A Portrait of Seattle By a Young Man

Puget Sound

The past few days have been a mixture of rain, then clouds, then sun, then more rain. At times, the rain has been heavy, matching the strength of the sun's rays which come after. So it is that the city is balanced evenly between hope and despair.

I have not explored all of the city yet. I'm staying in West Seattle, a suburb of Seattle, at the bottom of a road that looks like a steep staircase with few steps. In Downtown Seattle, in the heart of the city proper, the road often drops in waves to the water, some sections of road dropping steeper than others. On clear days, Puget Sound sparkles. On cloudy days, the Sound sits there like a large black beast.

Downtown Streets, Sloping Toward the Sound

Most of the streets in downtown run straight and parallel to each other, jointing at the next neighborhood over (Pioneer Square or Seattle Center). Each section has its own personality, and sometimes certain blocks do, too. Near the water is Pike's Place Market, where Farmer's Market is located.

Farmer's Market in Pike's Place Market

Pioneer Square is south of there, past Columbia Street, and includes the oldest structures in the city--most of them underground. The International District is east of Pioneer Square, and is near Qwest and Safeco Fields.

Chinatown/International District

Qwest and Safeco Fields

Then, on the other side of downtown, heading north, one encounters Seattle Center. I took a monorail to there, from which one can see a great view of downtown as it slides past. The Space Needle is in Seattle Center, as is the Pacific Science Center and--most importantly--The Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum.

The Monorail and Part of the Experience Music Project

The Space Needle

I have seen people wearing suits downtown, but not many. When I wore a suit on a mid-morning bus, I got stares. Most people dress casual to semi-casual. Most are Caucasian, with the rest being black, Southeast Asian, or (a few) American Indian. Lots of people smoke at bus stops, but no one smokes inside buildings.

And then there's the food.

A Home Cooked Meal, Courtesy of My Hosts

I haven't eaten out much, but what I've eaten has been delicious--even the food I ate at a buffet. I don't drink beer much, but I've been told that that will change while I'm living out here, since they have so many varieties. While that was being said to me, however, I couldn't help but be reminded of an English major telling me that I would start smoking before I graduated college, due to my major. I still don't smoke (and never will), and while my reasons for rarely drinking have more to do with personal preference than my health, I don't want to develop a beer belly, like the one I saw someone sporting on Halloween, clashing with his Harry Potter costume.

Like most cities, Seattle can be a lonely place, especially when you know few people and not so well, and when your best friends are flung here and there across the globe. I am looking into volunteering at theaters around here, in order to meet more people and return to my theatrical roots, though the big theaters in Seattle tend to draft members of the geriatric society into their volunteer army. Most people who volunteer are in their sixties, probably retired. If that is the case, it means that the youngest of them are older than my parents by at least several years (I take back the geriatric comment and replace it with this one: the volunteers tend to be old). But I shall not meet them for another two weeks. At least the theater people I've met seem friendly. And Seattle Center, where the Seattle Repertory Theater sits, reminded me a little of the Big E, with its open spaces and roller coasters. In essence, it's an asphalt prairie with slabs of grass that seems many miles removed from the shopping district downtown.  And it has a musical fountain.

A View from the Monorail Platform

The International Fountain

Until next time...

Why I Do What I Do

I have some stuff to report on Sunday concerning my job search and life in Seattle, but today, I've decided to figure out what my mission statement is.  In other words, why do I do what I do?

The idea of a mission statement came from a program called "Project Hire" that I took a while back at Manchester Community College.  This was in addition to three free workshops I took there, which were called "Interviewing Skills," "Job Search and Cover Letters," and "Effective Resume Writing"--each class being, with questions, a little under 90 minutes in length.  Project Hire, on the other hand, was composed of brief opening remarks, and then two classes (we had a selection to choose from) covering similar material as taught in the workshops, but by different people (and for job hunting, some additional techniques to use).

Anyway, I am now trying to figure out my mission statement.  I've done PAR (problem-action-result) statements, but have yet to really think about my career objective (to retire?).  My career objective apart from being a novelist, poet, and playwright, that is.  And I think that is why I am having trouble with my mission statement.

Having just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I can't help but question whether or not I'm going about my job search correctly.  After all, the point of that book (among others) is to not follow the crowd when the crowd is wrong, and Phaedrus's search for Quality is familiar to anyone in any career who chooses to measure success on how good their products are, not on how much money they make.

And that's another thing I find a little disturbing about the whole key to success in a job search: not that you are marketing your skills, but that you are, in effect, marketing yourself as a product.  Not a human being.  A product.  While I don't disagree that thinking that way about oneself will allow one to see the skills and attributes that one can bring to a company--and will help in bringing about a successful end to a job search (at least temporarily)--I don't like comparing myself to an inanimate object on a shelf, devoid of personality or life.  Perhaps it would be better to follow the old mantra "know thyself," for that is essentially how one not only lands a job, but lands the right job.

But I am getting away from my mission statement.  According to my brochure, "It should quickly convey who you are, what you do and what you are trying to accomplish.  It is about what you believe in; what makes you passionate about doing what you do every day."  Well, I am passionate about writing.  Why?  Because I enjoy telling stories, I love communicating with others, and the sense of accomplishment after creating a really good piece of literature--whether it be a blog post, a short story, a poem, a play, a novel, or parts of each--is indescribable.  It's when Igor Stravinsky finds that note on the piano.  In some ways, it creates something new that wasn't there before, or reveals something that was there all along.

