23rd February
2007
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Because it’s what i was raised to do.
[Trevor says] Watch this Josh, I get to edit. You have to give us more. And while I agree that you are completely correct, you either tell us this or give us a narrative breakdown of Killer Clowns.
Last time I spoke with Josh he said, “I work for dualstar entertainment because growing up I knew I wanted more, I understood that the design work of tomorrow was being created…”
Now, I am not being a dick or patronizing, all I am saying is give us an answer or I will be, your pithy remarks will not stand, sir.
Because I have to support a family. Because to jump to something else would require knowing that that other something else would be better than the situation I’m in right now. Because maybe it’s not what you do, but your acceptance of where you are and what you’re doing now that determines your happiness. Because I’ve got plenty of shit to work on, explore and figure out with myself before I change the control group (my job). Because I’m good at it. Because I make money.
cp. There should be a edit link to the right of your name in the comments. Umkay.
Trevor, I just had a bunch of friends get various body parts pierced for their quarter life crises. Not too life-changing, but an option.
I do what I do because I feel a responsibility to improve this place with my particular skills and interests. And my options are ocean conservation research or working with children in crisis. I have always had a particular fascination with the ocean, I get to learn all day, and I don’t really know if I could handle dealing with all the emotion of the second option day in and out. This one is fun, but a lot of work.
If I ditched the responsibility I feel, I really could focus on having a lot more fun in life, but I also would feel a lot of guilt. Maybe that comes from seeing my mom working her ass off, and feeling that I must too. But for me, I want to know that this work has a greater purpose. She did it for her kids, probably left over baggage from being poor growing up, but also because she’s a workaholic who doesn’t really cultivate all the other parts of her life. Anyway, my point is that what we see growing up probably affects this choice as well.
On bad days I dream of staying at home and decorating, cooking, reading, shopping, and being social all day. Or of organizing people’s shit for a living. Or buying stuff on the cheap, fixing it up and selling it, ala Amy’s Attic. But only for a second, because I don’t think I could really do it.
it’s all part of god’s plan…. and it’s wrong to question god’s plan, right?
Brett, there is no link.
There is no spoon.
pedro, you’re a punk for giving that answer. and trevor, you’re a punk for not hassling him about it.
stoppel, you’re just a punk because you are.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, i’m out.
First of all to understand what happened to Killer, you gotta understand who Killer the Dog was…
Pedro, you ARE a punk, but we certainly wouldn’t know what to do with you if you served in any other role. So ignore the donkey and “press on regardless.” [In the same spirit of playing our roles, though, you really should have been yelled at, and you know it ;]
I’m looking for some more answers here, people. Let’s go! Who’s next?
why must we label everyone? only god has the clairvoyance to know who is and isn’t a punk. let’s all take a moment to pray on this…
so in all seriousness, i am who i am and i do what i do because of my siblings and my recreational habits. it’s hard to stand out when you’re constantly in the shadow of your older, overachieving siblings. they were good at math and science (and everything else) in school, so i was good at math and science… they became engineers, so i became an engineer… they earned various masters degrees, so i earned various masters degrees… in the end, i needed to prove to someone (someone named me) that i was as good as they are/were.
as for my recreation, it’s what keeps me sane and happy. you know… instead of an asshole, I’m just a son of a btich (or punk if you will)…. an angry, depressed, overworked, son of a bitch. (but who can sympathize when you do it to yourself…) did i say i was happy? must have been a typo.
very good, very good. I like the honesty. And hi Peter, I didn’t know that was you until recently.
no more for me. i have to go write my proposal. and by write, i mean actually put something down on Word file.
I do it for Happiness…who doesn’t want to be happy? Party AND BONUS if what makes you happy makes others happy too. WIN-WIN!
Usually, there is a 50/50 chance that things will turn out well. That’s worth working at a crap job…at least until you can own your own business, become your own boss, or convince the powers that be that “Dang it! You deserve to do what makes you happy…on a daily basis”
Everyday, there’s a chance that, EUREKA, you will find your path to happiness…probably going to be a long road, but I like to pretend it’s yellow brick…perhaps I will find my way home someday.
Granted, sometimes dreams don’t come true, and not all people can be president when they grow up….o wait.
pete, i gotta tell ya man, that was heartfelt so i rescend the punk comment. i was outta line.
additionally, you’ve motivated me to give a real answer to the question as well…
1. because everything that i do requires approval i am constantly being approved of.
