The day after Thanksgiving. One usually reserved for lolling about.
Lots of businesses just knock off today, basically giving their employees
a four and a half-day vacation. (Almost everybody in town shut down
about noon on Wednesday this week.)
Speaking of work, people have been raking me over the coals in a past
few months about needing to get the big picture in life, all that stuff
about how short our walk amongst our fellow mortals is, etc. Well, yeah,
that's why I work so hard-I want to make something out of myself and
I want to be a positive force in life. I can't tell you how much pleasure
I get from engineering having Christine Albert onstage to sing while
the Ballet Austin dancers move to her Edith Piaf music. From pushing
Rebecca Ryan until she made her CD. Or from knowing that I had a heck
of a lot to do with making Michael Dell what he is. (Don't look for
my name in his book. It's not in there, thank God. If it was, I'd have
way too many people calling me up trying to get me to do their advertising.
Not to mention all the schoolteachers who think I have time to come
lecture their classes about how to run a business. But I digress.) That's
the kind of stuff that I live for.
We've been going through a pretty serious period lately of having my
plans for reworking my life and transitioning into semi-retirement discussed
in public. The most interesting thing about having to participate in
these talks is seeing how people fall into two groups with their reactions.
The losers are always willing to slap me with the insult "workaholic."
On the other hand, the people who've actually done something in life
and know what it's like to get down in the pit and fight, back me up
and say, man, I know what you mean-your sense of yourself and your feelings
of power in life are so tied up in what you do.
"Workaholic." God, I hate that word. Is it an indication of how strongly
the psychological industry has grabbed the populace's imagination that
any form of intense endeavor is now deemed an affliction? How would
people like it if I called them "megalomaniacal" or "uptight and frigid"
in front of others? (A couple of examples of people who have sniped
at me come to mind.) One thing you can say for the psychologists-they
know how to invent diseases, so then they have more people to "cure."
You have to hand it to them. People always accuse advertising practitioners
of inventing desire. If you ask me, that's no worse than making people
think they are sick or that they are "victims" when they're really lazy,
mean, or both.
Spent some time with my parents yesterday. It takes so little to entertain
them. I brought them down here and just marveled at everything in our
house. Pretty sharp contrast to Ball and I, who have become so desensitized
that it takes a Chernobyl sized event to give us goosebumps. Who's to
say what's best? Ambition is a stern taskmaster, no doubt. Well, I'm
going to go make sure I haven't dropped the ball on any of my accounts
that I have left.
This journal thing could be fun, actually. I know that I'm going to
enjoy working with Dreamweaver and learning how to create web sites.