What do I believe in?  I believe in a job well done.  Even if you have the shittiest job in the world, you should do that job to the best of your ability.  Why?  Because even the best job has parts of it that are not enjoyable, that are tedious, and that need to be done to continue doing the parts you do enjoy.  I don't mind editing and proofreading my novel, but doing it again and again and again is not that fun.  And sometimes, I'll come across a section that I don't know how to fix.  So do I just leave it?  Maybe for the moment, but eventually, I know that I'll come back to it and figure it out, because by breaking through that one tedious edit, I may vastly improve the entire novel.  And while I can occasionally slack off, I am not lazy, and I am not a quitter.

What do I do?  Besides writing, I read books, magazines, and poetry, watch plays (though, since college, this has been a too rare event), see movies, enjoy the outdoors on nice days, learn about different cultures on TV and through my travels, study Japanese (hopefully I'll start doing that again this weekend), and hopefully begin to study French again someday soon (Vancouver is just a car ride away, though Quebec would be better for French-speaking--and listening--purposes).  I also love meeting new people, especially from foreign lands or different ethnic backgrounds than me.

What am I trying to accomplish?  Simply put, I want to make a positive difference in this world, whether it's through my writing or by my example.  Working with a nonprofit to feed starving children in Africa (heck, to feed starving children in America) would be right up my alley.  I also would prefer to work for a company that treats its employees and customers with respect, not one over the other, or neither.  It would also be nice if I could work for a company whose bottom line was people instead of money.  If your main goal is customer service, the money will come, but if your main goal is making money, at some point, the customers will dry up, and so will the money.  So really, companies should focus on the people they serve and employ if they want to make money long-term.  The problem is that too many people within companies only care if they make money, screw the long-term consequences.  Of course, paying executives 400 times what their employees make for bankrupting companies (when it used to be 40 times for a job well done) seems to serve neither the goal of servicing customers nor the goal of making money.

Who am I?  I've saved this question for last because it's the toughest of the bunch.  I'm sure my friends could give you a great answer to this question, but I'm too close to the action.  Still, let me try: I am a principled, artistic, creative, intelligent, hard-working, spiritual, knowledge-hungry, passionate, loving, kind, somewhat shy, humorous humanitarian who would love to have a job that pays well, but not if it requires me to break my principles (I will bend them, but not break them).  In fact, I would rather have a job of which I feel good about that pays nothing, that a job of which I feel terrible about that makes me wealthy (then again, isn't that my situation now?).  I also tend to be a bit frugal with my money (I hear you laughing, people who know me!), which is why I've been able to save enough of it to move out to Seattle and try my luck at finding a job here.  That, and money from a will and a house sale.

So, now I just have to compress all of that into a ten-second spiel.  What could be easier?

The Mozart Personality and the Beethoven Personality

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was timid in his dealings with his benefactors.  That could be why he had so much trouble securing a job while in Vienna.  Other factors included the unpopularity of his father, Leopold, and Salieri's jealous guarding of his position as court composer (though the two were rivals, theirs was not the heated rivalry portrayed in the film Amadeus).

At the time Mozart lived, composers were considered servants.  Leopold was under the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg, as was his son, and when Wolfgang broke off ties with the Archbishop to pursue a career in Vienna, he, in essence, became a freelancer.  Still, in all of his dealings with those of the noble classes who commissioned works for him to write, he was considered of a lower class than they.  This is not to say that the nobility heaped scorn upon Mozart, for they did not, but they also did not treat him as their equal, for those his gifts rivaled theirs, in the society of the time, they were of a higher pedigree.

Beethoven was different.

Ludwig van Beethoven refused to be treated like a servant.  He is considered a transitional figure from the classical to romantic periods not only because of his music, which threatens to break all classical constraints at times but never does, but because of his view of his music and his status in society.  His music was art.  His status was that of the greatest living composer.  As such, he was not one to be treated as a mere servant.  He demanded to be paid what he felt he was worth, and would often withhold compositions if the person who commissioned it did not pay him the agreed-upon amount.

In Harold Schonberg's Lives of the Great Composers, Schonberg has this to say about these two musical geniuses (and I'm quoting from memory here, so if anyone owns this book and can provide me with the actual quote--in the chapter on Beethoven--I would greatly appreciate it):
           While Mozart would timidly knock at the servants' entrance, 
           waiting to gain admittance, Beethoven would kick down the
           front doors, sit at the head of the table, and demand to 
           be served.
It is this quote that inspired today's post.

I think most people with talent--any talent--fall into one of these two categories better than the other one (I should make it clear that people who have these personalities may or may not have the talent of these two artistic giants--the personality type has nothing to do with a corresponding level of talent).  The Beethovens of the world have such powerful personalities that people forgive them their idiosyncrasies and cater to their every demand.  The Mozarts of the world, meanwhile, are often championed by a handful of people who recognize their talent, but are largely ignored by the powerful or the populace until after their deaths--and sometimes, not even then.

There is a third type of personality, too, which I'd like to call the Wagner personality.  While Beethoven types demand that the world recognize their genius, Wagner types demand that the world recognize their divinity.  Not that Wagner really fit this type, himself (his was more of a strong Beethoven personality), but he did inspire religious fervor in many of his supporters, and so we have Wagner types today, who try to create a religion around their work, complete with objects to worship.  The more common name for them is prima donna.

Unfortunately, I have a Mozart personality.  I'd like to imagine that, deep inside, resides a Beethoven personality, but he only comes out in the company of friends and family.  In public, I knock timidly at the servants' wing door, waiting to be admitted.  Still, I have enough of a Beethoven personality not to leave until someone opens the door.