how not giving a fuck perpetuates not having anything about which to give a fuck

I went to a job fair recently. I had 40 resumes in my bag to hand out to school administrators whose human resources smiles almost sent me running fast in the other direction. Rather than run, I resorted to a dignified saunter. The first day I stayed for about a half hour before making the hour and a half drive back home. Three hours on the road for one half hour pacing amongst tables housing an administrator with little posters and presentations advertising the respective features of the administrator's school: this is pretty much how tolerant I am of self-pimpery. "Networking" to me is synonymous with getting into a car and driving it into a wall at say thirty miles an hour, backing up, and doing the same until self or vehicle is no longer capable of continuing.

My ego is as big as anyone's, as is my penchant for seeking vengeance on those who prove me to be less than equal to the proportions in which I am cast in my mind's eye. But in formal settings, when suits and ties are present, my loquacious-when-I-wanna-be self becomes averse to responses that stray beyond the monosyllabic and later I tend to lash out at unsuspecting, uninvolved service-industry employees to whom I end up profusely apologizing. The second day I lasted three hours, visited ten schools out of a possible one hundred and something, and spent most of my downtime reading Sonnets to Orpheus as others in line exchanged strategic advice that sounded more like attempts at sabotage. The conversations with the administrators I did approach went fine, but the entire project evinced the sense in which my not being independently wealthy, in combination with my tendency to expect the world to hand me whatever I want, tends to not work very well.



My point in bringing this up is the numerous instances in which "fuck it" has been my fallback response to situations that call for grace, magnanimity, and effort, with a dash of fakery thrown in for good measure. So instead of traversing through a crowd of jobseekers and dancing the self-promotion dance, which may open a door I would like to enter, I circle around the edges of the pack trying to make sense of the motivations some of these people must construct for themselves and occasionally thinking up hypothetical motivations for myself that fail to stimulate anything resembling intestinal fortitude. I submit that I am not so much lazy as self-destructively ambivalent. I know, I know - poor me, poor college-educated white male transcendent subject me, to whom many gifts were bestowed and from whom "society" and individual gift-givers received not so much as a thank you in response.


I don't mean to register a complaint here, because the fault - if "fault" is applicable, and I think it is not - belongs to me, nor do I mean to register unhappiness or distress. I guess more than anything I'm curious as to whether others do cost-benefit analyses and come to the conclusion that low-key low-pay is better than hectic high-pay self-compromise. That's even too generous - I'm not even curious about others. I'm completely absorbed with my own propensity to shelve a concerted plan of attack in favor of spontaneous acceptance of some option that happened to open up. School is the outlier here, because for whatever reason I could always summon enough gumption to put forth what needed to be put forth.

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." Two cheers for that. Or maybe I'm just looking to put a little gloss on an otherwise ceaselessly dull habit I have cultivated.

[SIDENOTE, A TOUCH MORE POSITIVE: This little job fair was at a college, and walking around campus avoiding the other attendees reminded me of the fundamental exquisiteness of the female form. Gay guys, straight girls: how can you like men? How is it possible to choose men over women? These women, these college-age women fucking SLAYED me. I live out in the boonies, and it is a rare occasion for me to lay eyes on a female form upon which my eyes have not yet laid, so that may have something to do with it, but early spring across the campuses of America must be just about the best time and place to sit back and take in the various tableaus. I came to the occasion armed with an altogether appreciative attitude, not lascivious intent, for I adore, I do not objectify. Big ups to creative ponytails, big thick chunky shoes, men's dress shirts (on girls), and sustained eye contact over chest high book shelves.]