In Defense of the Renaissance (Wo)Man

A few weeks ago, an old associate of my father's invited me in to his very prestigious, very successful advertising and marketing firm for a chat. I intrinsically understood that this was a casual chat, but I couldn't help but hope that a job in some form might miraculously materialize out of this meeting. I went in with high hopes in spite of myself and the downward trajectory that my job hunt and self-esteem have been on lately.

When I sat down to chat with the man, a Steve Jobsish clone in his mid-fifties who invited me to have a cup of coffee while he selected a 5-hour Energy for himself, I quickly realized that the conversation was not going to go the way I was hoping.

Don't get me wrong, he was a lovely person, amiable, cheerful, funny. And he had nothing but glowing compliments for my father. For me, however, he had ADVICE. This wasn't a job interview; this was rapid mentoring coupled with just a splash of showing off. I do believe he was genuinely interested in helping me work toward gainful and sustained employment, but what he had to say was so depressing, I barely made it out of there without crying.

"Specialize," he said over and over and over again. "Position yourself to be an authority on something. In this location, that's insurance. Go home. Do research. Start a blog on insurance - you can choose the focus - and write about it. Read about it. Comment on it. In six months, you'll have a job at one of the insurance companies. I guarantee it."

He perused my resume. He came back again and again to the fact that I never specialized. "If you're good at writing, run with that. Good writers are always in demand. If you focus on, say, property and casualty insurance, you'll always have a job. Money isn't a bad thing, Courtney. Once you make a good living, you can do anything you want to help others."

It was unnerving how well he read me, but then, my MA in human rights isn't exactly an ideological smoke screen. Knowing this, he pegged me pretty quickly, but it still threw me for a loop. We talked for over an hour and he gave me a tour of his extremely cool offices. He wished me and my family well. I went back to work, and when I got home that night, I shut myself away and cried for two days. It was the day before my 29th birthday.

Honest to Dog, I cannot think of any one thing I'd loathe writing about for the rest of my life more than fucking insurance. I tried to follow his advice, I really did. I spent nights hunched over my antiquated laptop, trying to digest the legalese and handle the mental equivalent of eating a fistful of Saltines at once. I started a blog on insurance. I got as far a choosing a witty title (Five for One) which is from The Tempest, and screwing around with possible layouts that announced "ALL YE WHO ENTER: THERE BE INSURANCE YONDER." It was gray.

I've spent the last three weeks in a pretty serious depression. Planning my gardens for the coming planting season has provided some respite, but little solace when I have to putter in to "work" again, a nameless temp, mindlessly loading meaningless junk mail orders into a nearly anachronistic computer system. The irony of this would be downright comedic only if every time I went to laugh, a strangled sob didn't come out instead. A veritable stranger offers me sound and valid advice, and all I can do is mourn the soul of a person I once thought I was.

The truth is, though, that there's nothing inherently wrong with being interested in a vast array of pursuits. Indeed, were I alive a mere 150 years ago, and male, and wealthy, I'd be pretty fucking fancy. So essentially, I wouldn't be me then, either, but George Elliot made it work for her, and that's really saying something, even if I did find Middlemarch to be an interminable slog.

There was a time when "Renaissance Man" was a compliment. When possessing capability and alacrity in various fields was seen as not only impressive, but aspirational. When being your own accompanist was important, particularly when making your own music. And when it all boils down, that's what my real issue is; I know the songs everyone else is singing, I am just listening to an entirely different genre.

And we are told the lie from childhood that independence of mind and spirit have a place in this world. But I've been shown time and again that what people really want are clones of their own egos, mirror minions of their own passions so that their closely held beliefs remain unchallenged. (How the fuck else do you explain Glen Beck?) And perhaps my job as a temp is perfect training for that, since it is slowly beating anything resembling thinking out of my person, one order at a time.

But I also know that I will never really change. I am too curious, too interested, to emotional to relinquish the independence in me that is entwined with those passions which flood my brain on occasion. I'm too offended by the injustice of existence and the willful ignorance of mankind to give up. And perhaps that means that my entire life will be one fraught with struggle, both internal and external, but at least I can say that I tried it all. Almost.