The Heart is the Final Frontier

Be Brave Timid Explorer

Space may seem like the final frontier but the truth is that this distinction lies a bit closer to home than we may want to admit.  However you choose to define frontier, I believe the word aptly characterizes the heart.

Frontier can be defined as:
1. the far-flung limits of knowledge
2. a region of sparse habitation, or
3. a border between countries

I assert, dear reader, that the heart is more mysterious to an individual than any number of complex mathematical equations and questions of science.  A person with a PhD in theoretical Physics will understand things that even the mention of would make my poor brain ache.  And yet, even such a lofty scientific mind could still be utterly baffled by the heart.  Their own heart could betray their rational mind and seem as foreign and bewilderingly complex as any intellectual discipline ever could.  I suggest to you, dear reader, that the heart is the final frontier.

1. the far-flung limits of knowledge
The heart is at the far-flung reaches of our understanding.  No matter how knowledgeable you or I happen to be in a particular field of study, we can still be caught unawares by our hearts.  I don't know about you, but I have often been confused and frustrated by my heart.  There have even been a rare few moments in my life where the realisation of what my heart wants has made my breath catch in my throat.  But the worst of all, are those days I feel lost and restless because I cannot even tell what it is my heart wants; knowing only that it desperately seeks something.  Something I can't quite grasp.

2. a region of sparse habitation
And it's not like there are any road maps in there because the second definition is also true.  The heart is sparsely populated.  It's just you and that crazy desire for whatever it is your heart has decided you need.  There are no friendly locals to point you in the right direction.  You and your heart just have to wander around in your solitary desert til you figure it out on your own.  And trust me, the longer you are lost, the more your heart thinks it's dying.  It certainly feels like an inhospitable desert place in a broken or lost heart.

3. a border between countries
Let's face it, the heart is the border between two completely separate countries.  It is the border between rational and irrational thought.  It is an individual's private frontier.  The battle between head and heart is not new to many people, and yet, it is still as violent and hotly contested as it ever was. Perhaps the real struggle of adulthood is deciding which battles to fight.  It is a lucky individual indeed that has a very quiet border at the edges of the heart's kingdom and the crossroads of reason.  Maybe it is only my experience in life, but it is very rarely that my heart desires things that my rational side can agree with.  More unfortunately, my heart very often wants what it absolutely cannot have.

And why is that?

Why does my heart seem to only want those things it cannot have?  No, want is the wrong word.  It is too tepid.  Yearn is more like it.  Why do I desperately yearn for opportunities and realities that cannot and never will be mine?  Why can the heart not accept it's own fate and calm down for just a few minutes in it's restless beating and longing for the things that cannot be?  My heart and head are almost always at war with each other.  Perhaps it is true of all of us.

Courage of the Heart?
In the end, you almost have to admire the heart.  I mean, it has a single mindedness to it's longing that is almost courageous.  Well, it could be called courageous in other people at least.  Maybe you could call it courageous in yourself if it wasn't making you so miserable.  A body could almost learn to resent their heart some days, what with all the sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, pondering the things that might have been, or could still be; the way that miracles could still bring about that one thing you long for so desperately.

Bleary-eyed, coffee-filled doses of morning reality could understandably reduce even the most rational person to hateful thoughts toward their softer side.  If only they were colder hearted, less of a dreamer, more rational, they silently chastise themselves over sips of piping wakefulness...  If only they were these things, they sigh with resignation, they might sleep better, feel less weary and less plagued by life.  If they weren't so irrational they might feel less at war with themselves on the border between desire and reality; less lost in the wilderness of emotional turmoil.  If only they could turn the heart off or around and care about something practical and achievable.

But Nooo!

