welcome to the party
no longer (fun)employed
i'm in the midst of a wildly unsuccessful post-grad job search, and i lose my mind a little bit every day.
ok, maybe wildly unsuccessful is a bit of a reach. We're in a covid-19 job market, our understanding of labor and as workers is in some kind of collective shift, and i only really started looking consistently in, like, august. It just feels a little abysmal having applied to 63 jobs, hearing back from less than a quarter, interviewed by 8, and ultimately, still jobless.
it isn't even that i am particularly excited about working — i desperately wish we lived in a world where labor wasn't the only means of survival. I think it's evil that we are conditioned to believe that we are only valuable because we generate capital. And don't even get me started on cover letters...
Looking for a job is a full time job in and of itself - both because it takes so much time, and because it's absolutely miserable. I spend every day sifting through job boards, finding br*wn alumni in my industry who I can connect and network with, and an insurmountable amount of hours agonizing over how to best "sell myself" to a company/organization that might not even look at my resume.
I'm sure many of you who read this have been in this position, so I won't spend too much more time having a therapy session with myself about how the job search is crushing my soul a little. I will say though, that my disillusionment with this process is what pushed me to start this project, so, cheers to unemployment, i guess.
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you may be asking yourself, "adriana, do you really think so highly of yourself that you are publicizing your thoughts to an audience of people who may or may not even care what you have to say?"
to that, i say, “no, not in the slightest.” and i guess that's part of why i wanted to do it. a few months ago, my dear friend Azim, who has his own brilliant newsletter (he's in his film critic era), suggested that i channel all of my unemployment-sponsored boredom and lost sense of self into a newsletter. my immediate reaction was "literally who cares what I have to say," but i allowed myself a little grace and thought - first: i am apart of so many incredible communities who care so much about what I have to say, and they have shown me that time and again - it's not only wrong, factually, but like, also messed up to deny them of the love and care that they have shown me in saying that they wouldn't care. second: even if nobody on this planet or the next three over cared what i had to say - isn't it enough that i care what i have to say? why do i feel like i have to be the most thoughtful, brilliant, and profound thinker to be worthy of writing this?
all that is to say - i don't really know what this is. my aunt, the therapist (hi, titi let), told me that graduating college can usher in one of the most confusing and difficult period of your life. Now, it's only been seven months (oh god) but, i know she's absolutely correct. i have been challenged, humbled, relieved; I have rested, exercised, cooked, painted, thought; i have taken care of myself in ways that i never thought i could in these past six months. for me, this is another step of the process of figuring myself out - no longer a student, not yet a worker, member of many communities, and really, just someone trying to figure out how to put myself first.
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maybe 5 people will read this. maybe 500 people will read this. i don't really know, and i'm trying not to care. because for me, this act of being creative, of thinking out loud, of doing something that i know i'm good at (writing), and of doing something as leisurely/fun, should be (and is) enough.
i guess the moral of the story is that i have a lot of thoughts and this is how i want to honor them. it's kind of how i want to honor myself. i'm hoping to update semi-consistently (hence the title) with short pieces about a range of personal and political (ish) topics, and maybe some interviews with loved ones about everything from therapy to the weird parasocial relationships we make with tiktokers. i hope some of it resonates with you. i hope it makes me more confident in my writing and in myself.
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(i also kinda hope i get famous, but only a teeny tiny bit. i really wanna get famous from writing a screenplay to a hilarious and relatable tv show about 2 bffs navigating their twenties)
anyway. thanks for reading. i hope you'll read again. i hope you'll do something to honor yourself, too.
Hi this is issa rae, u have my attention
come to brazil