I've always presumed that if you're reading this column, things aren't so bad for you.
Because the chances are you're literate and you have the luxury of spending a few discretionary minutes with this space. We don't make promises here; this column is not going to help you to think and grow rich. No secrets will be revealed. I don't know what tangible benefit you might derive from reading a newspaper column. I'm just grateful that you are. So things aren't so bad for me either.
That doesn't mean we don't have things to complain about. There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of things that frustrate you. You might have health problems, you might have money problems. You may believe that you love someone who is disdainful of you. You may have hurt people you care about. You might not understand why you do some of the things that you do. There is a school of thought that holds that the best we can hope for in this life is the cessation of pain. Just because you can smile and pay for your own lunch doesn't mean that everything's OK. I'm only saying that, for you and me, things could be worse.
We are living in uncertain times. The new normal is much different than it was 35 years ago when people my age were entering the work force in earnest, and that, we were told, was a depressing time. America was in "a malaise." It didn't seem any better a few years later when one of my law school professors told us we'd backed the wrong horse by going to law school, that there was a glut of attorneys and that most of us would probably "end up working for the phone company."
(I remember that quote precisely because my mother was an engineer with the phone company and I had a summer job working for the phone company. In those days, working for the phone company implied, if nothing else, a certain vocational stability. It was impossible to imagine that those careers might be disrupted.)
Thinking back on it, my law professor was probably dismayed at what was happening to his profession. I now understand he was operating under somewhat difficult circumstances; one of the reasons he was so demanding and apparently harsh was that he was determined to vet us, to uphold certain standards. Frankly, he ran a lot of us off. Some of the people he ran off might have made pretty good lawyers--some of them just weren't willing to put up with what they perceived as his abuse. I was scared to death of him. He embarrassed unprepared students, so I was never unprepared. I have never routinely dreaded anything so much as I did walking into his classroom. That I did well in his class didn't necessarily justify his methods.
I wrote about him a few years ago and was surprised when he contacted me. A few years after I left he resigned. And he established a center for "recovering" lawyers. He ran programs that helped attorneys transition to what he called "civilian life." He sounded very happy.
When I left law school, I fully expected to return after a breath-catching year. I was very lucky, I was able to get a decent job, writing sports for a daily newspaper. And then, just before that year was up, the Shreveport Journal needed an infielder for their ridiculously good softball team, and they recruited me as a cop reporter/third baseman.
Expectations were allowed in those days, but the business was still lean, draconian and filled with rude characters. People got fired for messing up, for making mistakes that, in context, were understandable. Maybe because we weren't well paid, it didn't seem like such a big deal. I remember my city editor telling me that everyone he'd ever let go had found a better job within a few weeks. Some of them just walked across the hall and signed on with the (Shreveport) Times, a morning paper whose circulation dwarfed ours (but never beat our softball or basketball team during my tenure at the Journal).
Most of us reporters were very young; we ran around together and drank more than we should. There were affairs and marriages and divorces. Some of us bought houses and had kids but most of us never imagined that we would live in any way other than the way we did then--as the louche sons and daughters of the Southern striving class. There were a couple of slipping-down aristocrats among us, but most of us came from families where both parents worked. Some of us were Air Force brats, some of us had parents who were teachers.
One of the great things about social media is that I have been able to find and, in the way we do these things these days, reconnect with a few of these folks. As with any population, there are a few sad stories--dear friends who are gone, a few others who are lost--but mostly we did all right. Our expectations were modest, and most of us exceeded them. Most of us ended up doing better than our parents. We were perhaps the last generation that could reasonably anticipate doing that.
Part of becoming an adult is coming to grips with one's own limitations. There are things that we can change and things that we can't. And when it seems like the universe is playing defense against our best efforts, we should remind ourselves that it is very rarely personal.
I didn't make a conscious decision to choose this business; I didn't expect to make it a career. But now I'm determined to hang on as long as I can, in part because I understand how privileged my position is and in part because I'm not sure I know how to do much else. My business is changing in ways that don't bode particularly well for folks who produce words, sentences and cogent thoughts -- what in this post-literate age is increasingly called "content."
Content can be outsourced and acquired in bulk. It is a cheap commodity. No matter what business you are in, I suspect you understand.
Our country is not what it was. We aren't even a real democracy any more, and anyone who tells you that you can get by on industriousness and following the rules is lying to you. Lacking certain advantages of capital or freakish luck, the best you can hope to do is get by. Maybe you'll hit the lottery. Maybe you'll discover some way to sell people something that makes them feel hopeful.
By virtue of being able to read this column, you're better off than most. By virtue of being able to write it, so am I. So you have my sincere thanks for reading and supporting, in whatever small way, this anachronistic widget, this buggy whip, this vain yet earnest attempt to order the heartless chaos of human enterprise and avarice.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
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Editorial on 08/31/2014