(For those of you on LJ, please click the link, register, and leave comments there — I’m not likely to see them if you leave them on LJ. Thanks!)

I am now employed — starting Monday, I will be working at a major Minnesota insurance company. The gig is at a good pay rate, reinforces my health care background, and is going to be the first step in establishing financial independence as I move forward. Hunting for a job was very scary, and it reminded me of just how screwed up it is to work for someone else, where one always relies on someone else’s action for their employment. That experience was harrowing and degrading, and I didn’t take well to it: it’s really fostered and bolstered my entrepreneurial spirit, and sincerely driven me to break out of the corporate world as soon as possible. As always, I have a couple of ideas as to how I might do this, but we’ll start with working for my own corporation that works for other people — at least there I get to decide my own benefits and get out from underneath taxes. We’ll see what else I do later on.

In other beginnings, I am going to be joining the Scottish Rite the week after next. The Freemasons, in general, are a pretty accepting and open-minded group — what would you expect from the organization whose principles spawned the acceptance principles of the United States? But, as much as the Freemasons may be accepting, the the Scottish Rite (an appendent body to Freemasonry) really takes the cake. This is the mission of the organization:

To seek that which is of most worth in the world;
To exalt the dignity of every person;
To maximize our service to humanity;
To aid the individual’s search in God’s universe
for identity, for development, and for destiny.
Thereby, to achieve better men in a better world,
happier men in a happier world,
and wiser men in a wiser world.

And this is the creed:

The cause of human progress is our cause,
the enfranchisement of human thought our supreme wish,
the freedom of human conscience our mission,
and the guarantee of equal rights to all peoples everywhere,
the end of our contention.

(Cite)

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My generation I saw the best minds of my generation Running on empty Superglued to the TV Dreaming of prosperity talking incessently Saying nothing Sleeping on platforms in train stations Sipping chemical cocktails Alive to the universe Dead to the world Hallucinating delusions of media reality And counting time desperate in the pursuit of cool He’s in a suit She’s in a straightjacket 7-11 nightmares at 3 AM I saw the best minds of my generation caught up in the virtual reality of living Memorizing pin numbers and secret codes Swaying robotically to nonexistant rhythms Flashing membership to clubs so exculsive nobody belongs

Scared shitless, Witless, Clueless, Useless Tight-lipped, Tight-fisted, Tight-assed, Half-assed Ass-licking, coke sniffing, money grubbing, ego jabbin’ Sniffling and goveling Moaning and groaning The city is all wrapped up in plastic like an electronic cocoon If you lay in the street you can hear it humming Building up slowly from underground If you close your eyes you can observe the blue prints The man-made DNA that spirals breathlessly out of control As synapse collapse Bridges snap To a restless utopia Utopia Jesus said Lay down your arms Jesus said Children come home My generation

– Pigface, Nutopia (MP3)

I haven’t posted here in quite a while, and there’s a number of reasons for that. Historically, it was because I had been blogging from work for lack of anything better to do there — but work is gone (more on that later), so I’ve actually been busy. Very recently, it was because I was drawn into discussing Freemasonry and some of its less liberal aspects (cite) — that’s another post, though, and one I’d love to hear from other people about.

In any case, please forgive me for my truancy, but I’m back and going to be posting consistantly.

There has been a major change in my whole life situation, and to understand it, we need a running start. This time last year, when I was formally graduating from college, I was intending to take a year or two off, go to Germany, and pursue an advanced degree in Mathematics. In the course of taking that year or two off, though, I’ve realized that my future as a mathematician isn’t really what I want it to be. Ultimately, getting a Ph.D. in mathematics sends you to a very limited selection of places, and I don’t want to go to any of them. Undergraduate instruction in mathematics is rough, because it’s teaching the same courses over and over again — further, a seemingly honest reflection shook my faith in my ability to be outstanding in mathematics, and I’m not going to be happy doing anything unless I am outstanding there.

Because of that, I have decided that I am going to continue into academics, but teaching Christianity. The first step in doing this is to go get an Master of Divinity. The Master of Divinity, aside from being the coolest sounding academic degree by far, is basically the degree given to ministers, and it involves a lot of deep training in the theology and practice of a denomination. Since I am a Presbyterian through and through, this means that I am looking at Presbyterian seminaries, and the two that top my list are Princeton in NJ and Columbia in Atlanta — if anyone has commentary on either of those, I’d love to hear it. Once I’ve got the Master of Divinity, I’m going to spend some time as a minister and then go get my Ph.D., most likely in Biblical Studies (the Old Testament, in particular). I feel like I can really be successful as a Biblical scholar and theologian, and I feel like I have a lot to offer Christian thought. So that’s one major phase shift in my future goals.

Given the short lifespan of my IT career and tax benefits with that and other investments, I’ve decided to move off and become an independent consultant, which is what lead to my lack of a job. I left my job in order to get started in consulting: it was really hard to do the work I needed to do while I was sitting behind a desk. I intended on giving my employer three weeks notice, and have August 12th as the last date, but as soon as I told them this, they told me that I was out the door at close of business that day. They are paying me for two more weeks, but I am no longer gainfully employed, and somewhat earlier than expected. This has put a lot of stress onto me, and is motivating me to move hard on finding an independent consulting gig.

The goal in all of this pressure, and in all of this frustration, and in this midst of trailing mess, is to escape the corporate machine. I want to live a life of deep meaning and lasting success — I want do do things that will matter long past myself, and I want to improve the world that I live in. Sitting in a desk porting SQL from DB/2 to Oracle really did not feel like it had deep meaning. For once I am listening to my dad’s advice: I am going to work to live, not live to work. What I’ve discovered, though, is that the corporate world doesn’t allow that: my last job was actively eating away at the free time I had, and even though the job paid substantially better than the job before it, the money still wasn’t enough. It is time to get out of that mess and start making a life for myself — all I have to do is build up enough courage and enough forward momentum to break the pull of the corporate world. That’s today’s goal: break free.

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