Forgive the more personal post, but I feel like I’m nearing the end of the ‘safe period’ of unemployment, about to head off on one last adventure, and when I get back, I have to have decided what to do with my life.

I mean, not the part of my life that matters because that’s been decided long ago, but the large portion of my time that I don’t control, that I basically hand over to someone else, usually a boss, that is seen as a more legitimate expenditure of time, the thing that I tell people without much enthusiasm when they ask what it is a do ‘for a crust’ or whatever.

I know what I want to do with my time: write, perform, create and fight and organise against capitalism, to fight for rights and equality. These things though do not pay, do not give me the means to pay rent, earn enough to eat and live a decent life.

I know I’ve spoken about this often and at length, but before, whilst working full-time, I could kind of just go along, working and wishing I could do something better but now that I’m out, it’s harder to make a choice about how to go back in. I need to decide what I’m willing to do out of the selection of things I don’t really want to do, but have to.

Uni and doing creative RMIT is something that’s appealing and an obvious choice but that still leaves part-time work, casual work to decide on. Study plus work equals less time for writing, politics and spending time with my partner and friends. But yet I don’t feel like I really get a choice in this. It’s frustrating that I feel like I’m about to be forced to give up time on things I love.

Everyone is asking me what I’m going to do, that I have to find a job soon, and I can’t answer them, part of me doesn’t want to give in and just get a job I hate, but again, there’s no choice in the end. I really have better things to do than to work for someone else, doing something that isn’t really that important, like filling out spreadsheets or answering phones.

I’m trying to put this all into a poem, but the blog post is easier for now.