The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants
The heart wants what the heart wants.  Everyone will tell you this.  They quote Emily Dickinson as if it explains everything away.  But they forget the rest of the line.  "The heart wants what the heart wants, or else it does not care."  The hearts wants, or else...  If the heart doesn't get what it wants it throws a perpetual tantrum to make you miserable because no matter how you wish it otherwise, you just can't care about things your heart doesn't want.  And, if you remember, the heart is at the far-flung limits of our knowledge and it's sparsely populated.  So, you're alone in there with your heart throwing a tantrum that you have absolutely no idea how to stop.  You just get to sit in your barren desert of a heart, all alone, until it finally loses the energy to throw such a monumental tantrum.  This, depending on the tragedy or misfortune, could take days, or even years.  Years of feeling more alone and isolated and desolate than you can even imagine. (That is, more desolate than your rational side would think possible, when it finally has control.)
 
Follow Your Heart?
People will quote this line to you; "The heart wants what the heart wants" they say.  They will do so in a flippant matter like this single quote explains everything.  Well, of course you're miserable the heart wants what it wants.  It will pass.  Or they sometimes manage to imply that you should follow your heart.  But neither of these sentiments are of comfort.  Why does the heart want what it wants?  Why can't it want something that it already has, or something that it could have?  Why must it long for those things it cannot have?  You cannot simply follow your heart when the object of your heart's desire is, in actual fact, impossible.  You may want to sit on the edge of the moon and breathe freely, but it doesn't mean you can.  You may wish for one more hour with a loved one, but no one can turn back time.  You may wish for eight arms, or a new personality, but you cannot snap your fingers and be a different person.  And, no, your misery does not get better by simply acknowledging that the heart wants what it wants, or that it cannot have it.  You already know these things.  Misery doesn't come from your lack of knowledge.  Misery comes because your heart is simply incapable of caring about daily life or anything beyond the one impossible desire it is yearns for.  So, you sit and wallow in your state of uncaring for anything else, because the heart doesn't compromise.  It wants what it wants OR ELSE.

Emily Dickinson knew this.  But those people who quote the first part of her line nearly always forget the second and darker truth.  Emily, they frequently forget, was a woman much beset by grief.  She knew intimately the depths of a heart's pain.  She watched many loved ones and friends die in her lifetime and she struggled with deep depression.  Her line is not a flippant statement that sometimes your heart is unhappy but you'll get over it soon it enough.  There is no "soon enough" for some pain.

Your heart does not simply let the head win or stop wanting impossible thing in exactly two weeks time.  You cannot sit your heart down and lecture it saying "Enough is enough", or "Come, now let's be rational.  Things aren't going to change.  Let's make the best it".  No.  Your heart won't listen.  It doesn't care.  No amount of reasoning with yourself and your heart makes the pain go away.  No amount of reasoning helps your heart to care about anything else when it sees no hope and no future of happiness.  The heart cannot be appeased by mundane trivialities.  The pain settles in for a long and merciless winter hibernation; the sort of winter that perhaps there is no waking up from.

Heartbreak, heartsick, heavy heart, heartache.  Why do you think there are so many words that have to do with temper tantrums of the heart?  And this doesn't even include the wealth of words to describe the emotions including anguish, sorrow, and misery.  Everyone deals with grief and heartbreak at some point in their lives.  Sadly, as the heart is at the limits of our understanding, nobody has figured out a way of making these times any easier.  The heart has a great capacity for joy and love and caring, but if it doesn't get it's way you may have a long road of apathy and anguish ahead of you.

Don't Follow Your Heart
A lot of soul searching, or heart searching if you will, has led me to the conclusion that I do not even know my own heart.  It has layers of wishes and desires, some of them obvious and others latent, hidden even from my own awareness.  I think that the best way to be at peace in life is to somehow reach a balance whereby your heart concedes that current circumstances are not permanent and that hope for future happiness is always a possibility no matter how bleak the day may be.  Letting the heart live in the moment and focus only on despair is too dangerous.  Hope can be a tricky ally, but it is far better than the heartache of despair.  I am not an expert on these things and I still get caught unaware by the sudden tantrums of my heart's desires and apathy... but I am trying.  Trying to understand.  Trying to work towards hope.  Trying to lead my heart out of darkness, but never follow it there.

