I’ve had rolling around in my head an essay about precarity and the current state of the human condition as it pertains to any sense of security and how the lack thereof contributes to a malaise and hopelessness that helps one see why so many Americans feel the kind of desperation that lends itself to irrationality and reactionary thoughts.
In my head, this is the opening to a book — a memoir — that I’ve been thinking about since leaving proper full time employment in the spring of 2023. I like to think about how Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, but the real heads celebrate “The Custom House.” That’s the completely delusional outlook I have when it comes to this. It’s the same energy Grand has in Camus’ The Plague. For those unfamiliar:
“What I really want, Doctor,” Grand tells Dr. Rieux, “is this. On the day when the manuscript reaches the publisher, I want him to stand up — after he’s read it through, of course — and say to his staff: ‘Gentlemen, hats off!’ ”
The reality is more like this: I’m someone who aspired to be a writer, became one in a manner of speaking, and then realized that money is helpful to have, changed my line of work, and found myself repeatedly cast into unemployment, much as I imagine my hapless paternal grandfather, born in 1897 in Philadelphia, working random jobs after surviving World War I and the Spanish Flu, somehow.
This is all to say that should I write said memoir, when people ask, “but where did you find the time?” I plan to respond, “I didn’t. The time found me.”
“Hats off!”