This blog post is going to be an unusual one for me. It’s going to be in part a review of the Pixar film Soul, which I finally got round to watching last night. It’s also going to be a sort of philosophical rambling I expect. I’ve been thinking a lot this year about my life, it’s ‘purpose’, what career goals I have and where I can and will find my fulfilment.
As you may have read in some of my previous blog posts, a lot of different things have been triggering this for me this year. I’m sure a lot of people have been reevaluating their lives and lifestyles during the pandemic and various lockdowns and trying to discover what they most value, what they want to leave behind.
I’ve also moved house this year, to a new town, a fresh start in the countryside from a big town. That was a big lifestyle change. We’re all more in touch with nature, with our local community, volunteering with Scouts and getting the two big boys to join scouts.
It’s time for me to get back into employment after having time away for my youngest. It was the best decision and certainly getting out of accounting was right for me. But now he’s 2 and he needs to interact with other children as much as I need to get back to employment. Natural Causes is a love of mine but it isn’t paying the bills right now! I’m not going anywhere – I’m still going to be working on making new printables, new paintings, and keep my blog going, I’m just not going to put so much pressure on myself to make it a full time income to support my family. (I would be grateful if it did as well though!)
So as I was saying, 2021 has so far been a year of self discovery (including the revelation of the potential of being on the autism spectrum and how that’s made me evaluate my life and how I feel I fit into this world), and looking forwards.
Watching Bones and thinking about how the main character was based on someone who was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (a term many autistics do not approve of anymore), made me realise why she was the one character I’ve always related to. It also got me thinking, in my teenage years I wanted to be her. I thought I wanted her job. I thought I wanted her ‘life’. Perhaps what I wanted was to find my place in the world like she had. Rewatching it this year hit different since I’ve been thinking about my own potential autism, and my desire to get back to employment.
Image from: https://vocal.media/criminal/bones-in-the-dessert-kisses-in-the-booth
Autistic people can have ‘special interests’ which are their hobbies or interests, but with a much higher intensity than people usually give to their hobbies and interests. This is usually expressed in TV and other media as a little kid who knows ridiculous facts about trains or something. For me, I’m super interested in criminal justice. The whole area. It’s not super focused on one thing, it’s the whole area.
To me, my ‘special interest’ feels like something that I’m so interested in that I want to know every single thing about it. With criminal justice, I want to know about crimes, criminals, the police and how they work, the court system, sentencing, what prisons are like, what it’s like to work in prison. I want to know what happens when they come out, probation, what help and rehabilitation there is and what there should be, I want to know about serious offenders and how they are integrated back into society and whether they reoffend. I want to know how our country and our system keeps people safe and whether they still treat people with the decency that all humans deserve.
It also extends to the science of criminal justice – forensics. The crime scene investigation, the processes in the lab, the decomposition of a human body that has been murdered, the factors that affect that (forensic taphonomy is a whole field on its own!). I wish I could do a job rotation where I can work a while in each job, but people spend their whole lives learning and experiencing so they can be experts in those fields, I don’t have that many lifetimes to live!
So this leaves me with a personal quandary in deciding where I want to dedicate my one lifetime that I have. This has felt like pressure to me, to decide, to choose one thing out of all these super interesting areas, with many jobs in each. Do I want to finish my degree with the open university and study a masters in forensic taphonomy? Do I want to go to medical school so that I can be a forensic pathologist like Bones? Do I want to work with ex-offenders on probation, in the prison service? Do I want to be in the police?
I also have no experience in any of these areas, and a low sense of self confidence about my abilities. I didn’t do well in the accountancy area, and those are the only jobs I’ve had so far. The only thing I have any confidence in, is being a parent. We all have some self-doubt when it comes to parenting, but I know my kids are happy, healthy, kind, intelligent beings and they are so loved.
So with all this pressure I’m putting on myself, here’s where Pixar’s movie Soul comes in. Soul is about Joe Gardner, a jazz pianist who has found himself teaching children to play musical instruments. He really wants to play with the Dorothea Williams Quartet, and make his living from playing music. His mother wants him to be a permanent full time music teacher because she wants a life of security for him. He feels she doesn’t approve, and there is tension between them over this. His father was also a musician and his mother saw how hard it was for him to have security, and how her tailoring business kept them afloat in the rough times.
