What Guild, What Market?

Dear Purpurea,

I was wondering, today, what profession you're saving for me? The elusive trade, the undefined mastery I have been striving towards, since I am 29 years old and have not chosen a profession yet. What is waiting for me? Where are you leading me?

I would say I am a professional anima-chaser, but that doesn't seem to pay very well.

I know, as a fact - I can feel it in my working limbs and in my heart as I type this - that work is a good thing that I enjoy. Yet I shy away from it so much, preferring to be idle, to wander, to scribble my footprints across the dust randomly, rather than making squares, spirals, fractals.

What is in the design? I'd like to know.

I feel angry at the world for not asking me to do something. I have had great potential - some of it has worn away due to age, but a good portion is still left. I feel ready and waiting - where's my mission, my calling? Of what use am I?

I have given an ephemeral answer: coder. I am coding. I enjoy coding. When I code in the right doses at the right times, I can rattle off hundreds of lines with barely any glitches, and it makes me feel solid and clean in the way that a good run can. At other times, it is brilliantly uncomfortable and challenging; a sinking quagmire that calls a whole lot more into question than anyone would expect from programming. I love this, too.

But that's not the real answer, because it doesn't address the real question of for whom - for whom am I? (I am echoing Hillel here. It suits my beard.)

If I sit quietly and wonder - what tasks are asked of me? I get the following answers: my dad would like me to earn more money. My class asks me to do such and such homework. My living community asks me to take care of the property; to plan a garden. The pair of non-profits have their tasks lined up for me.

These are good tasks. I even feel that I could do a lot more, and I plan on it. It was helpful for me to think about them. I've got some great ideas to put into practice that will be helpful for everyone and earn me a little self-confidence.

The glaring omission, of course, is the question I can't answer. A part of me does not even believe I can answer it - could ever hope to answer it. I doubt that me, myself - the I - is something that I can actually appreciate and cherish and take care of.

What do I want?

I've been on a bit of a Blake kick. I get angry - even wanting to throw the book down  - because Blake talks about the sacred law that exists in the form of every man's desire - BUT WHAT DO I DESIRE, WILL? How do I get to know that? What does that mean?

Maybe I've been at school and have coded a little bit; my mind settles down; the answer comes to me in the form of a few truths:
1. my desire is present and available for me to know
2. I spend a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of time rationalizing it away and/or convincing myself there are more important things to attend to than what I desire,
3. Which leads me into a falsehood: that I do not know what I desire.
3. I would be happier if I followed my desires more closely. It will be a good teacher. The best teacher.

This has been a heady letter to you, Purpurea, but I can feel the Tyger burning bright, somewhere down in there. Let's both watch it paw its way into something brighter, bigger, louder.

Affectionately yours,
Peliens