My advice?  Don't follow your heart.  It doesn't know what it's doing.  Prepare yourself for battle on the frontier between your heart and your head and remember that you will be going in alone, dropped behind enemy lines with no intelligence or maps.  All you will have is your wits and your desire to survive whatever storm your heart is experiencing at the moment by sheer determination and perseverance.  It won't be easy.  But don't give up.

The Heart is a mysterious creature and despite the fact that nobody has figured out how to neutralize it, you probably wouldn't want to live life without it anyway.  No matter how dark today may be.  Chin up, have courage.  If you cannot manage to care about anything in the world today just remember that you are not alone.  We have all been lost in the depths of our heart's despair at some point or another.  If you're lost there now, just allow yourself to be sorrowful.  Tomorrow you can work on finding just one thing in the world that is not bad.  Perhaps the sunlight through a flower, or a best friend's company.  Tomorrow you can slowly try to remind your heart that the world hasn't ended.  Today, you're allowed to just be sad as long as you don't give up altogether.

So, farewell, dear reader, and be brave in your explorations into the final frontier, the Heart.

I Should Say Something...

I should say something.

But what is there to say?

No words ever spoken

Could help allay the pain.

I should say something.

But what is there to write?

No words ever written

Could help to make this right.

I should do something.

But what is there to do?

The gates of heaven opened;

But no mortals could pass through.

I should say something,

But words just will not come.

My uncle gained the heavens,

While we are left undone.

I should do something.

But all I have is prayer?

There is nothing I can do now,

Except sit and dwell in prayer.

With God, with hope, with something in my heart

So heavy that my breathing seems to stop and start.

I don’t understand His timing but I try to trust His plan

All I pray is peace and healing in the shadow of His hand.

Have I stepped into a Western Film?

Boardwalk, train tracks, Town Square complete with gazebo, this is clearly a Western town.

Hello?  Is anybody there?  No?  Fine, I'll just address these queries to the ether then, shall I?  I'm assuming by your silence that you are not in charge of the madness here.  That could be a rash assumption, true, but what else am I to make of it?

Nevertheless I demand an explanation of some sort.

To start with I'd like to know how I ended up in this strange western film.  I don't remember auditioning.  I clearly remember packing my things up in London and traveling across the ocean and then the continent to arrive in California.  I remember that my visa was up and I had no choice but to return home.  I remember that California was drier and less green than I'd recalled.  And then, I remember waking up here in some sort of strange western film without John Wayne in it to lead the action.  I do NOT remember an audition.  When exactly was it that I was selected to play the heroine in a western film?

Again, train tracks, boardwalk, small house from Gold Rush days.  This feels like a film set.  It can't be my life, can it?

So you're choosing not to answer I see.  I am assuming by the protracted silence that you are denying such things are, or could ever be, true.  People do not just wake up in Western films you say with your decided lack of words.

In this dry western desert I struggle to grow any flowers.  Note the overwhelming amount of dry dust around.

And yet, here I am.  I live in an old farm house, parts of which date to the 1880's.  There are chickens running around in my yard and I have to worry about defending them from the coyotes.  I stamp my boots on the mat to get the dry brown desert dust off of them and I have found a hat indispensable in this hot sunny climate.  I had to chase a "bad guy" out of my house the other week as if this were a lawless town where help and the sheriff are several miles ride from here.  I stomped across a board-walk last weekend to listen to the community band play in the town park's gazebo.  And there are lots of little tumbleweeds growing in my yard.

Tumbleweed!!!  I am growing tumbleweed!

Two months ago I was living in London and now I'm chasing criminals out of my house and raising tumbleweed, dust and chickens.  I used to stroll down wrought-iron lined pavements and now I'm stamping along wooden board-walks.  Two months ago I neatly side-stepped inebriates on London's streets and now I listen for the howl of coyotes before I let my cat outside at night.

