Yesterday at noon, in a pleasant meal, talking with my partner Elu on our past work and work before entering Aena. Thus came back to my memory the experience that led to my first job, some time later, results in a short essay, "What useful", which was published in the now defunct magazine "Quanto" my power, in the spring of 2001 or 2002, I do not remember.
useful It
Q erhaps the Bible is wrong and work was not never any punishment imposed on Adam but something he chose. Perhaps there was no apple or temptation, or cheat, or cardboard, but only a desire to leave the routine wonderful paradise in return for a justification of his own existence: if Adam wandered barefoot for years and idle and endless green meadows, surrounded by abundance and pleasures that were delivered without more, is not it possible that at some point they ask "Why did God create me?, how useful I report?, what place, what mission I have in this garden? ?. And maybe, just maybe, he decided to find the answer through the sweat of his front.
This idea might seem absurd to the majority, which is why the Biblical legend persists and few people today do not think working as a real curse. Note, however, that in speaking of work I do not mean the mere occupation of the hands or intellect, or the degree of satisfaction that might arise from that occupation. Speak, Lord, the great feeling that produces "having a job", having a job, a responsibility, ... and talk, of course, the opposite phenomenon: what it means to not have it, the anguish of unemployment, unemployment, the absence of underlying responsibilities as true evil in the empty expanse of free time. Idleness is enjoyed only when it is not free, when it becomes the performance of work or effort, when it is deserved or have been on her own merits as a vacation. Beyond that, free time living with a total lack of imagination, perspectives, lives even with a nagging embarrassment, as happened to some of my friends when they finished the race: After a lifetime devoted to the study, always occupied by them, now, to finish and start looking for work, while eagerly awaiting that call, that interview did not come, they were stunned by the inactivity, the tedium their new lives. Just did nothing during the day, just send a letter, reread their own curriculum or the morning newspaper in search of deals. The days for them to fly and when you will meet the street and wondered what such bewildered head down, as if lugging the shame of their idleness, a modern lily, a scarlet letter reminding them to them and others who did nothing useful. For man-and here I return to my hypothesis Adam needs to work, you need to feel useful to themselves and others, need to create, develop, produce, ... let's call it for now, without further claim, "I want helpful. "
Late last fall I also felt that way. Still far from finishing the race, was seen throughout the year how my friends, my girlfriend, my teammates, one by one, ended their studies and started work, they became "useful" to the end, like silkworms they left turned the cocoons into butterflies can fly. I, however, saw me stranded on a deserted beach, deserted, still unable to sail but wanting to go into the high seas: felt, as I said, a tremendous "desire for profit" and thus things, I decided to send a single curriculum to a company in meteorology, my specialty. I was lucky, the company concerned, METEOTEMP, arranged an interview with gratifying haste in which I could see that dedicated her to work, especially in a company as one that was dedicated to the creation and dissemination of weather and to-remember aunaba I thought my knowledge of atmospheric physics and my taste, old and, at the language. The work was part-time, four hours I would go home and study and not be written off February examinations. No, I assure you, I was not very well paid but I was so, so excited ... do you understand?. Then I started working.
M and is difficult to describe the joy I experienced during those early days. Were all smiles at home, my father seemed finally proud of me, treated me with respect new, unknown, as that should correspond-guess him think a grown man, through and through. My friends congratulated me by phone or email, stating timidly felt envy, and my girlfriend bragged to her friends about how much I tried, did not mind admitting that it was for little money, because that perhaps my exalted status as a worker.
I, for one, came every morning to the warm, dark mouth Metro Callao to intense light and sunny and bright for those cold days of December and, once out, I filled the chest and the very soul to understand my new situation, as a man who begins an adventure or choose from soon walking in one direction uncertain ending. Sometimes I stood still a moment, deep in the middle of the square, imprisoned by the excitement that I carried something provincial about cars and the bustle of people around me, activity continues in the Gran Via, the major shops, cinemas , sun-stained sidewalks ... and looked at the crowd, walking quickly towards their own work, and I was part of a huge set, fully integrated into society. In the background, through the morning fog that clouded yet the street price, it drew the ghostly shadow of the old clock in the Puerta del Sol, but I turned right, to Santo Domingo, where my job title was located and walked up there happy, happy, his face transformed by an unknown emotion.
All this, however, changed. In the interview, my boss, Miss Silvia Surname, had told me that my job was to help the meteorologist on duty, drawing maps and writing reports for different media. The truth is that during the time I worked there ever drew up something in the way I would have liked, everything was rushed and written quality reports do not count. My best value, my ability to write, was so wasted. Neither my knowledge of meteorology, although few were used, any attempt on my part to implement was suppressed for the sake of a faster and soon began to feel there like an automaton, a robot, even worse, like a monkey. It's funny: I had a job, but I was more useful than when he lacked.
Outside, however, people kept asking for my new job, congratulations, ignoring the grimace on my face or I quickly changed the subject when they insisted. And I never spoke of my discontent, I guess I just wanted to enjoy the pride of my father, my girlfriend, looked satisfied with my uncle or my cousins \u200b\u200brecognition, clinging to all good things if I had won the job from have my own social security card to the satisfaction of cups to invite friends. Del
work out every day late, tired, confused. Given my studies, I had signed a four-hour part-time, but hid behind an avalanche of work that was impossible in less than six. Of course I had more hours than I played, provided that the responsibility-as "I told my boss I did not have to finish another that same day one of my companions, who had enough already. And it was true, there were all exploited and as a result everyone had a face or were bitter, with the exception of Sara (thanks for your smiles Sara) and the good of Jesus. But no one ever spoke the obvious need to hire another employee, the company he saved. So the pressure was increasing, the work also and the day, with very close examination, I decided to go to my time, I had to face my boss, his underhand psychological and finally to his threats dismissal. Surely then it was quite explicit in my arguments, because the next day someone, not herself, handed me a letter of dismissal.
And yes, I confess, I remember the sunny morning of January and December with nostalgia for paradise lost, a wonderful time we got away with all its splendor. It is also true that this happens to me all that is past, with earlier times, with the past and its irrecoverable nature by definition. Q
erhaps you want to know what I have learned. I learned that sometimes it happens that we do not find the key that opens the door to the world. It sometimes happens that does not revolve lock, which is hopelessly stuck onto the ground between nervous fingers and hindered. And sometimes, too, the desire to cross the threshold of that door leads to overestimate what the other side.
And do you know what I think now the "desire for profit" and the useful?. If it was Adam who chose, if work was not as a punishment from God say, I agree with your choice. Chose to work for man has this need. Yes, must in every way. But work is not live, and our "desire to use" our desire to feel useful, it should never lead us to think we exist solely to produce, too many people willing to advantage of that. It's the opposite gentlemen, we produce to live, to feel useful, too, produce to go home and take a leisurely stroll with our girlfriend, to cheer on our football team, to read an excellent book by the window or take a soaking cane in a pub with that an unknown friend who believed despechar.Yo again feel useful was to have a job, be productive, a valuable asset to society. But I was wrong. Feeling useful passes to valuable natural talents and virtues, and develop forward every day. I studied physics and I enjoy many of the subjects, but I guess first and foremost in my heart, I am a creator, a writer. And some nights in the dark privacy of the back seat of my car, my girlfriend, almost asleep in the crook of my shoulder, takes a long silence to ask what I think. I think the last time I said, a bit funny: "I think bison and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets in, the refuge of art." I guess she did not recognize in these words the last paragraph of Nabokov's Lolita, but it's just because it sure does understand that part of me, as everything I read or written. So funny smile, as I smile every time I find his hair blond and long, between my clothes.
