Dear yous,
Good morning, happy Thursday. This morning I find myself in a central Jersey hotel room wondering about a lot of things.
You see, I've been doing this same consulting job for 7 years now, more or less, and one of the things inherent to the job is travel. During the last seven years I've travelled a decent amount, going to places like Santa Barbara, CA and Ireland and Germany, all on the client's dime. That's all well and good, but there's one fundamental aspect of travel that really gets to me after a while: disconnection.
There's this whole world, this pharmaceutical corporate world, that exists. And while I've been part of it to some extent since I started on this career path after leaving college, being in this world makes me feel disconnected.
From the moment I walk into a windowless conference room, because that seems to be the default setting for most of my traveling work, I feel disconnected. I've worked with some of the people here for a few years now and so familiar faces are always nice. But beyond "Hey, how's it going?" I find myself not wanting to say a damn thing in those rooms beyond what is necessary to complete the work. "Hey, the printer is jammed again." "Is the next script ready to execute?"
And so that's what this week has been: endless streams of software testing scripts. Click here, take a screenshot, check pass or fail.
All of this leads me to the question of why I feel so disconnected in this world. I mean, I generally feel disconnected, or would say I generally have the propensity to feel disconnected if unchecked, in the world at large. But there's something about this pharma world I never really clicked with.
One trip, several years back, landed me in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a conference thrown by the vendor of the software we use. The trip itself was pretty extravagant: nice casino / hotel to stay at, fancy dinners and outings. One night they bussed us up to this hacienda in the hills where they had more open bars than you could count and cigar rollers and general extravagance.
I ended up winning a over a grand in the slots and so left feeling good about that. But the other parts of the trip? Forget about it. They're like the other parts of any of my work trips: getting through them, alone. That makes me sad, but that's the truth.
That's why I'm getting out of this line of work: I don't relate to this world and don't feel like I want to relate to this world. I never understood why or how people interact in these sterile environments. The most I could hope for is to get decently drunk and chain smoke and then conversation with strangers is kind of nice.
Here on this trip this week, I feel that same old feeling I've always felt on these trips: alone, disconnected, wondering why I'm here and why I have to get through this.
I could have brought stuff to record and almost did. But the feeling I have after sitting in a windowless conference room all day not feeling connected is one of not wanting to do anything at all. I don't even want to be with myself. I don't want to call anyone. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to keep refilling my glass with the free Miller Lite they have for social hour which ends abruptly at 7:30 and read my book on Reich and Gurdjieff.
Why is it that when I walked into the lobby this morning to grab breakfast to take back to my room that I could feel and see heads turn and eyes looking at me? I don't necessary ascribe any qualities to myself that cause this: I think it's more a function of how people already in rooms look at people who walk into the room. This bugs the shit out of me. Leave me alone. So I ignore everyone. I put out that vibe that says leave me the fuck alone which is really just masking the underlying vulnerability of "I'd really actually like to connect but don't know how so I've given up."
I read something by Bukowski the other day where he said when he doesn't drink he has nothing to say. I can relate to this. Sometimes I seriously question why I would want to say anything at all, drunk or otherwise. I don't even really drink all that much anymore. What's the fucking point?
Connection, I guess. Connection for the sake of feeling connected. That one still escapes me. As far as I'm concerned, sometimes my attitude is to just fucking get through the day. And sometimes that extends to getting through this life. I just want to get through this life. I'll do all the things I need to, but then please let this be over so that I can be left the fuck alone, merged with the infinite.
Whatever, that's pretty dark. It's not all bad and I can see enough of the bigger picture to know that this is only one particular aspect of myself that has developed a decent amount: the negative, disconnected aspected. I've fostered that one enough to know it well as hell.
And so, now I want to foster the positive, connected aspects of myself. I've felt connection and I do feel connected, generally. It usually feels brief, though, and out of my control. Connection happens somehow. Sometimes the environment is such that I can open up and feel connected. And then that window closes and what agency do I have to seek out more connection? What does that even look like?
After 7 years of this gig, I've figured out that I don't really want to be connected to anyone in this world of work. I don't want to share myself with anyone here. I feel much too large for this world of work and stifled by it.
My hope is that by finding new work, working in a different world, I will want to connect. I will want to interact. I will want to share myself. Day-to-day I want to be around others to whom I feel connected. Day-to-day now I sit at home, alone, on a computer. That can lead to disconnection.
Disconnection. Disconnection. Fuck. I have a windowless conference room to go to.
Love,
Casey
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