Sometimes it all feels like a terrible joke.  Except I'm not laughing people.  So, if you happen to be in charge of casting, or you're the director, or some such nonsense, I have a few things to discuss with you.  Firstly, I would like the bad guys to stop visiting my ranch and busting in through my door.  John Wayne isn't here to help out with the brawling and jailing of said nasty individuals.  Until he is I will not stand for any more intruders.  Secondly, I'm not sure why you cast me in a western, but I'd like the plot to change a little.  I'd like a little less madness if you don't mind.  Not to mention fire.  Why is there always fire in a western?  This southern California film has been no exception.  I'd like to request a cessation of fires as well.  And if you happen to throw in a few strokes of good fortune and maybe give me a job or money I won't complain either.

Well, that's about all for now.  I've got to go corral a few chickens and herd some tumbleweed before I sit peaceably on my front porch watching the sun as it sets over the desert hills.  And I need to ponder the acquisition of a horse.  If I'm to continue living in this western film I may need one.

The Case of the Stranger at the Door and the Cowardly Cat

It was early, at least by my standards. Ok, fine, I admit it wasn't early. It was a little after eleven when I heard a loud knock at the door. It had to be loud for me to hear it because I was sound asleep at the time.

I had stayed up late reading and between seven and nine in the morning my cat had tried everything she could think of to make me get up.  She didn't need anything of course, she just enjoys an audience while she eats.  I, however, refuse to wake up so that she may dine a la russe.  So, I tried my best to ignore her and finally, after a two hour battle, (that involved her devilish tricks and muttered curses from my pillow) I convinced her to curl up at the end of the bed and sleep.

I don't know what you're talking about.  I'm totally innocent and all my desires are needs.

So, that's where the two of us were at eleven in the morning, both completely contented and asleep, when someone pounded at the door with enough force to startle us awake and get the blood going.  She looked about wildly while I checked the time.  Mother should still be at Bible study.  Perhaps it was a neighbor, but it was rather loud, much too loud for one of our friendly neighbors.  Wouldn't it be just my luck if the "bad guys" had come calling this morning I thought groggily.  No, it must just be someone here about the bathroom construction.  Maybe they have a quote for the house paint or the window.

I tore myself from my cozy bed to peer out the window and decide if I could reasonably ignore the person at the door or not.  I couldn't see anyone downstairs by the door and thought they'd given up and gone back to their car.  When I tiptoed to another window for a better view of the driveway and their little car I thought I heard another knock.  Clearly, with a normal little four door car instead of a truck this wasn't a construction person, and yet they didn't seem to be leaving either.

I put the nearest coat on over my pjs and resigned myself to greeting whatever neighbor or friend believed that eleven am wasn't too early for a social call.  They would be wrong about this of course, but there is just no stopping some people.  On the way down the stairs I called over my shoulder to the cat, asking if she was coming, since my presence downstairs had been her only goal for two hours that morning.  She was tiptoeing behind me.  That's odd I thought, still half asleep, normally she races down the stairs with me.  Then as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard a sound that almost made my heart stop.

Who me?  I'm certainly not a coward and I wasn't tiptoeing either.  I was clearly stalking the criminal.  Yes, that's what I was doing two feet behind you.

I had heard this sound before, years earlier when we had a different cat.  Some said she was a devious cat.  I just said she was the devil.  She would wait until I was alone doing work in the kitchen after everyone else had gone to bed.  Then, and only then, would she approach the door from the outside, reach up, and jiggle the doorknob.  It scared me half to death every time she did it and she seemed to know that.  This time the noise was a little louder, but I knew without a doubt that the person who had knocked a few minutes ago was now jiggling the doorknob.  They were trying to get into my house!

I was afraid in that moment.  They clearly didn't know I was home as they had knocked to see if anyone answered and waited some time before trying the door.  I had taken my sweet time to decide if I could ignore them or not.  They had assumed nobody was home and were now trying to get in.  But subconsciously this thought kept my terror in check because I knew they were not trying to hurt me.

There was the briefest of pauses and then I heard the door give.  I knew that they had just shouldered my door open by force, and I had just heard the door jamb break.  The knocker was now inside my kitchen.

