a hunger artist

If my dream did not come true today, it at least provided a lively ironic commentary to the day's events. I arrived, typically late, at 9:30, wearing exactly the jeans I had been wearing in my dream. When I cranked up my computer and opened my email, my jaw dropped. My interview at Harvard, which I thought was taking place tomorrow, was today. At 9:00. I was late, and had to reschedule. Everybody said the same thing, "happens to the best of us." Only my boss knew something else was going on. "Acting out?" she asked. I nodded. "I think I'm having trouble with the idea of becoming a receptionist at the age of thirty-five." "Well then, maybe you shouldn't take it. Really, maybe you shouldn't. We'll talk, I have a meeting this afternoon, we'll get together at 2:00. We'll talk. Ok?" "Ok." This bolstered me, and I had this wave of rising spirits. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I had a sense that something good was happening, something was unfolding, some ship was about to come in.

"But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves, I mean pirates, and then there is the peril of waters,winds and rocks." The Merchant of Venice I:3

For it was next my lot to face a fellow employee, with whom I had traded blogs, and who had just read the entry on the dream and gave me some advice on my career. The substance of the advice seemed to be that when talking to an employer I should always ask for more than what I am offered, so as to get the best possible salary. Could it be that this man was giving me advice on how to do salary negotiations in dreams? Or was he guessing that I would handle salary negotiations in my waking life in the same way I handle them in dreams? I found it quite unfathomable. But one thing was clear. This man knew a lot more about money than I did. The word "money" came out of his mouth a million times more in this brief conversation than I would dare to use it in a month. He spoke quite frankly about how important money was to him, how he had been working since he was eighteen. Then seeming to catch himself, he asked me: "Hey how old are you? Are you like twenty-five?" "You flatter me," I said, demure and pissed at him at the same time. "No, really, how old are you? You must be in your twenties." "You're just guessing that because of where I sit." I sit in the receptionist cubicle, the most exposed place in the office, just next to the kitchen so I can smell everyone's lunch. He was persisting with me about my age. Finally I had to admit defeat. "I'm thirty-five." "Really?" He seemed taken aback, not that I had preserved my features so well, but for another reason. He was surprised that I hadn't made it further in life, in his terms. I now received a lecture on how lucrative a career in technology is, how his friends, after less than a year, not even knowing English, had made big money, and I should really consider it. All this money everywhere, he seemed to be saying, why wasn't I going after my share? That's when I thought of that story by Kafka, where we hear the last words of a man who had made his career by performing forty day fasts:

"Forgive me everything," whispered the hunger artist. Only the supervisor, who was pressing his ear up against the cage, understood him. "Certainly," said the supervisor, tapping his forehead with his finger in order to indicate to the spectators the state the hunger artist was in, "we forgive you." "I always wanted you to admire my fasting," said the hunger artist. "But we do admire it," said the supervisor obligingly. "But you shouldn't admire it," said the hunger artist. "Well then, we don't admire it," said the supervisor, "but why shouldn't we admire it?" "Because I had to fast. I can't do anything else," said the hunger artist. "Just look at you," said the supervisor, "why can't you do anything else?" "Because," said the hunger artist, lifting his head a little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the supervisor's ear so that he wouldn't miss anything, "because I couldn't find a food which I enjoyed. If had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart's content, like you and everyone else." - Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist

Underslept as a result of all the work needed to release my blog in proper form the previous evening, and nervously exhausted, I walked away with tears in my eyes. My meeting with my boss was again a relief. Understanding my position, she has done everything possible to advance me, and today she got me another interview at Harvard. So it may actually be that I have an interview on Friday, and my ship may yet be coming in. * Arriving home this evening, some children had set up a little store on their porch where they were selling used junk. Their older brother made fun of them on his way into the house. "But we already made twenty-three dollars!" the girl said. It reminded me of how rich I felt when at the age of 13 I was raking in the bucks making lemonade near the end of a golf course. As I was turning the key in the door, a little towheaded boy saw me and called out. "Do you want to buy something?" he asked. "I'd like to, but I can't, because I don't have any money." "Oh, but you are so close to your house," he said hopefully, "So you can go in and get some!" "No, I mean I don't have any money at all." "Oh," he said, and the mere word cannot communicate the sweet innocent happy mournfulness of his voice, disappointed for both of us, but mostly sad on my account. Just hearing that sound, my heart opened and was pleased. I was ready to continue my journey. Next stop, zafu.