In a recent conversation with a friend, she explained to me that while she was job hunting, she spent a lot of time speculating about potential workplaces. She wondered about the people, the culture, if she would like it, what she would do there, if it would be better than her current position. The questions filled her mind, circled incessantly, and made her feel insane. After getting that elusive new job, she discovered that the people in her new company were smart and regular, the work was fine (but still work!), the company was probably managed better than her old one, and on the whole life was… normal.
But the wild questioning was over. That was a relief. She wasn’t haunted by all those what-ifs and maybes anymore. Whether there were expectations, met or unmet, seems to be a secondary issue. The important thing was the choice—to take the leap at a new job—and the simple ability to make that choice.
This reminded me of a mantra I used to hear often as a kid: All America Wants Is a Choice! It turns out to be sort of true (for more than just an “American”), but in a much more nuanced way than the mantra indicates.
The mantra implies a binary choice—this or that—which must, or at least should be, offered. And maybe it’s because of the way I heard the words delivered as a kid, but I also sense another sentiment, something like “and the loser will just have to deal with it,” implying that the speaker who demanded the choice will naturally get his way. But maybe that’s just me.
This mantra also takes for granted even its simplistic binary options: an assumption that there is, in fact, a way to choose that over this.
I often feel that the only options that seem readily available to us are this or not-this. The decision has no real meaningful outcome, because there is no that. Choosing not-this is still a way of choosing this, however begrudgingly, however negated.
So let’s talk a little bit about negation?
Historically, I’m kind of a “no man”—as opposed to a “yes man.” (I have been encouraged to be more of a yes man. My first thought is always I’m not a man.) But it’s more complicated than being a stick in the mud. I think people who say “no” a lot have had experiences where their refusal was consistently ignored or disrespected. If your refusal has been disrespected, you may become a bit anticipatory as a person; worried; wondering if you’ll be forced to do something you don’t want to do. You may find that your first impulse is to refuse. And I support that, because I can relate. “No” is a very good thing in certain circumstances.
But even if “no” is sometimes a good thing, the problem with “no” is that it doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s cyclical. You can “no” yourself right back to where you’re already standing, even though you said you wanted to move. It’s the anti-momentum. Add in some well-meant idealism and a lot of shame and you’ve got a recipe for psychic quicksand. Here’s how mine sounds: I wouldn’t do that, I’m not a sucker, I don’t want to be wrong, I don’t want to seem naive, I don’t want to be part of the problem, I don’t want to implicitly support x, y, or z fucked-up system and/or institution, I’m not that kind of person, or I don’t want people to think I am.
These are all negations, and all judgments, and they don’t allow you to do anything. Doing anything is probably more important than these refusals. I say this with a kind of definitiveness, but that’s because I find it very hard to learn the lesson. I’m trying to teach myself. Maybe if I write it enough times, I will finally believe it.
This isn’t to say that choices should be easy or that there aren’t forces who take advantage of how good it feels to decide something. Intensive bootcamp programs (for coding or graphic design) are a good example of this. One of my friends, out of worry and stagnation at work, decided to press the “bootcamp” button and sign up for more information. This decision felt great.
At first. Once the program had her contact information, they launched into a sales-pitch-by-phone, trying to get her to make another, more expensive decision as quickly as possible. When she said that she wanted to think about it, the bootcamp called her daily, trying to get her to commit to an upcoming session. She decided not to go through it. They stopped calling. It hurt to feel like she was back where she started.
I’m worried that the visible choices are devolving further into exploitation year after year. A big conversation topic among my friends and I was that WSJ article about graduate student debt. Then I read Anne Helen Peterson’s three-part essay on predatory master’s programs. There’s no way around it: it’s depressing that the university, which used to be a pretty good way of choosing that, is now reduced to the worst kind of not-this. It’s almost even more evil than choosing to work in a regular company. At least your regular company is not pretending to be something else. And as we get deeper into our dystopia, one can’t even intentionally choose the university in a negated way—an intentional not-this—because the working conditions are so incredibly bleak.
It’s sad because there should be more options. It’s sad because the teachers and scholars who have worked in academia for their whole careers are often just as disgusted with it, if not more, since they’ve been present for the decline; fighting their battles as best they can, and losing to powerful financial interests.
If our decreasing visible choices amount to this or not-this, then where has that gone?
I’m unhappy about the way things are going, but I don’t want it to stop me from feeling good.
Back to my friend for a moment. When she was describing her job speculation insanity, I told her that it reminded me of the way I speculated about writing MFA programs. For years, I’ve vacillated between harsh judgments of and urgent longing for a particular program. The harshest judgments eventually come down on myself: not only are you lame for wanting this, but you probably wouldn’t get in anyway.
“You should just apply,” she told me. “At least then you won’t have to wonder anymore.”
Is this piece all over the place? I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t really matter if you go to graduate school or not, as long as you don’t stop doing whatever you hoped graduate school would help you do. (But still, oh my god, don’t pay for it.) It’s no secret that our institutions are disappointing at best and exploitative at worst. Systemically, I don’t have a lot of faith at the moment for thats. We shouldn’t have any illusions about our severe lack of options. We shouldn’t have any illusions about our global situation, either.
I still don’t want to stop feeling good.
In our personal lives, we might expand our thinking beyond negations. Instead of judging what we don’t want to do, why not imagine what we want to do? If I’m sick of feeling a certain way, I can think about how I want to feel, rather than dwell on how I wish I did not feel this way.
For example, instead of thinking, I don’t want to be another sucker in an MFA program, I could think, I want to have something social (and maybe intellectually interesting) to do consistently after work during the week.
Now my possibilities are a little more clear. It’s no longer just a choice between MFA or no-MFA.
Maybe we can choose this, not-this, and everything else, too. Maybe that’s how we get closer to rediscovering that?