There was no doubt as to their intention now.  Thinking the house was empty the would be criminal intended to rob the place.  And yet the moment I heard the door give in I stopped being afraid and I stopped thinking.  I knew they were in my house and I knew with a ferocious certainty that I had to get them out.  I flew around the last corner with rage at their intrusion building in my chest and I shouted at the top of my lungs "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!".

Did she say intruder? Hide!

The intruder was a young man standing about my height (so not very tall) just on the kitchen rug, all of two feet inside my house, his eyes wide with shock as I came running at him, pj's flying, bed hair flying, with rage in my voice.  He immediately turned and with an "oh shit!" ran out of my kitchen and headed for his car.  As I reached my door I shouted "Get out of my house!" one more time before chasing after him across the porch.  He got safely in his car and began to leave before I could catch up to him, which is just as well because I don't know what I would have done with him if I had caught him.  Still full of adrenaline and rage I memorized his license plate numbers as he pulled away picking up hasty speed around my driveway and left my house.

Then I stood there as the adrenaline let-down started to make me shake and the shock of what might have happened set in.  I called mom to let her know I was safe but she insisted on leaving Bible study right away to come home.  The older ladies in the Bible study group were shocked and terrified that I would chase an intruder.  So worried in fact, that one of them drove by the house later to check on us and make sure we were ok because she couldn't get over the idea of me chasing out a robber.  I'm now infamous at church as the "battle daughter," my mother's new term for me, who chased away an intruder.

She is only fierce when she's pretending to be a lioness.

The next thing that had to be done was to call 911 to report the break in.  This led to a long morning of police statements and the dusting of our doorknob for prints.  The police officers were all very kind and offered suggestions and advice for home safety and personal safety.  None of these involved me chasing after criminals in the future I might add.  They assured me that the best thing to do was to trust my instincts.  If you think it's a "bad guy" then call 911 right away.  Don't wait til they break in and don't chase them.

And they are right of course.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be aware of the potential repercussions of my actions.  I was lucky.  In future I'll be pleased to call in support before I need it.  It's far better to let the police chase away the intruders for me so I can stand aloof in the background with my cat while we wear identical expressions of dignified abhorrence.

And despite all my light-hearted joking about the matter, I am serious.  I know I have a rich imagination (evidence found here), but unfortunately this really happened.  My hands shook after the fact and it ruined my day.  And it has made me a bit more cautious.  And if it happens to you, do call the police.  I only joke about this because I am safe and it is over; and I think that often the only choice you have in these situations is whether to laugh or cry.  Personally, I refuse to let somebody else make me the victim.  So, I shall laugh at the comical image of my cowardly cat slinking behind me as I chase out a robber in my pj's.  It did ruin my day, but it will not make me subject to fear.  That's no way to live.  Ok, serious side all dealt with, I shall return to my farcical description of real events.

So, let this be a lesson for all people.  Some of us take our beauty sleep very seriously.  If you have the nerve to awaken me, and my fiendish cat, from our slumber I assure you that you will have awakened the sleeping dragon.  And if you are a would be thieving scum bag, the police will be more than happy to escort you to your new home. 

Transplantation: in which I have been moved

This is a simple post.  It has only one purpose and that is, namely, to inform the unfortunate souls who have stumbled upon this blog of a single fact.  No, wait, that's not quite right.  If you had by some great misfortune stumbled upon this blog you probably wouldn't be reading this post.  Most people stumble into things by finding peculiar images, and I admit that they abound on this blog.  Or perhaps by finding unusually mad titles associated with some term they've just searched...

Sunset through the fruit tree

No.  If you're reading this post, it would seem likely that you are in fact a reader of more than one post.  And the only reason for that must be madness.  Why else would you be reading this?  Well, I suppose you could be here out of curiosity.  This blog is sort of an online zoo for madness.  All manner and types of madness are present here, expressed in my thoughts and the absurd things that always seem to happen to me...

But I digress.  Whatever the reason you are here, and I'm sorry you must have put up with so much already, I must inform you that I have in fact moved.

I am now situated amongst the rolling hills of southern California.  I no longer have the good fortune to live on the rainy and perpetually cold island known as Great Britain.  I do enjoy the sunshine here in southern California.

