I've been all ambivalent about my job and having a few moments of despair about my role and meaning and what-the-hell-is-the-point-of-it-all. Is it necessary that I just be a tool of the consumerist culture, working to earn so I can buy, working to create product that others can buy, defined by my work and the crap I own?
As usual the ladies at Jezebel have captured my feelings. They were inspired by a career columnist at Yahoo who suggested that if we worked less at, you know, work and more on the way we look, we would create a successful brand for ourselves and be, you know, successful.
Preach it, sister.
Before I took this job I was unemployed and trying to write a book about this phenomenon tentatively titled The Nothing-Based Economy. Because the reason nothing besides image, perception and toned obliques matters anymore is that this country has outsourced and/or automated and/or just totally given up on just about every other skill/function working people are supposed to exhibit beyond the careful cultivation of "brand," which is to say the creation of demand, for oneself and whatever it is one is trying to sell, which is to say nothing. Anyway, I worked pretty hard on it though I spent a fair amount of time moping around and downloading iTunes from the early nineties as well, but it was all pretty much an exercise in futility because, duh, it's not like I had a brand or anything.
3 comments:
Preach the preaching, sister! I'm sure there's a line somewhere that says, "Behind every good brand is a soul who cares AND yet doesn't give a damn."
I'm not sure myself how to get off this grid.
At any rate, have a good weekend.
I'd comment, but I've gotta get to the gym.
You just really messed me right the f--- up with this one. It's sort of cool, this crisis. Hey.
-cK
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