The Real Work [by Gord Sellar]
It's very difficult to decide what to do with one's life. I mean, once one has figured out in general what one wants to do. The filling-in of blanks is so hard, takes such precision and thought. I despair of managing it, really, sometimes.
There was a time when I was young and had all kinds of ideas about how I could help others change the world. This period spanned from high school until about a year into my first marriage, and then the weight of an unhappy pairing, plus the general weight of my own depression, pulled me apart. I've come to see that period of time when I was busy pulling myself together, and then holding myself togther, as if it were a kind of temporary diversion from the real trajectory of my life.
But what that real trajectory is, I'm not really sure. I know that it has something to do with politics, though I am torn inside between direct action and something more arcane, something articulated in my writing. I was telling my girlfriend tonight that I imagine myself writing a few works of philosophy, including one of moral philosophy and one of political philosophy. But I wonder what good such writing can really do? Within one's lifetime, very little, I am certain. And in a span of time longer than that, I am just as dubious.
After all, my ideas are nothing new, as of right now. Most expats would agree with me that the current American Administration is insane, for example. They'd laugh and note that the number of people who agree with Bush is, in proportion to the world, very small indeed.
But then again, for me the culture war of Right vs. Left has always seemed somewhat of a distraction from a far more crucial war that needs to be waged in the modern world (or is it postmodern now, or something else yet again?) is the war to pry apart business and state interests. Whomever I mention this to usually recieves it with a little surprise, but not at the idea itself; it's an obvious idea, really. The shock they express is at the size of the project. My girlfriend looked at me with wide eyes and asked me how I planned to bring that about. I told her frankly I had no idea beyond writing about it, and at this stage of the game, that so few people were consciously aware of the problem that it might be most important at this stage to be writing about it.
But will that make any difference? Who can know.
So then what is the point of writing about it? I suppose it's just that this is one thing I know I can do, one thing I can do well, and it's something I feel I need to do. Perhaps gut instinct is merely the purveyor of arrogance. But perhaps, as with a few instances in the past, my gut instinct is actually right this time.
And so I suppose I shall follow it, and write on all of this... provided I can get blogging out of my system and settle down to do some real work.
Or is this, what I have just written, part of that real work, too? Hmmm.
* * *
Gord Sellar is a Canadian expatriate living and working in South Korea. He teaches English, plays sax in a band, and contributes to The New Sophists' Almanac (www.newsophists.net) as well as running his own website (www.gordsellar.com). He can be reached by email at gord [at:] gordsellar [dot:] com.
There was a time when I was young and had all kinds of ideas about how I could help others change the world. This period spanned from high school until about a year into my first marriage, and then the weight of an unhappy pairing, plus the general weight of my own depression, pulled me apart. I've come to see that period of time when I was busy pulling myself together, and then holding myself togther, as if it were a kind of temporary diversion from the real trajectory of my life.
But what that real trajectory is, I'm not really sure. I know that it has something to do with politics, though I am torn inside between direct action and something more arcane, something articulated in my writing. I was telling my girlfriend tonight that I imagine myself writing a few works of philosophy, including one of moral philosophy and one of political philosophy. But I wonder what good such writing can really do? Within one's lifetime, very little, I am certain. And in a span of time longer than that, I am just as dubious.
After all, my ideas are nothing new, as of right now. Most expats would agree with me that the current American Administration is insane, for example. They'd laugh and note that the number of people who agree with Bush is, in proportion to the world, very small indeed.
But then again, for me the culture war of Right vs. Left has always seemed somewhat of a distraction from a far more crucial war that needs to be waged in the modern world (or is it postmodern now, or something else yet again?) is the war to pry apart business and state interests. Whomever I mention this to usually recieves it with a little surprise, but not at the idea itself; it's an obvious idea, really. The shock they express is at the size of the project. My girlfriend looked at me with wide eyes and asked me how I planned to bring that about. I told her frankly I had no idea beyond writing about it, and at this stage of the game, that so few people were consciously aware of the problem that it might be most important at this stage to be writing about it.
But will that make any difference? Who can know.
So then what is the point of writing about it? I suppose it's just that this is one thing I know I can do, one thing I can do well, and it's something I feel I need to do. Perhaps gut instinct is merely the purveyor of arrogance. But perhaps, as with a few instances in the past, my gut instinct is actually right this time.
And so I suppose I shall follow it, and write on all of this... provided I can get blogging out of my system and settle down to do some real work.
Or is this, what I have just written, part of that real work, too? Hmmm.
Gord Sellar is a Canadian expatriate living and working in South Korea. He teaches English, plays sax in a band, and contributes to The New Sophists' Almanac (www.newsophists.net) as well as running his own website (www.gordsellar.com). He can be reached by email at gord [at:] gordsellar [dot:] com.
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