Hey, where did all the rain go?

But I miss the history and vibrancy of life in London and I really don't enjoy the constant fear of wild fires.  But my transition to life here is for another day.  I merely wanted to inform you, my poor unfortunate reader, that I am now living here rather than there.

Now that I have done so, you must excuse me.  I have things to unpack, mad tea parties to host, and chaos to involve myself in. 

An Ode to my Mother

I cannot even express how thankful I am for you and all you have done for me.  I hope that my brother and I were not too trying for you as children.

But to thank you for everything you have done for us, I am offering you this song.  I know it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm not there on your birthday.  But I hope it makes you smile.

I love you and I'm remembering all the fun we had growing up with you as our mother.

This is for you...

Get a REAL job? Excuse me?

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, I am proud to invite you to the world's best showing of complete and utter MESS.  Tonight I present to you a thing of such pathetic and poor construction that it must be concluded that amoebas have better design, higher purpose and more dignity.  Allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to present to you.... drumroll....

MY LIFE.

I know, I know.  It was in my last post that I made a decision to avoid people til I had calmed down and found some peace with myself and my fellow man.  However, I utterly failed.  I was not able to bring myself to publish this post til just recently, but you will not believe the disastrous timing I have.  One day I vow to calm down and avoid conversations about my state of unemployment, and then, on the very next day, this happens.

I went out to buy food.  A seemingly harmless pursuit, wouldn't you say?

Wrong.

I did not know it at the time but this very act of leaving my house for food caused me to fail in my resolution and left me not only speechless but also horrifically angry and depressed a mere handful of hours after the commencement of my noble and clever plan.

The journey to the shop started well, as with most things that go unaccountably and terribly sour.  It was a pleasant enough day and I began with a stroll to the post office.  Along the way I met a pleasant man and we shared a short conversation, near a particular (one might even say renowned) stretch of pavement, about how concerned and terribly saddened we were by the 2pm appearance of rowdy inebriates. We shook our heads, exchanged pleasantries, and wished each other a good day when we parted a few minutes later.  All in all a good journey so far.

The post office was found precisely as expected.  The queues were orderly, the stamps cheap, and the post satisfactorily sent on its way.  This letter was only a few days late in being sent because I am not always prompt at replying to letters and even less so at actually posting them.  That matter concluded, I admired some of the decaying grandeur of another age, mentally taking pictures of the pleasing architecture, even if it was covered over in peeling paint, and I made my unhurried way to the store in order to procure essentials.  Shampoo and laundry soap made it into my basket along with a few various chocolate consumables and the few "good-for-you" foods that completed my shop.

I was feeling productive and happy.  So far everything had gone as I had hoped.  Everything was uneventful.  I made the long walk home and was pleased that my troublesome elbow was not causing me too much pain on this day.  It was not long before I arrived at my corner of London.  I made it inside my building and then, I noticed the people.  The people waiting for the lift.   

Which people, you might wonder?  Well I hardly knew that I would be so violently opposed to them in a few minutes, but here they were.  A couple, slightly older, and a solitary gentleman, they waited with me silently at the door to the lift.  The couple had also been shopping and when the lift door opened we had a bit of bother fitting all four of us and our shopping bags into the lift comfortably.  It is a narrow lift and it is usually best for me to be at the back as I live on the highest floor, as did they apparently.  The solitary gentleman said nothing and exited on the second floor causing a bit of reshuffling and a comment from the older gentleman that it was a bit like Piccadilly Circus in our lift with all the bumping into people, coming and going, and never seeing the same person twice in the building.  I laughed politely and he decided to continue this conversation.

Glancing at his watch the older gentleman noted the time, then glancing at me and noting my age and shopping bags he ventured this comment "It's a bit early for you to be off work, isn't it?"

My mistake was in acknowledging this question and answering it politely "Yes, well I'm unemployed at the moment, unfortunately."

