The Wandering Monkey

It's time to invest in a career.  Lindy Hop is really cool but it's just going to be a sideline, unless I decide to pursue creating dance schools all over China.  I did e-commerce consulting for seven years.  It was a good development of my options, but I never enjoyed it.

The only type of work which has piqued my interest is working in the media or television.  I hosted a news radio show a long time ago in college.  That's not much but it can't hurt.  I also did an amount of newspaper work as well.  I don't think I'd like to be a reporter, though, because it pays poorly and there's a lot of negative in this type of media.

I had for a very long time toyed with the idea of writing a novel.  I could never decide upon the format and way to express it, but I had a basic concept which I wanted to deliver.  Among different starts, different ways of telling the story, and different endings I accumulated hundreds of pages of material.  I do have the time right now to invest in it if I just cut out a few bad habits (such as playing computer games.) 

But that type of project is a longer-term, purely speculative effort.  It would be a good idea to get a more solid job first.  The thing is I don't have a really solid idea what type of career to pursue, so I go into this sytem that I use whenever I need to make a large decision.

If there are no serious immediate issues such as health problems, running out of money, or immediate needs from family members, then all choices are available.  This is the case now.  Next, I go over in my head all of the possible directions which I could turn, even if it is a pretty off-the-wall idea.  I try to find the direction which has the strongest, most deepest-set feeling attached to it.  Then, I pursue that idea in a logical and methodical way.

It was this decision making process which lead me to move into a new apartment complex in college, begin working in newspaper and then radio.  After college, it was this method of thinking which gave me the idea to go to California.  Once there, the practical reality of survival pretty much dicated what I needed to do job-wise.  It was also this decision making which influenced me to leave a girlfriend in Los Angeles, then not too later after that to leave my job and go into consulting.  This took me to San Jose.  It brought me into swing dancing.  And eventually I moved to San Francisco because of it.  And there, I made the decision to change my career.  Later I moved out to Shanghai and here I am.

 

I think most everyone has these types of feelings no matter who they are.  It's not alway necessary or even beneficial to follow them.  Most people I think have deeper, stronger roots than me, so for them it would not be healthy or helpful.  But living as I am as a wanderer, a lost soul of sorts, it's my method.

It is an uncomfortable feeling sometimes to *have* to pay attention to your deeper feelings and pursue them.  Sometimes its a lot of work and you'd rather just skip it.  Plus, when you begin any big change, there's going to be a lot of doubt.  Decisions you make at times like these will strongly affect the way your life will be for years to come.

 

For the moment, I always get excited when I or the swing dancing effort appears in the media.  I also enjoy the chances to shoot commercials for TV or do screenings for media companies or interviews.  I guess since I have no other responsibilities, I might as well pursue this angle.  Shanghai is about the only place I think I could make progress on it right now, so that's a good thing. 

So that gives me my direction.  More updates to come.

-J