2. because what i produce is more important than who i am i can be the grey man (re: CIA).
3. because i can make something where there is nothing, (which is the most powerful feeling in the world for me because at heart i am a control freak) and creation is a small act of (perceived) control.
4. because with every single asset that i produce i leave a mark, however small and insignifigant, it makes me feel less small and insignifigant.
5. because i am, at heart, a very two dimensional, shallow person, the visual aesthetic is easy for me to understand and i can then turn around and lord an equally creative explaination over others who are whole people and who do not understand aesthetics.
6. because everytime i have to produce something there is a problem to be solved and in so solving that problem i feel smart.
7. because i hate myself i am able to sit at a computer for hours on end, for people i don’t like, for a cause i don’t believe in, because i am punishing myself for even being here.
the answer to that question doesn’t get any more real than i’ve just laid out.
now, was that answer really better than the flip answers that i’ve been giving? who’s to say.
in a city of people who are so fake that they’re real, it’s all i can do to hate them for being fake, but really, they’re just a reflection of me, which is what i hate the most.
and that’s why i do what i do. but the gemini in me says i’ll have a completely opposite answer tomorrow.
CP, dig deeper. I know you have a family, a good job, and are exceptionally good at what you do. You are one of the most talented persons that I have met. What drew you to being a computer geek instead of a musician or a cyclist? Everything we do takes time to develop, why did you decide to invest your towards computers?
Liz, I feel your pain. Responsibility is a bitch. It would be nice to drop everything and go live naked in South America on a beach where there are no f-ing American tourists to drive up costs of living. Bastards!
Pedro, I have somewhat of the exact opposite thing going with my brothers. My eldest brother was a nobody in high school. He was good at sports but didn’t have the confidence to push for what he wanted and to let his talent shine through. My older brother was a phenomenal athlete. He was one of the stars of our high school. With a little more size, some good guidance, and a little different life circumstances, he could have excelled as a college athlete. As for me, I shunned sports. I was good, but that didn’t matter. I wanted to forge my own path. I still have that mentality,which is why when I apply for high-position jobs I don’t use my network of friends and acquaintances. That ends up fucking me. I want to stand on my own. Some people just don’t like that.
LaLaLiLoLa, happiness is a pretty vague idea. What is satisfying one day won’t be in a year. External happiness is a process that requires clear and open communication. Personally, I haven’t found too many people that communicate clearly. That makes relying on job, circumstance, and people hard to attain happiness. We constantly rely on others to provide what it is that we need to be happy, and, most likely, they’re not that interested in making us happy. Internal happiness is also a process, but at least we get to define the terms better and rely on our own minds to provide for us.
Alupa, I don’t think you really hate yourself. I think you are being flip again, which is fine by me. But, I know you believe in what you do. I know you like being creative. I know you path in life requires that you suck it up and do what you’ve got to do to get there. You are also very talented, smart, and funny. I truly believe that you will end up where you want to be in 10 years. You’ve just gotta keep working for it and stay externally positive. Honey and vinegar.
Trevor, I think you should become a psychologist. You are very passionate about helping people figure themselves out. Plus, you’ve got a built in clientèle right here
You can start with me. Why am I such an a-hole-e-o?
I do everything because I need to be better than everyone else, and I need to be able to prove it. If I can’t be crushingly triumphant, I won’t thrive and I don’t want to play.
We have been answering the question of why we do what we do. But there’s another question about why we’re interesting people who like each other–why we are who we are socially/personally. Who are you? That is, I think, another kettle of fish. Discuss.
psychologist, trev? what does that bring up?
feelings of inadequacy, depression and hate? (just to be clear, I was answering Liz as a joke, not directed at anyone else)
That was a good point, Brett. Trevor, you have to admit that figuring people out is one of your hobbies. Hobby psycoanalysis, KU basketball and reading in the bathtub. Maybe advising is a way for you to do this without admitting it to yourself?
As to the ‘who are you?’ question… Who here can verbalize this? Not me. And if I did, would I be describing who I really am or who I want to be?
Trev, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
There is certainly some truth in that Liz, however, the ideas/academic part of it is hugenormous.
I see happiness as neutral. Not Manic, not Depressed, but a state of equilibrium between two extremes. It is the daily effort to maintain that equilibrium (wherever it is and whatever it means to each person varies) that matters to me.
