the same path a thousandth time will produce different results) that could be invested into productive search of a way out. Sort of internal paralysis, inability to make a move to make a move. Staying in the well-known comfortable numbness rather than risking the disturbance.

Going deeper, I know that most of my life I wallow between the rational skepticism and the need for some spiritual explanation, higher entity, or at least a plan, a path, a meaning. Spirituality pulls me from the darkest corners, but in the sun-light I am quite suspicious towards delusions. I cherish both the belief and the doubt. I cam to realize that I value "everyday practical spirituality" that seeks magic and transformation and depth in the mundane tasks, rather than in dramatic invocation and spectacular rituals. There is this odd supernatural quality to my life. Often I describe it as a Bad Luck. That is my deity. Take my three dreams - traveling, movies, green-pull - turning into the nightmares. Those are just cherries on the shit-cake. Can you understand my reluctance to make a move, push the life in a direction I think I desire ... and a will to rather move softly, wait for an invitation from life, an open door, that I would walk through? You know - the Theory of Flying or the Fingertrap Paradox? The more you push, the less it goes ...

Luck dialectics

However, couple of times when I ended up in unwanted place and occupation, it appeared to be exactly what I needed? Like my humiliating return to the IT corporation - that turned into the best time of my life (mostly besides that work). Like my first big depression, lack of interest in life whatsoever, a "nothing to loose situation", that has led me to the Radical Faeries gathering - the best experience of my life so far, that turned my life upside down in many positive ways? Should I really aim or attempt for something - or just take the life passively as it comes?

I remember this odd moment in my life, when I was in the faerie gathering - and there was this guy I craved for irresistibly. He asked for someone to help out picking some construction material, so i have joined him on the early morning ride to the town. We started to talk. In the town, the car fuel started to leak, so we had to take the car to a repair shop. We had some cakes and more chat on life. Then we were carried on the truck to another town, into a car rental shop, where we were stranded for 3 hours - and had nothing better to do than just exchanging perspective and getting closer. Then we were forced to go to yet another town to get a replacement car, but we had to wait for 2 more hours during the lunch break - so we had a fancy food in a beautiful historical center and got deeper in our exchange. This way we spent the whole day, till the evening. It was one piling-up disaster, beyond our control. But most of the day - we both voiced the fact that we have enjoyed this catastrophe. It was a story, and adventure - and an intimate connection built up in its course. Well, is this something I should learn about the Big Bad Luck? Trust in life? Going with the flow? I admit I still do resists.

Take the whole covid mayhem. Everyone was panicking - the isolation, the solitude, the home imprisonment - for me: first I was already used to the sense of deep isolation and solitude - among people and "friends"! - from all those depressions I went through. I felt a secret satisfaction sort of - towards all these social center-points, performers, stars and celebrities and narcissists who had to learn to live without their audiences. But above all I saw a natural opportunity, for the rebirth, remaking of the self - through solace, austerity, turning-inwards, self-reflection. The "lesson" manifested almost literally in the home imprisonment. Stay inside, be with yourself. So harsh, I know, so many of you had no practice with this ever in your life. The elementary skills: Being with yourself, in all it glory and dullness.

The covid situation interrupted many of my own dysfunctional friendships - and I realized that I can do the unimaginable - being alone. I ceased many of the humiliating, unfair interactions. It was not pleasant and in the same time it was quite necessary. And in the middle of it - well, my company discarded my whole department. My corporate "comfortable hell" - that i was unable to get out of - has ended on its own. So here I am again facing the well known dilemma: A guy who spent most of his life around IT, having no passion for it, having too diverging interests, unable to even imagine a possible second career.

I assemble the hobbies that held me throughout my life: Railways, cinema, writing, maps, psychology, anthropology, sexology and gender theories, history, politics, economics, graphics, several handcrafts, ecology + climate change mitigation, permaculture, natural buildings, spas + saunas + hot springs, cycling, community building, baking and cooking, linguistics, teaching ... just in the recent covid years I tried even leather-making and painting among others.

Do I want to turn any of these hobbies into work?

You know, some days I am thinking of trying to find a way how to fit in with the IT into some green company (green computing, carbon storage, ecological agriculture, railways, bike sharing), or becoming a tech writer, or maybe learning geospatial informatics. Crossing the experience (IT) with something of those things that I like (too, among others). But then I realize I might end up just sitting in a server room of a company XY again, troubleshooting machines, without much hands-on with those area that draw me. Anywhere, the roles are still narrowly defined. You do accounting, or code or troubleshoot, or clean the toilets or project management or business analytics. And I feel that familiar resistance. I am just trying to rape my hobbies. As much as I rape myself when I take another technical training to improve my qualification and fool my disinterest.

