I'm going to break my self-imposed ban on writing about my job just this once.
I'm attending a three-day seminar whose subject matter is focused in large part on dealing with the news media in emergencies.
If you've been following this blog for any time, you can probably guess how I feel about this: I don't want to deal with the news media in any way, shape or form. (Nor for that matter, do they have any urgent desire to deal with me.)
I still have regular nightmares about being in the news media. I don't like reliving elements of that part of my life. I was on the brink of a panic attack by the time this thing was over today, and I pretty much bolted from the building when it was over.
There are not many people taking this seminar who have my background, although there are a few who've been through what I've been through and a few who've been through far, far worse. Some of them seem to handle this much better than I do.
I just want to be far away from it.
Maybe my fascination with Cold Mountain has its origin in the need to escape my own past.
4 comments:
Well, you know, one thing you & I have in common -- besides the Stephen King childhoods -- is that we once had "prestige" jobs (you in TV; me in celebrity journalism) that we no longer have.
I don't know whether it was your choice to walk away. It wasn't mine. (Though certainly I was well aware that the point of the job was to pander to the weakest points in the human psyche, and -- ahem! -- I disapproved! I disapproved all the way to the bank.)
Getting thrown out of something rather than leaving on your own terms is always a psychological slap in the face.
So, yeah -- not to discount your spiritual evolution (which I read about with great pleasure)-- I think there is an element of emotional retrograde in your hermit fantasies.
No, it wasn't my choice to walk –– although I'm glad it turned out the way it did. There could have a been a lot of outcomes that would have been worse, not the least of which is that I would still be hyperventilating in front of detached garage fires.
I fell into that career by accident, as I've probably mentioned before. I was not temperamentally well-suited to it. I get bored easily, and as you know, there's a lot more sameness to journalism than most people outside the business realize.
And, in spite of my currently active social life, I don't especially like people. This was especially the 'movers and shakers' with whom I was expected to cultivate relationships.
I have a jar of your hot sauce, still in the bubble wrap, sitting on my dining room table. I can't bring myself to open it... it's like a holy relic or something.
That should read, "This was especially true of the 'movers and shakers'..."
That particular hot sauce is a holy relic! (As you'll see when you unbubble.)
I wasn't sure that you actually liked hot sauce so I encouraged Rena to go for label art.
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