The goal-setting, the lists to be checked and discarded, the physical, emotional, professional, and social goals to be reached are bittersweet conflicts, life.
Failure is a powerful lesson. So is achievement.
With every “bitter” situation that manifests itself in my life, I believe there is an equal and opposite force of “sweet” somewhere. It likely already exists, and I just need to adjust my perception to see it.
Is this who I am or who I want to be? More often than not, it’s who I want to be. But, with every minute there is an opportunity to change that….and then, there’s always Happy Hour;)
You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. (oh but damn, doesn’t it feel like it sometimes?)
Dillon, I feel ya brother. I now have 3 monitors I stare at all day. But at least I balance that with 2 windows. Although they look at a parking garage. MWA HA HA HA HA.
Trevor, could you get a phd in psychology and then teach a class sometimes, figure out people’s problems the rest of the time? U get academia+psych.
LaLaLiLoLa: reading any buddha lately? Your outlook seems very similar.
c to the p,
does smoking him count?
There is a great song by Dave Matthews called “Dancing Nancies.” In it he talks about what he could’ve been. Well, here is my list of could haves. I could’ve been:
an architect,
an astronaut,
a teacher,
an industrial designer,
a blue collar worker,
a businessman,
a mechanical engineer,
a philosopher,
an actor,
a guitarist.
But I am none of those. I would love to be any one of them. I would love to be all of them at the same time, but alas, life doesn’t work that way. Ultimately, I am a person of moderation, of the middle, a jack of all trades. I don’t have any one extraordinary talent. I not particularly captivated by one cause, one project, one right way of life. I am average to above average in most things, and I like that.
I am also a person of ideas. I love ideas. I love thinking, I love the theoretical, the impractical, the fringe. Having many approaches to a problem is invaluable, and for me, ideas lead to approaches. I like to exercise both sides of my brain, though my corpus callosum doesn’t let the communication between the two flow very fast. I like creative, spontaneous thinking nearly as much as I like technical, analytical thinking. I like people. Supposedly I am introverted, but I really don’t think I am. I enjoy conversations and hanging out with friends.
I guess the sum of all of my likes and life’s happenstance guided me toward being a webby. I like what I do. I get to design. I get to program. I get to analyze data. I get to write. I get to manage people. I get to do a lot of the things that I like in life. Usually, I feel lucky that I am where I am. Sometimes I want more and different, but I think that is my alter ego, subconscious, man of the middle screaming to get out.
I also think that (lack of) influences and role models had a lot to do with the choices that I have made. I never had a great counselor, adviser, or mentor. I still crave a mentor to help me sift the gold from the sand, but finding a person that is interested in helping another person is difficult, especially when you are 31 years old.
All in all, I do what I do because I fell in love with my work and have made good and bad decisions to get myself where I am.
And I’m spent. (BTW - this post was three rough draft pages longer, but I won’t subject you to that. Count your lucky stars.)
I do what I do partly through careful crafting of my life, partly from sheer luck. Luck introduced me to the company I work for, which coincidently opened a new office in Minneapolis, at just about the same time that I finished researching cities and had decided to move here.
More basically though, I do what I do because I’m damn good at it, I get to play and laugh each day, use my imagination, and solve big and small problems. I get to see bright smiles on the faces of the kids I work with, and watch as big breakthroughs happen in their reading abilities. I like to think that I grow brains. The work I do actually helps my students develop new neural pathways in the visual part of their brains that allows them to process language more efficiently. Who doesn’t think that’s fucking cool.
But I’m with Brett that there are a million other things I’d like to or could have done given a different set of “coincidences”. I’d love to be a geneticist or an artist or an art historian or an astronomer. For now, I’m mostly content reading about these or puttering around in an amateur way (with art, not genes). I’m counting on the mid-life crisis, though, as a good excuse to go down a (radically?) different path someday.
Because it beats anything else I’ve ever done…
[…] wondering if there were updates, thoughts? […]
Christ, Trev, in retrospect this is odd: how do your cousin and me, your female friend, both know you love to read in the tub? Weird.
It only takes about a week of living with him to realize he’s got a bathtub fetish stronger than any woman I’ve met. Or a few months of him not returning calls to finally learn where he’s been.
So after 2 years of not having a bathtub I’ve finally got one again. And after about 7 years, I’ve got a man to clean it too. That’s one of the great luxuries of life - a man to clean your tub.
A man to clean your tub. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Cheeky Monkey.