Tonight I got a much needed victory in the form of a very successful night of "Finding Joe" with the Mythic Imagination Institute where Robert Walter, president of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, gave a presentation. There is some background here, and I'll present it in chronological order; two converging 'story lines' as it were.
The first began in 2009, where I went to a movie called Mythic Journeys. I'd been aware of Mythic Journeys in 2004 and 2006, and heard great things about it, but couldn't afford to go. (I also couldn't volunteer and that's another story entirely). But I was good friends with some people who helped organize it, Andrew Greenberg and Bill Bridges, so I went to check it out. You can see the trailer here, but it's a pretty cool movie with puppetry, and the voices of Tim Curry and Mark Hamill, as well as a wide range of impressive speakers.
It was neat stuff. Especially this stuff called "Applied Mythology" which seemed to me to answer some very important questions I'd been asking myself about society and how to avoid some rather dark paths I see ahead as a science fiction writer. Once the movie was done, they had some awesome discussions...and then proceeded to ask for donations. I didn't have money at the time to donate, but I did have my tech writing skills. I'd grown rather distasteful of tech writing, and wanted to do some good with it, so grant writing was something I was considering. I offered my skills.
I got to know Honora and Dahlan Foah and got to help them with a grant that led to a rather amazing concert. But the success path on the grant was...indirect. My initial attempts didn't actually help them directly, though the text did lead to some portions of a grant they got later that did. I kept working with them in other ways, mainly showing up and offering ideas.
To be honest, for a long time, I felt a bit like a third wheel because all I did was offer ideas. There are some rather heavy hitters on the Mythic Leadership Council...and I wasn't. There were successes and failures, but to be honest, there were more failures than successes. Over time, I made some more concrete contributions, including more grants, Search Engine Tagging, and research. But...it kind of wasn't going anywhere for me. To me, at least, despite all the effort, and the occasional success, all of this time wasn't helping what I originally wanted to help them with...
Until tonight. Tonight I will count this as a personal tangible victory. Not because I did it alone (I certainly didn't), and not because I really was even the major contributor. I only did one really important thing...
I believed. I believed in this project, and I believed in Mythic, and I believed in the people doing it...and finally, FINALLY it really feels like it is turning around.
And the timing could not be better.
The second story in this is what happened after the wedding. I meant to, and haven't gotten to, posting about the fantastic honeymoon Julia and I had. Here's the thumbnail. It was paradise. It was perfect. It was awesome. It was romantic, and honestly it is our dream to not only revisit, but someday hopefully go back there and live.
But then we got back. I'm unemployed. We're living with our parents. Both my parents (both sets actually) as well as Julia's parents have been incredibly supportive and generous. We've needed it. This gap has been a long time...the longest...and my well stocked financial reserves have been depleted. Julia's job is a great opportunity but is really an extended internship and not enough for us to live on. I've had 19 interviews in 6 months and it is starting to wear on us both.
Restrictions and preferences I originally had at the start of my process..."permanent jobs only" "project management jobs only" "this rate only" have gone by the wayside. I'm open to doing tech writing again because it will pay the bills. That didn't help. I've done different versions of my resume. I've expanded the search nationally and even removed all geographic restrictions. That hasn't helped. I've actually made two trips recently out of state in the last two weeks; once to Miami and once to South Carolina. The first didn't pay for the trip and the second did. (Lesson learned...if an out of state company won't pay for my interview face to face, they're not really interested.) There have been many many excellent jobs, many recruiters working closely with me to help me get these wonderful opportunities, and each time they've said essentially, 'we like him, but the other person had more experience.'
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I've dug up 10 years worth of creative material and put it on Amazon...it hasn't sold. I've tried side careers in consulting and voice over work...both of which might work eventually, but which will take time. I've come up with all kinds of schemes for getting cash...and really, so far, nothing has really panned out.
But despite the difficulty, Julia and I have helped each other pull through. When I've been low, she's held me up. When she's had a difficult time, I've sung, "the Sun will Come Out Tomorrow" until she smiled. Then I kept singing it and she eventually had to punch my shoulder but was still smiling. ;) But after South Carolina....a permanent technical writing job that I was rather confident I would get...an interview I did very well in...I lost to someone with more instructional design experience. This time...this time we were both down. Neither of us could pull each other up because there was no more energy left.
It was too much. Decisions had to be made, and some lifestyle choices and arrangements have been altered. More will be altered. It also means expanding my job search. It's not just Plan A,B,C and D anymore...it's plan F-Z. In fact, I'm looking at jobs that will just pay the bills. I still am. But I was wondering if there was any point to it. If the deck really was rigged against me.
And then tonight happened.
"Finding Joe" is basically about finding your dream and going after it. I've always done that. But the thing I realized tonight, the thing that changed the equation for me, is that I'm good at helping OTHER people do that too. Why?
Because I believe in you. You see, I know what its like for people not to take you seriously, to NOT believe in you. I'm blessed with many wonderfully supportive family members and friends. But I've also had people not take me seriously. My million projects aren't going anywhere. They're stuck in the mud. Just like my work with Mythic was for a long long time...until tonight.
I've set up my consultancy. You can see the website here. [Look for some changes soon.] What's going to change...one of the things I'm going to specialize in though, is something that I have wanted to do for a long time, is help others make their dreams a reality. And I'm going to be paid to do it, by playing the long game. Granted, it will take time. There will be pitfalls, but after tonight...tonight? Tonight I saw that I can do it. Tonight I saw that believing in something makes it happen...and that it can be made reality. By helping others, my own dreams can be made reality too.
So life begins anew. And I start to build my dream by helping others build theirs.
[Having said that, to pay the bills in the meantime, if you know a guy who knows a guy, email or call or message me...I'm pretty damn flexible at this point. ;) ]
