Left to my own devices, I keep busy, which is to say, if someone were willing to pay me to be me, they wouldn’t have to worry about me being lazy. Because I’m a lot of things, but lazy isn’t one of them.
I like to think I’m an interesting person (although clearly, self praise is no praise at all, so: caveat emptor), and I would keep occupied with learning and doing things. I have eclectic interests, so that would have to be okay. That is, I’m not going to drill down and learn everything there is to know about ancient Chinese philately. Right now, I’m experimenting with making herbal beers, about to roll out a new one made from roasted acorns and pine tips. I also like to make mead. I read a lot of poetry. I write. I’m learning about the symbols used in ancient alchemical texts. I’m sorting through the junk and crap and stuff that I’ve accumulated over the past 30 years and getting rid of it, slowly. This is a big, emotionally demanding task. I’m assessing my life and figuring out next steps. I’m spending as much time as I can walking outside in the woods. I’m learning about plants all the time: from planting them and killing them, from planting them and seeing them thrive, from books, from other gardeners, from friends and colleagues. Every week, I facilitate the writing and listening classes that I call Wellspring Writing. I’m working two days a week as a horticultural therapist with people with mental illness, which is valuable work to which I believe I am well suited. I’m lucky to be paid to do things that I enjoy and believe are meaningful and (I hope) valuable to others, but I find I should still be earning more scrilla. Thus my thinking wanders to this delicious, fantastical idea about being paid to do what I gravitate toward naturally.
I’m committed to becoming myself, because what’s the alternative? I die and then there’s a me-shaped space left behind in the world that was never properly occupied? That doesn’t feel like a desirable alternative.
However, on account of decisions made when I was younger, when I saw only bottomless opportunities and possibilities, I now have a slew of responsibilities that require me to constantly turn my attention to how to make more $$. Historically, I have not been that good at it, and now I face the very real possibility of working until I drop. Which means the things I feel drawn to—singing, collecting acorns to roast for beer, walking with my beloved dog Ivory—well, I have to try to shut all that off. Because no one is paying me to sing (believe me, I get why) or roast acorns or walk outdoors and note the change of the seasons.
I have no real compelling argument here. Why would it matter if I’m myself as much as I can be or not? What’s the impact—either way--and, given the world we live in I must ask this question although it’s abhorrent to me to do so: Can we put a dollar value on my being me? Because if we can’t--uh oh; I think probably we can’t--I don’t really get to do it, do I?
Except, I do think it matters. Every person that’s genuinely himself or herself, that gets to be himself or herself however he or she manages to arrange it, does all the rest of us a favor, adds some chartreuse and magenta to an otherwise often monochromatic world.