Joe believes that being a jazz pianist with the quartet is his life’s purpose. He finally gets his big chance and then whoops he falls down an open manhole cover and dies. His little ethereal soul lands on the escalator to the ‘Great Beyond’ but he’s desperate to get back to his body and his gig that night. Falling off the escalator, he lands in the ‘Great Before’ where he tries to use the Earth portal to get back to his body. It’s not that easy though, as Joe finds out. Eventually he meets another soul in the Great Before, and together they go through a journey of discovery.
Soul was thought-provoking and beautiful and reminded me of something I do try my best to remember every day. To enjoy the little things. Each and every moment. The soul that Joe meets has the youthful innocence of a child, the inexperience of being on Earth makes all of the ‘regular old living’ things feel incredible. They stop to savour the moment, and it teaches Joe that this is where you find life’s purpose. People don’t always end up in the career they expected and can still find happiness and fulfilment. People who get their big break, sometimes still don’t feel fulfilled. The lesson to take from it all is that you won’t find your fulfilment in the ‘next thing’, because when you have the next thing, you’ll be looking for the next next thing. If you notice the little moments that bring you happiness, you will feel fulfilled and won’t always be searching for it.
This reminded me to ease up on the pressure I had applied to myself to choose a path, a purpose. Right now, I don’t have employment, but I do have Natural Causes, I do have my family, my home, my new area and community. I love to appreciate the beauty in nature. Why brush away all the moments you can find happiness. Ambition and goals are great, but they shouldn’t come at the expense of the present. Being present in the present.
Soul teaches us that we may have a ‘spark’ something that makes life worth living, something that brings us deep happiness. This isn’t the same as a purpose. Joe’s spark was jazz. Are sparks the same as special interests? I live for my family, to see them thrive, but I also have my own enjoyments of life separate to them. I find it hard to decipher my thoughts and the reasons behind them. Why do I find things interesting? Why do I think I would fit a particular job?
For example, in thinking about joining the police, I have been considering a few interview style questions to help me dig deeper to understand my life’s desires better. I’ve been reading on the website of the local police force and their officer profiles and I have thought about similar questions to those they asked their officers.
-Why do you want to work in the police?
= I think the work itself will be varied and interesting, and I want to help people. I believe that everyone has a moral duty to give back, everybody receives from the world and the people in it, and I think that balance is important. I feel that I have always had more kindness and compassion than I have had useful outlets for it, and I think in the police I can reach a lot of people with that kindness and compassion and help. Help and kindness should be spread as widely as possible, and I think that each time you give a kindness out, it gets spread further outwards from that person, and so by giving it out to more people, it will spread much further.
I also strongly believe in justice and fairness, coming from a stance of equality. All humans deserve to live their lives, and all humans deserve to be treated properly. We all deserve to live our lives free of crime, and safe from harm. When this is not the case, we should not jump to conclusions, but instead try to help, and this may mean both parties, despite one or both having committed an offence. Committing a crime doesn’t necessarily make someone a bad person, and there can be many contributing factors, but harming another person in some way, must lead to justice for the harmed person. As long as each offender is treated equally and fairly, and each victim is treated equally and fairly then justice can be served and society maintained.
-Why do you think diversity and equality are important?
= Within the police force, diversity is important to represent the local community, and give reassurance to it, that their views and their issues are heard and cared about. People of different backgrounds bring different skills and knowledge and experience to the force and the variation of police work needs varied people. The same is true of the community as a whole, diversity makes a more varied and interesting world. Equality goes alongside this, in that all people are valued and have their own strengths and weaknesses, and differences between people should be embraced, and therefore all should be treated equally. People should not be valued less than any others for particular characteristics of their lives or selves. This relates closely to my views (above) on justice.
These questions helped me figure out my motivations and how they relate to my core beliefs and values. It’s a difficult exercise, but worthwhile to discover what your life desires are. Remember though, that purpose isn’t necessary, but enjoying life and feeling fulfilled should come from all of your life, not just the thing you haven’t found yet.
Natural Causes 