Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
an act of shameless self-promotion
no photo today – instead an image from one of my favourite graphic artists – eric drooker – which i have used in my election-campaign letter handout for this weekend.
on my way in today, i was thinking about the concept of vocational “calling”. the last guy i dated felt “called” to his profession as a forester, which is something i had never really encountered in someone i knew before. mostly the people i know have just got into jobs without thinking too much about it – they needed money, has some baseline interest or skills, they took a job or some training, and got employed mostly out of necessity.
in my case, i was a good talker, a decent writer, and a musician – so a degree in communications and subsequent employment in the field seemed to fit – but i have never felt that it was a “calling” per se – more like a convenient proclivity towards a certain skill-set. and while i suspect i may spend my lifetime doing communications work (because i am good at it, and skills like these are in demand in the hyper-media world we live in), it’s not because i love it – but because it pays a professional salary which allows me to do other things like activism and travel.
which leads me back to the concept of calling – because when nathan and i were discussing this back in the fall and i was preparing to go on strike – it occured to me that i do have a calling…. and have since i was very small.
(to be clear – i don’t think that a “calling” is a mystic, preordained or fatalistic sort of thing – more that very early life circumstances and certain inborn personality traits produce certain interests or leanings in young children that may or may not develop into a calling in later life)
i honestly believe i was called to activism and social justice organizing – i cannot remember a time in my life where i did not feel the need to resist injustice at home, at school, and in our neighbourhood – which lead me into my first protests and campaigns by the age of thirteen. many times i have decided to “quit” the movement in order to pursue different things in life – but although i may leave organizations, i find them quickly replaced with others. and one major thing i learned this fall when we went on strike is that all those years of organizations, and actions and demonstrations and legal problems have left me with the ability to step into the middle of a large campaign and lead it with total confidence. i had never really had my entire skillset tested all at once like that before (event organizing, media work, membership relations, public speaking, propagandizing etc.) – and the experience left me realizing that even though it is stressful at times, organizing is what i do best – and what i will always do best of anything else in my life.
and it is in clarifying this for myself i realize that communications is just an outgrowth of that activist-calling, and it is likely in my own psychic interest to pursue either work for the union movement, or running for higher office rather than staying in the federal government because it’s convenient. that doesn’t mean i’m leaving my job anytime soon – just that i recognize the privilege of having many options on the table, all of which i’m quite confident about at the moment….
anyhow – to wrap-up this post – what all that thinking lately has meant is that i’m taking my union-career more seriously these days and i’ve decided to run for higher office at the psac regional convention this weekend. i mean, this is nothing major – just a geographic rep. position – but every position is one step closer to the next…. or one step closer to a communications job inside my union (so i’ve been told). i am including in this post a copy of the campaign letter i wrote and laid-out this morning…. would you vote for me? 😉
One Comment on “an act of shameless self-promotion”
Red Cedar 
Thank you for this thought exploration of your activism. I started my union activism in 1996 and have discovered many things in my past that I started to understand differently, through a union organizing lense.