First, today’s application report :

I applied for a number of things via UpWork today.

1. I applied to ghostwrite a book based on someone’s outline and character list. That could be fun. Other, lesser writers might chafe at doing something that will go under someone else’s name, but I am okay with it as long as the money is good. And it doesn’t bother me at all to start with someone else’s outline etc. After all, that’s only the starting point. The rest is up to me.
2. I applied to help someone with “suggestions” for their manuscript. There’s red flags all over this one for me. It instantly gave me a vision of suddenly being entrusted with someone’s precious manuscript that they have been laboring over for years and being asked to “give my honest opinion”. Um, no. My honest opinion is quite often devastating to people. Not because I am some kind of raging prick, but because my perceptions and analysis go way, way deeper than most people’s and my therefore hit them hard where they are the most vulnerable. I don’t do that any more. Anyhow, I would go into the job with great caution and exercising the maximjum possible sensitivity while still giving them what they want.
3. I applied for a job writing stories for a chat-style storytelling app. So the stories would take the form of a text-based chat between two people, and they are looking primarily for thriller-type stories. I super want this job. I have been dying to get into that kind of storytelling ever since I first read a pretty amazing example of it. It’s so modern and immediate and powerful. And because it is based on existing but relatively new technology, it bypasses people’s usual defenses. Kind of like how footage that looks like it’s shot with someone’s phone but has special effects used to be able to do. And I would love to write stories to thrill and scare people and keep them on the edge of their seats. What fun!
4. Why didn’t it space this one properly? Argh. Anyhow, last but not least, I applied for a job being someone’s text-based chat companion. The idea is that lonely people would pay the service for someone to talk to. Someone who is compassionate, sympathetic, understanding, caring, supportive, comforting, and wise. In other words… someone like me!! I want this job so bad I can taste it. I feel like it’s the job I have been training for without knowing it. I would love to be the person to shine some light into the lives of sad and lonely people and give them some of the love and respect society has denied them. Every nurturing instinct in me cries out for this job. And I’ve already gotten a nibble! Oh please please please let me have this!

So that was a lot of fun. I had forgotten how much fun applying for stuff can be. It bring out the positive, confident, go-getting side of me and that’s a way happier side than my usual sluglike ennui. And it makes me feel like getting somewhere is possible, and that’s something I tend to forget.

Now, on to the topic.

All this applying for things has reminded me of a dread phrase from my childhood, one far worse than talk about my potential : “…if only you’d apply yourself. ”

Usually it came in the form of, “I know you’re doing well in class. but just think what you could do if you really applied yourself. ”

And that always left me confused and hurt because the idea makes total sense as stated and yet on some level I knew that was not possible for me.

And I couldn’t explain why. I would think about it but just ended up chasing my own tail in circles till eventually I would give up and say to myself “I get great grades without trying hard at all. Why should I exert myself to make my grades just a little better? It’s not worth the effort. ”

Things like future scholarships were far, far from my young mind.

I took a few baby steps in the direction of applying myself a few times. I tried to study and concentrate on the material and think a lot about the test beforeheand.

But all I got from these experiments was a rush of tension and worry and neuroses that made me feel like my head was one of those control-room scenes where everything is going wrong and all the alarms at various stations are going off.

Suddenly. I understood why my overachieving sister Catherine was so neurotic. That must be how it was for her all the frigging time. I am glad I had a choice.

Fast forward to university, and as patient readers know, I end up in conflict with my brother Dave because he would sweat bullets over a test, doing all the things you are supposed to do if you are taking things seriously, and I would do absolutely nothing to prepare, and I would still walk out with a higher mark than me.

That os obviously completely unfair from the point of view of labour. We like to think that you have to work hard to get good things and a genius like me violates that rule HARD.

And he wanted to know how I could do it. And all I could do is shrug helplessly and say that maybe I could do it because by staying so relaxed about everything, I avoided wasting a lot of energy on worry and self-doubt and pressure and therefore could bring all my powers to bear when it came time to do the work.

That did not compute for my brother at all. He’s a Capricorn and they are the sign of getting things by working really hard. The idea of getting better results by working less is a null set to them. So that didn’t help.

But that’s when I figured out that talent isn’t fair.

And now, here I sit, 45 years old and trying to finally become a grownup, and facing the idea of applying myself again.

Being able to support myself is something I really really want. So I should be working really hard to make it happen. Right?

Wrong. I just don’t work that way. I am far better off surfing a wave of cockiness and ego through life, smugly sure of my own amazingness, and staying the big lazy beast that I am right until the end.

At least that way, I get shit done.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.