Bookwormed

First a quick note. I finally finished the Baroque cycle, it's excellent and I recommend it as well as the collective works of Neil Stephenson, with the exception of the book Zodiac, to anyone and everyone.

Onwards to the point. So I have this book. It's supposed to be a series of surveys that help you understand yourself and the job market in preparation for choosing a career. It consists of these little self quiz surveys, a chart of the average results, and then a few pages talking about the subject of that test and the meaning of your result. It's all well and good for a normal person, but I've run into a few philosophical conflicts that I have with the nature of the book.

The first one was during the "Career salience Scale" test. It asks questions about the relative merits of career success and "finding the right person to marry." This is built on a preconception that I but heads with a lot, i.e. that Marriage is an inherent part of everyones plans. I'm not a nihilist rejecter of marriage, I'm open to the idea of it, but until I meet and fall in love with someone it's not even on the board. I also don't feel the inherent desire to be partnered up with someone that most people seem to. I can't say whether that desire is societal pressure or an instinctual thing, but whatever is driving it isn't affecting me.

I've also come across a lot of points where the books says that my lack of clear direction is okay as long as it's based on a breadth of interest, which it is. It goes on to state that everything will work out fine, but never says why or how. They do give the one piece of bullshit advice everyone gave me back when I was at UW, but it turns out that if you spend your first two years of college sampling various classes in order to pick a major you don't magically gain the prerequisites for that major, and nor do those unrelated credits magically become valuable.

In "Career Values" one question asks which you would prefer, a Job where you're free to make your own decisions, but not in a position of leadership; or a job where you're a leader, but not free to make your own decisions. I feel that I can say with confidence and without ego that I have been a leader, and from that I must say that anyone who isn't free to make their own decisions is not a leader. That's what leadership is. It's why people have leaders, they're the ones who decide. I respect and understand having both leadership and independence as scales on which to judge, but the makers of the test should realize that there is going to be some overlapping.

I have several problems with things I encountered in the "Achievement Motive" section. Let me preface this by saying that I was not at all offended when the test said that I have incredibly low achievement motive. I was expecting that, and pretty much already knew it. The book does offer some advice on raising it as well. It basically says that you should actively think about how someone with a high achievement motive would view the world, then actively convince yourself that it's the best way to think and that you're a better person for thinking that way. Does that process remind anyone else of anorexia? I'm not going to screw with the workings of my mind because of a book. If you're going to try and brainwash me you'll have to come do it in person. My other issue is how polarizing the test is. From the books perspective high achievement motive is inherently understood to be a good thing that makes you a better person and that everyone should want. Those who have it are sharp motivated individuals, and those who lack it are lethargic wretches that lack will and subscribe to a sort of occupational nihilism. The book is suffering from a bad case of western philosophy and can't see that my achievement motive is low because I'm free from desire. My scores have been painting an inconsistent picture because the test doesn't understand people like me. According to their surveys I'm someone who's highly prepared, creative, not a procrastinator, (I'm just as surprised as you) isn't afraid of success, and has a computer proficiency level that is literally off their charts, but doesn't value having a career and isn't motivated to achieve. These things don't line up until you understand that all I really want is the means and the freedom to pursue my diverse hobbies and intellectual/artistic curiosities. While I do think this book would be useful to many of my peers, those who fit into the group I call "Normals," all it's done is further convince me of something I've come to accept in these past few months.

My job, no matter what it is, will never be the central focus of my life, or something by which I can be defined. I am, and will always be, the sum total of my interests, hobbies, obsessions and addictions. And I admit that a person like that is unlikely to financially succeed in this world, but for me at least, that's stopped being the point a long time ago.