Way back on 11-3-15, I did a blog post called, "My New Resume". Almost exactly six years ago today! In it, I mused on how utterly inadequate my resumes have been in portraying who I am and what my skills are. Caught between paradigms, my resumes tended to be conservative and 1970's and 80's in format, hopelessly inadequate at "selling" my highest gifts of creativity, visionary thinking, and wisdom -- qualities that the traditional work world doesn't always much appreciate anyway. They were passively angry documents, so it's understandable how rarely they actually worked in getting me a job. Sort of, "the heck with this whole work paradigm. Please don't give me a job. You won't want someone like me. And I won't like the kind of job you offer." At the time of that blog post, I had just created a self-portrait collage that I thought I should use instead.
Featured at the top of my old resumes, yet paradoxically lurking deep under the surface of my life, has been my associate's degree from Parsons School of Design. Back in about 1982, when I finally gave up on the concept of trying to make inroads in England or in church music, and also catalyzed, unfortunately, by pique ("...the heck with the men and boys' choir tradition! There's no rule stating that women cannot become artists is there?"), I started an illustration course at Parsons, much of which was paid for by my employer, Time Inc. I took one or two courses per semester at night. It was one of those strange things where I had no passion for actually doing art, but I was so good at it that I got great grades, and even taught some color theory courses at the school and sold some magazine illustrations. Yet by the time I earned the degree, I was back at square one: I believed so little in the capitalist system that I couldn't face the prospect of using my skills commercially, and doing art for its own sake didn't light my fire. My color and design creativity was part of a greater whole that I simply couldn't yet articulate.
For years, I've received Parsons' alumni magazine in the mail, glanced through it, then tossed it in the recycling pile. I didn't resonate with the kind of achievements presented in it. The latest issue could have had the same fate, only toward the back of the magazine, the editors profiled a number of graduates, whose "job titles" were so extraordinary, forward-thinking and exciting, I could hardly contain myself: "Data Storyteller", "Sensory Sartorialist", "Design Advocate", "Architect of Change", "Collaborative Portraitist", "Unabridged Historian"...I mean, oh my goodness. These are my people. They have created their own wildly unique specialities, and defined themselves based on the intersection of what they care about, what they see as a societal need, and their highest skills, not based on the needs of a potential employer, per se.
It would still be tempting to fade out into the sunset. Every day, through fear, inertia or fatigue, that temptation beckons. To fully embody Goddess spiritual values, and express them using a range of traditional and futuristic forms of creativity, requires 100% dedication, and a fearless belief in oneself. It has taken a whole lifetime, but I'm as close to that -- and a two- or three-word job title -- as I have ever been. I am thankful for these role models! Oh, so thankful!
