On the twentieth of this month I quietly marked the one-year anniversary of my layoff.  I have been, since then, living the life of the un- and under-employed.  I’ve watched the national debate on the economy and jobs, education, health care, and many other subjects become suddenly personal.  I have felt fear, hope, displacement, dejection, disorientation, righteous anger and unspeakable rage.

On the whole, the experience of long-term joblessness is no picnic.  It messes with your mind.  Makes you question yourself at every level, keeps you second-guessing everything you do or consider doing.  The appetite for risk dries up, boldness quails.  The buffer between having enough and to spare and living under a bridge grows thin.  You can see how it might actually happen, with just a little more bad luck.  The less you have, the more you have to lose.  Incidentally, if you really, really want to understand the corrosive effect of long-term joblessness both on individuals, families, and society, read the outstanding piece in the March Atlantic by Don Peck, “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America.” Read this and you will understand far more about what we have done and continue to do to ourselves than most TV pundits, although arguably that isn’t saying much.

The experience has given me a lot to think about, not the least of which is the trap of defining ourselves by our jobs.  I do not say “vocation” because that is, literally something to which one feels called, so in that instance self-definition makes sense.  But if you do some job just to keep food in the fridge and the lights on, is that really you?

Still, there are some positives that came out of this.  Among other things,

• I got my ham radio license (KI6YPF)
• I advanced my studies of Calculus and Modern Greek considerably
• I got to make some headway on my “books I want to read” list
• I became deeply informed on matters of economics and health care
• I developed an unhealthy appetite for political blogs

Okay, four out of five’s not bad.  I also managed to write a couple of articles, do some lecturing, participate in some excellent musical projects, and spend a lot of time thinking and rethinking about what life is about and what it means when you’ve stripped it down to the essentials.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, although we got close to the brink, we never quite fell off.  I am very aware of people who have it much, much worse then we have (so far), but part of our good fortune is due to some important preparations I made against the coming of hard times.  Those precautions stood me in good stead, although some of them would be much harder to accomplish in the current climate.

I’ve learned a few things as well during the period of enforced leisure:

• Be there for your friends, and they will be there for you.  In most cases, community is the key to surviving a personal or family crisis.
• Knowing how to do a lot of different things can save you when things get really, really tight.
• What you are is not necessarily what you do.
• Don’t trust the market.  If you’re near the bottom of the food chain, the “invisible hand” is usually giving you the finger.
• Our economy is a mess, and is likely to get messier.  The better alternatives lie in local, small- to medium-scale enterprises that don’t depend on the whims of  megabusiness.
• One of the best things you can do with your “free time” is to raise hell with the political and corporate entities that are working directly, indirectly, or indifferently against your interests.
• You can learn to put aside the existential angst; it’s fiendishly hard, but worth the effort.
• Never, never, never, never give up, but don’t buy the boostrap myth.  Get help if you need it.

That’s enough for now.  More thoughts will certainly follow.  Recent developments have produced the very real possibility that I might actually have some regular income in a few weeks, although it won’t be a “done deal” until the first check clears.

Stay tuned…