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MONEY_AND_SOUL

                                               April 2, 2014

This is a notion that may have faded in
the 90s, but it used to be a very common
feeling that you had to choose between a       Kids these days seem to have
sensible straight job that would be dull       been seduced by the romance
but lucrative and something more exiting       of the software start-up.
but poorly paid -- a struggling artist, a      Fry your hands and your
dedicated activist, a starving musician...     brain creating the best
                                               zombies-with-tit-fetish game
                                               ever, and once you're rich
                                               (heh) you can retire and
                                               worry about your soul, if any.

                                               And anyway, the romance of
                                               noble poverty is easier to
                                               maintain when times are
                                               good.

                                                   (I've heard the point
                                                   that what Kerouace
                                                   and friends were doing
                                                   in "On the Road" depended
                                                   on a boom economy:
                                                   drifting around and doing
                                                   pick-up jobs depends
                                                   on an economy that's
                                                   desperate for low-end
                                                   workers.)

   There was a related question of
   cool-- e.g. in the 80s, you might've
   liked the idea of tattoos and piercings
   and extreme hair, but can you really       The people working things like
   live like that?  Don't you need to tone    Coffee House jobs in San
   it down for the corporate world?           Francisco were clearly the ones
                                              who weren't making that sacrifice.
   If you abandon your personal style
   are you betraying your real culture?           In those days, I was
                                                  constantly hearing from
       (The alt.gothic crew invented the          frazzled IT workers
       "stealth goth" concept-- one               dreaming about giving it
       could adopt a corporate uniform            all up and just taking a
       without compromising your true self.)      Coffee House job somewhere.

                                                      One of them thought
                                                      it would be so fun to
                                                      work the counter that
                                                      she was trying to
                                                      talk some friends
                                                      into letting her do
                                                      it one day a week as
                                                      a volunteer.

I would've thought my generation solved
this problem, at least in the software
industry, but there are some signs of
retrenchment-- it could be all the new     I get the feeling that when
kids aren't short hairs because they       Bubble 1.0 flamed out, the
like it, but because they're worried       suits decided to blame it
they have to be...                         all on the ponytails.


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