I was always having to find alternative ways of replying to questions without breaking the social taboo. So when Lady McCreery asked about holidays, I might, if a direct and natural reply had been possible, have said, ‘How the hell do you think I can go on a holiday at all, when I have been thrown out without a usable qualification, I have no tolerable way of earning money or of drawing income support (as I would not be supposed to be qualified for any job that I could accept) and my college will give me no support in any plan to get a qualification or to get appointed to do anything that I really could do, whether supposedly “qualified” or not?
The vacation question is one that also makes me stumble. I know plenty of people for whom it's natural to have one at least once a year, but just can't justify it given my budget. And I too, have begun to notice that there are people paid who are allegedly supposed to help one find decent employment, and yet upon close inspection we find academia is not interested in the pursuit of knowledge, and HR departments are not looking for people with actual skills.
So, naturally, the response was to insist something was wrong with me. A diagnosis rather than recognition of my circumstances. They do it for everything now; they'll put you on prozac if you feel down after your dog dies, and insist you need therapy if you express any sort of angst while living with cancer. Now, something was wrong with me, but it was closely connected to bad food, bad influences, and trying to live with a cognitive disconnect. I kept trying to agree, to be positive, to accept a positive view, and yet the evidence that it all was, for the most part, a fraud, was all around me. If I had cultivated an appropriate level of cynicism, I might have managed to be in a far better position.
No comments:
Post a Comment