The mythologies of our lives

[beetiger]

Every time I go on a job interview -- and with my upcoming layoff, I expect to go on quite a few of them --I get the opportunity to present the story of how I got to where I did in my career, from where I started. It's kind of an unusual story, as I'm inventing foods with a Masters' degree in Neurobiology. But I can tell it multiple times in a day, if I'm at one of those interviews where you see a new person each hour, or if I'm at that kind of a cocktail party. The myth of Victoria's career path. It really has become a strange little piece in my personal oral tradition. The same little phrases always get used. "I realized that I didn't really have the attention span for basic research, so I decided to do something more applied."

I find my life, my memories, slip away sometimes, if I don't tell anyone what has happened to me. But stories I remember. Sometimes I find myself narrating my life in my head as I live it, as if I were telling it to someone else. Telling my story instead of living it. Instant rewrite. But anecdotes change, with time. They leave out the bits that don't fit nicely. They get pacing, phrasing. Better composed, and less related to the events that drove them. I think most of my old memories have been transformed into their storytelling versions. Those that haven't are mostly gone.

I started this LiveJournal thing kind of dubiously. I have a deep-seated fear of being tedious in public. But I'm enjoying journaling more than I thought I would. I'm enjoying writing, and although I hope that someone is enjoying reading, I'm not as worried about that as I started out. I'm hoping not to lose as much of my future as I have already lost my past. The stories on these pages are composed, certainly, and intentionally so. But at least these tales are young.

I believe in paying for web services that have value to me, at least as long as they haven't succumbed to the hell that is banner ads. I wasn't being cheap by starting my membership free. I was being tentative. But it seems the folks here still don't have a paid sysadmin, and they deserve one. So I'm committing. $25 isn't a super big deal for me right now, thank the gods.

Please let me know which paid features are worth using, those of you in the know.

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying; sometimes, I find that I remember the story about the event, how to tell it, how to bring it off with an earned arf, instead of the actual event.

My favorite paid feature is setting up your own journal style. Not that mine is all that exciting, but there y'go.

Journaling We Go

[awolf.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way you do about LJ (and about Mental Rehearsals, no surprises there), but I'm not obligated to donate yet. I gave them $15 at the beginning, I think. Something like that. Never used the registered features.

Trickster