Full-timers vs. Part-timers

                                                                  ☐ Full-time                   ☐ Part-time 

Whenever I come across these two checkboxes in a job application, somehow the full-time checkbox is never an option. It’s almost like I have this voice in my head, once my brain recognizes that that says “full-time”, it immediately says “no way”. I’m even going to venture to say that sometimes I feel a sort of fear seeping up within me merely by seeing the word “full-time” being a choice as I come face-to-face with having to tick in one checkbox, which is hardly a dilemma. 

I know what you are thinking: you’ve never worked or even considered a full-time job? And you must be thinking that in the most (be honest now) condescending way. 

Even if I were to tell you to consider that I am finishing my bachelor degree within four years, I, myself, am not even convinced that to be the reason why a full-time job hasn’t been an option to me practically or psychologically. 

Having given out a few résumés recently in search of a part-time job that is not related to my studies in particular, but a more or less mindless job, the process of job application really got me reflecting on the emphasis of temporality I place in these potential jobs; not only are they part-time, but when I really think about it, if I were to get hired at one of these places I applied to, I don’t have any long-term plans with this part-time job, nor will I ever. When I see photos of cubicles and a working space in the offices where some acquaintances are currently working full-time (presumably) on Facebook, with captions like “Monday blues”, or “survived the first day of work!”, the first thing that comes to my mind is something along the lines of “a full-time job in that cubicle, for how long?”. Then at some point, I got to think about myself and my future career (and all that), because work is work, I will eventually be bound to settle at a job, a full-time job, which I will wish (or feel the obligation) to maintain for as long as I can. Now, why is this such a repulsive realization? 

There was one day when my friend and I were having a coffee during our stay in Heidelberg, Germany, and we got talking about “full-timers”. At that time, being on the verge of turning twenty-one, we were joking about how we were definitely full-timers when it came to partying (I know, forgive me), and we joked about some friends who were absolutely only “part-timers” in the same regard. It really is funny, almost in a bittersweet way upon thinking about this bit of memory from my travels, because I realize I’m definitely not a full-timer in so many aspects of my life. Potential relationships, now I would call it “just hanging out”; jobs, sprawled and part-time; prospective city to live in, most likely won’t be staying there for more than two years. Is it genuinely merely the fact that I believe in change being the only constant, and I would henceforth participate in merging the ideal of “flowing water never stales” with my lifestyle, or is there a part of me, to put it most simply, that is not willing to settle (for something, for anything)? Is this some kind of commitment issue, you reckon? People say “20’s are your selfish years”, though there is a distinction between being selfish and being a free child who is ultimately afraid of settlement, stasis, and either possess a fear or a disbelief of the notion of forever. 

Simultaneously, are we to be called selfish because we truly do not want, or unadmittedly, are simply afraid to invest our precious time, energy, and faith in one job, one relationship, one address, where anything can go wrong, because things tend to rot over time and familiarity? Or purely because we wish to experience everything else we do not have already? Assurance and certainty are nice things, to a certain extent only if they are predictable. Unfortunately, settlement involves risks; risks that involve possibly taking a toll on our emotions. Risks like guaranteeing time and space that we have no control over, feeling the obligation to have a “home” because that’s what everybody else does. Furthermore, there are always more than only one path that we have a choice over. When you take one path, which if is slightly less than what you desire, then you cannot help but wonder the what-if’s: what if you took the other path? It is most correct to think that there is no such thing as a right or wrong decision, but it is how one deals with it afterwards. After all, though, can you truly say that you don’t think about the other possibilities? And, what is so wrong with thinking about what more you can have, and achieve? Why settle for anything less because of the time being, or of moments that only last for the moment? 

Real Noises from BECKstravaganza

Check out my contributing article for This Is Vancity on a local performance of Beck's new album, Song Reader:

http://thisisvancity.com/content/real-noises-beckstravaganza-vancouver

Presencing

I want to write. That’s what I’ve been thinking about all day today. So I will do that now.

I didn’t have a topic particularly in mind that I wanted to write about, but I know I want to write, so surely. What does that mean? 

Logically, perhaps I’m just trying to make real an act I have, in my head; an act that will result in a product, that is not necessarily tangible (how much of our interaction nowadays is in fact tangible, anyway?), but definitely something that is perceivable. Something solid in an abstract sense. 

That, is my idea of presencing. Making something present.  

I recently learned about the Miltonian belief of the soul and body being one from doing some close reading of Paradise Lost — the inseparableness between physicality and spirituality. To Milton, there is something very physical about the spirit and the soul; similarly, tangibility in everything around and of us is indeed very much integrated in our mind, in our spirituality. This oneness and this sense of unanimity intrigues, because it is so interrelated with what we do diurnally. 

Think: when you’re simply walking down a street. The motion of your feet in your shoes stepping carelessly over whatever is on the ground. Every blink of an eye, a slightly different frame of picture per millisecond. Turn around, and the view of what is behind you was where you were perhaps just a minute ago. If you are really thinking about this, and apply the same concept to another mundane scenario, how strange and mind-blowing is the concept of presence? It is absolutely not absolute. Presence in fact takes on an extremely inconstant place in reality. How are we ever 100% present? 

Human beings are naturally moving subjects. The ability and intellect that allow us to do all sorts of interactions with each other prove that we are not meant to be habitual to one single space throughout our lifetime; we are beings in motion. Naturally, though, we also attach to our surroundings so easily. Sickly, powerlessly easily. What do we do then? We try to live in the moment and be present. We came up with measures like time, attention levels, grades in exams, and ideas like commitments. Things that will merge our wandering selves and minds with something unmoving and lifeless. In turn, these mixtures become meaningful to us, because now we have attached a sense of significance to them, and they somehow rightfully reflect our presence. We essentially frame our presence into a stable; a concept tainted with a sense of restrain (from–either the mind or the body—being elsewhere) and self-control. However, presence is a fragile thing. Presence exists in the second, the moment—the space in time that cannot be captured nor measured. Presence represents a form of attempt in merging the spirituality and physicality of oneself, including the space one is in, together. 

Absence, in contrast, carries far more concreteness than presence. 

When something is missing, or simply not there, the actual absence, the outline of the person, object, feeling...whatever it may be, and the emptiness derived from it appears to be much more apparent and present than the memory of him, of her, of it physically being there. 

It entertains to think that we are constantly creating something, even our own presence. Presence can only be treated, realistically, in a very abstract sense. Meaning, you may probably never have my full attention, nor may I have yours. 

Now, consider this simple example of another way presence presents itself: having a meal in a group. We are capturing a sense of space and making a time that has the potential to be memorable together as individuals. The process of sharing captures it. We make present a sense of presence of a group, in which there is interaction, and of space and time. The presence of the meal, the people, and the particular time of the day is framed into one in the moving world. Isn’t this a magnificent thought?