Even at the very basic level ... I am human being. I need a day job, a decent sleep, a humane work/life balance. Not that phrase from the HR templates. At least a space not to pretend that I have this enthusiast "passion" and enough time to follow my other interests. I want to do something that at least in a bigger picture - and I am quite capable of those - gives me a sense of meaning, usefulness, contribution to the social fabric. Perhaps a reasonable ration between manual and mental work, sedentary and active, indoors and outdoors.

I do feel that paralyzing anxiety that tries to convince me that this - being detached from employment as much as the relationships - is the best moment to make a move. That I have to "figure it all out" right away. That I am pretty much in the second half of my life and this is the last opportunity that I have. That I have to make one choice, the right choice, the ultimate choice. I also feel the need to settle and have some sense of security in the background. Stable, meaningful job that provides me with income as well as the satisfaction. I am not even sure if "settling" is the right thing for me - I just feel quite tired of this mess that I have been through.

I am trying to think of the moment when I was happy in my life doing something. Writing some of my articles, being totally absorbed in the concept. Or co-creating a few spectacular bathhouse or sauna events in faerie space - I got myself to the bring of physical collapse - but I don't remember being ever happier providing a service to the others and feeling satisfaction from doing the work. Should I pursue this a a career switch choice - and start as a floor sweeper in some sauna? Would that make me happy, or just ruin another infatuations, turn another dream into the nightmare? I see how the patterns and interpretations of my life influence my hesitations.

"Jack of all trades, masters of none." - used to be actually a praise once.

All these these things that could have been my professions, possibly, if I had made a choice and followed the career path diligently. But that does not feel me. Just the sheer thought of "choosing one thing" feels so alien to me that it makes me physically sick. I feel like a generalist being shipwrecked on the planet of specialists. Revered & overestimated "pros" ... in one thing only. "Great scientists who don't know how to tie their shoelaces." "Great tech experts unable of having decent human interactions." Yeah, it goes to an extent of certain bitterness. Still, I do understand that experts are valuable, necessary, "useful", as they drive progress in their fields - that we all benefit from. But you are not the only ones entitled to this planet. It's not yours.

I do also see a value in generalists - and myself too. It is being repeated in many copywriter texts - "connecting the dots", bringing the experts and departments together, finding unusual parallels, metaphors, cross-inspiration. Aiming for interconnections. We don't perfect one particular piece of a puzzle - we actually see the whole picture. I just don't know where I fit "in the picture" in the context of a professional world ... as a slightly introverted generalist, not a good public speaker, not possessing this elusive manager's "authority". And sometimes too honest ... and writalkative. :) Just if there was a little corner of the world (another sort of job board, HR branch, professional path) made for us too.

Describing myself in the CV and cover letters, I hit upon the ironies of the contemporary career lingo. If I write "generalist" - they think I am an IT generalist: "Like you love the IT so much that you know a bit of everything there, right?" No, like having multiple interests besides IT. "Oh!" Then they freeze: "So the computers are not you hobby?" If we get to the personal assets - well, "curiosity", "helpfulness", "service attitude" or even "fast learning" are my generalist assets. But who cares, since they have become the phrases that everyone is using. It's a thing to put in - regardless how far from the reality it is. That does not leave the generalist much space to self-advertise.

In that particular area of "expertise" that I have dealt with most of my life, there are some peculiar quirks. There is not so many IT people on this planet for so many IT jobs. Obviously, one would expect an incentive to lure in people from other areas of interest (or with other histories of education and employment) who might do the job well at the end, even excel in it, but without thinking about the newest programming method when falling asleep. :) Acknowledging this is their "job" and not "purpose in life", acknowledging the fact that they actually have a life (a different one!) besides the job - family, friends, adventures, books, stories to hear, crafts or even physical activities.

Activities and interests that are not just "some nice way to reset the brain" and "be more productive workers". My free life is not just a fitting complement to the career, to the company, to my work persona, that should somehow indirectly serve the business. "A burnout prevention." I don't go hiking into the mountains to "clear my mind" and "come back to the office refreshed". It's not an extension to my professional path. It is actually a part of my own real life.