Seasonal Thinking

Women and people of color and minorities have had to deal with socially-imposed constraints for millennia, I suspect. Men, to a much lesser extent, are expected to accept limits on their experiences and behaviors, as well. Most such restrictions placed on men undoubtably are less rigid and probably far less emotionally damaging, yet they represent obstacles that can be difficult to circumvent. Whereas career options available to women, people of color, and minorities historically have been severely limited, some socially-imposed career restrictions have prevented from pursuing non-traditional career choices. Nursing, for example, was among the few socially-acceptable career choices for women for a long time; at the same time, male nurses were anomalies; looked upon as odd or out-of-touch. Some of the most common career choices for women (if they were permitted to have careers outside the family) included secretarial, seamstress work, telephone operator, personal services (like hair stylist), and domestic work in others’ homes. People of color and other minorities were even more limited. Those careers were largely unavailable to men; men who pursued them were looked upon with disdain, often. I think men and women who eschewed traditional work have tended to be actively discouraged from non-traditional careers. For example: tattoo artist; horse-racing jockey; painter; sculptor; mortician; fiction writer; and practitioner of Eastern healing practices. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more…but my brain is not cooperating with me any longer; at least not on this topic. So I will abandon it for now. I may return later to find that I never should have started writing this.

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Speaking of careers, though, I think I might have enjoyed work as a police detective; but not as a uniformed police officer. Mi novia‘s enjoyment of her career as a welfare fraud investigator suggests she would have appreciated detective work, as well. I had many ideas about what I “wanted to be when I grow up,” but I explored only a few of them. And those I explored never received enough of my attention to know what they might have really entailed. I got bored with my own interests too easily. Or the discouragement I encountered when I spoke of my interests was enough to dissuade me from further exploration. I still am not sure what I want to be when I grow up. I’ve written all this before, haven’t I? Despite just stumbling into a career, I got lucky to the extent that it provided me with the means to retire in reasonable comfort. Association management; one of those careers few people realize exists. And, unfortunately, one of thousands of careers that, ultimately, infrequently make any appreciable difference in the world in which we live. Or maybe it was just mine that did not matter much; but I do not think so. If we all had become passionately philanthropic self-employed farmers, we might have been fulfilled as human beings, in spite of our poverty and back-breaking work.

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Swirls of pine needless rained on my car as I drove home through the forest a couple of days ago. In some places, the roadways were covered in them, making it seem like I was driving down a forest trail, rather than a street. Before too long, the broadleaf trees will begin changing colors and dropping leaves. The withering temperatures of summer will (I hope) give way to cooler and much more comfortable weather. Sitting on the deck will become more than just tolerable; it will be enjoyable. Birds will be more visible when the leaves do not provide as much camouflage, though those here for the summer will be gone until next year. Some days, I feel like I could spend all my time peering into the forest, just watching the seasons change. And some days that’s exactly what I seem to do.