Had I learned nothing?  Did I not listen to my own rant and impassioned decision to avoid this situation and this conversation?  No, apparently I did not. (In my defense I did expect them to leave the lift any second and leave me in peace).

He replied "And what would you like to do?"

My second mistake was to answer again.  You see I have been raised to treat my elders with respect, which includes, in my book, being polite, truthful, and not refusing to engage in seemingly polite conversation. So I said this "Well, I would like to work in museums".

The grey haired man's tone changed at this and he practically sneered "What as a museum cleaner?"

I politely replied "No, more curatorial work"

At this point the older man turned towards the lift door as we were nearing the 19th floor where we both lived apparently and muttered something about people these days wanting all these fancy jobs.

The lift door opened and with excellent dramatic timing he wheeled his shopping trolley out of the lift and shouted, without even looking at me "Get a REAL job!" as he stomped towards his door.

Then the woman with him jostled past me, hitting me with her shopping as she said "This is the 19th floor" as if I would have forgotten when I also live there, making no apology for the rude comment just shouted at me, and left.

Speechless I exited the lift and stared at their backs as they entered their flat to the right of the lift while I fiddled with the keys to my flat located just to the left of the lift.

I entered my flat feeling horrible and angry.  He asked me what I wanted to do and then told me it wasn't a real job.  Not a real job?  Every curator across the world, who has studied for years, and then works for years, to preserve the history of the world for you to see would be truly thrilled to learn you do not view their jobs as real, I am sure.

He may have been excused for saying I should try to get a more entry-level position or a more basic job if I had waxed eloquent on the difficulties of finding museum work and whinged about this being the sole reason for my unemployment.  He certainly cannot be excused for such a comment when he asked me what I wanted to do.  A personal question about my preference or desire, my dreams and career aspirations should not be met with such judgement.  What right does he have to ask?  I should have told him it was none of his business in the first place.

How dare he ask me what I want to do and then assume I'm not trying to apply for anything else.  He asked what I wanted to do.  I told him.  He shouted at me.  I cannot imagine a scenario in which this is acceptable.

And what in his mind qualifies as a REAL job?  People who get paid are engaged in real jobs.  I could say that I want to be a professional cloud watcher and he could scoff that I should get a real job.  Nobody I know of gets paid to lie on a hill and watch clouds.  But that's not what he meant.

He clearly didn't think highly of cleaners with his little sneer.  And cleaning is a productive and taxing job, certainly real, and it contributes to society.  So, what does count?  Is it that no education is required for a cleaner that makes it a job to sneer at?  I'll have you know that to be a heavy objects handler in a museum, a manual job, you must have certificates in the use of forklifts.  I have two degrees and I am not qualified to do their job.  However, if education is the requirement, curators typically come with quite a bit of education.

Perhaps the real problem in his mind is the so called "fancy" nature of it.  I'm guessing he thinks I should get a job in retail because museums are too "fancy".  Or maybe he thinks that something in business is better.  However, it is typical for business jobs to require education too.

I think what he really means is that my goals are too lofty and I should settle for a more basic entry-level position and job.  But he has no idea what I've been applying to.  How dare he judge me that way based on an innocent answer to a question about my preferences.  And if I apply everywhere else what is wrong with admitting that I would prefer to work in museums?  Excuse me for having aspirations and dreams.  Pardon me for wishing to put my fancy education to a good use in a fancy job.  

I had to stand in the lift and the hallway with a man who thought it appropriate to pry into my life and then judge me without any knowledge of the particulars of my circumstance.

He might be pleased to know that I have accepted a retail position where I work full time babysitting books and customers you do not seem to understand alphabetical order.  I wonder if he thinks that working myself to the bone lifting, moving, organizing and selling books is a real job.  The reality is that I get paid and it is a real job, whatever he may choose to say on the subject.  And the truth is that I don't care.  Now that I'm not emotionally vulnerable, i.e. unemployed, I really don't care what he thinks.  Or what anyone else thinks.  It may not be my dream but it does pay for my chocolate habit.

And as for all those people who have anything to say about it.  I give you Roy from the IT Crowd...