Light My Fire ...

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire...

I'm back, and supposedly better than ever. School is done. The move to Maryland is done. The bar is done. And now the hunt is on for enlightenment through employment.

Or something like that.

I've picked up a new book, "Riders on the Storm" by Doors' drummer John Densmore. I became intrigued by/infatuated with The Doors a couple of months ago when I caught the Oliver Stone biopic on TV in the midst of one of the mid-summer moves I was a part of. Seeing it on TV, of course, prompted me to listen to as much Doors music as I can, buy the film on eBay, and fall into the mythology that is Jim Morrison. I have a thing for rockers who flame out and the method behind their madness - Jimi, Jim, the Crue, etc. It excites and intrigues me. The stories are so good they can't even be made up.

Next up: "Hammer of the Gods," the supposedly best-written biography of Led Zeppelin.

In the meantime, I'm in a state of flux. I won't know the results of the bar for three months, and waiting clearly doesn't pay the bills. My problem is that I have a bit of an elitist complex. For the longest, I've been determined to get a job on my own terms .. doing what I want to do. Problem is, for the longest, I haven't been able to fully describe what I want to do. In my head, there's at least the semblence of a rubric. Translating that rubric into a full-on, full-time position has become increasingly difficult. But because I don't feel as though I either want to or will settle for anything that does not advance me toward my goal. In some ways, I hate the fact that I'm so dead-set on not "lowering myself" [a relative term of art .. positions that I've considered aren't necessarily "lower," they're just unrelated to anything of interest to me]. When I think about it, though, it's really all about me not hating my job. I made a silent vow to myself that I would never be stuck in a position where I absolutely abhor what I do. Sure, everyone says that. And yet and still, everyone ends up in that one job where they spend 93% of the time staring at the clock, and 6 of the remaining 7% convinced that the clock is broken because it hasn't advanced past 3:53pm.

No. No. F^ck that. No.

But as a job market entrant in the midst/on the back end of the worst recession we've seen in over half-a-century, I have no right to be so snobbish - especially considering attorneys have been hit much harder than most people think we have as a result of this mess. Happiness doesn't necessarily pay the bills in the same way joblessness doesn't. People used to scoff when I explained to them that I didn't really want to practice law, and that I wasn't trying to work at some huge law firm. "I don't want to sell my soul to pay my loans," I said. "I'd sell my soul for six figures," they'd flippantly respond. And now I sit at the crossroads. Tomorrow, I'm back to searching, looking, applying [or at least considering it] ..

But, in short, how much is my happiness worth?