Just the 1st Bit

Living and working in the Silicon Valley means two things:

(1) I own several pairs of tan chinos, and

(2) I’ve been laid off.

It’s not so bad, really. Every Friday or so I get a check from the kind people at the unemployment office, roughly equal to the amount of money I used to spend on lunch during a typical work week. As if that weren’t already more than enough, I now have plenty of time to catch up on my “stories”, and, to find out what kind of quality programming is really on those channels in the upper 70’s. Most importantly though, I am now able to take a deep breath, look around for a bit, and reevaluate my place in life (and I mean that metaphorically, not literally, in which case my place in life is at my computer with reruns of SNL playing in the background).

In my self-evaluation, I discovered a few incontrovertible facts. For instance, like all people in the Silicon Valley, I’m an engineer (ALL people. Don’t be fooled, that guy salting your fries is an engineer, too). The only thing, in fact, that begins to delineate me from the guy next to me is the kind of engineer I am, and most times, even that is not enough. Luckily for me, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (’cause I’m not) to realize that the job market in my glutted field is a bit depressed lately, and, perhaps I should be looking into other options. Perhaps I should finally do what I’ve really always wanted to but never had the chance. Perhaps I should go my own way, work on my own terms, set my own hours, reach for my own horizons. Perhaps I should sacrifice the usual requirements of so-called “food”, “shelter”, and “health” to endeavor to discover the true calling of my life. Perhaps I should become a writer.