had a good long soak in the tub and a think, with the help of the #Undertale soundtrack. ("Snowy" to "An Ending".) it's provoked a huge amount of reflection in connection with my new job.

so...a little background. I recently started work at a firm in Seattle that makes biodiesel out of used cooking oil. it's probably the first "real" job I've ever had, honestly, excepting the gardening work I've done from time to time.

now...what do I mean by "real" job? that's a tendentious term that's been used to mean a lot of awful things. I don't think I can give a _full_ definition. I'll just say this: I finally feel like I'm engaged in work that leaves the world a little better for being done.

like...I can get all catty and cynical about how biodiesel is a dead end and how it's not gonna save the world or anything but when it comes down to it, it's taking filthy disgusting cooking waste and turning into fuel. I'd rather THAT happen, than the alternative.

Much of the gardening work I've done hasn't been that satisfying when you get down to it. It's been assisting wealthy people who treat plants like articles of furniture, and they want someone to come in periodically to give everything a polish. it's been less "making things grow" and more "making things look nice". and that can be good or bad

So for the first time in my life, really and truly, I've got a job that I can't weasel out of. That's a bit different from saying "I've got a job I can't quit." I've had those before.

What I mean is...if I fuck this job up, it'll be a real fuck-up. And if I _leave_ this job, it can only be because I genuinely believe that I'm not capable of doing it, that I really did hit my limit. Every other job I've lost, I've always had excuses. I could always tell myself, "Well, it's not like this job should exist anyway."

This...frightens me. It scares the everliving daylights out of me. I'll be perfectly goddamn honest

I've never felt like this before in my life, ever. I've never felt _this_ sense of responsibility before

(oh, sorry, was gonna write something about how Goodwill was like an "anti-job" but then I just deleted it, it was getting too painful)

one of the tropes that I've always rolled my eyes at was the "real world" in the sense used by people who sneer at millennials &c. and always means the world of the corporate workforce. almost all of the jobs I've had a nightmarish unreality about them, in fact

the "real world" to me was what was inside my head, and what I shared with family and friends. work wasn't "real", it was some sort of recurring nightmare that I was required to endure in order to subsist in a capitalist hellscape

until now

jobs in the past have confused me and left me feeling like there wasn't any way they could be possibly done, jobs have frustrated and baffled me, but never for real reasons. always I could say, "it's an artifact of the system, it's ok not to understand it and do the job half-assed, it's not like there's any reason for what you're doing other than "someone told you to do this"

not the case here. if this job baffles and confuses me, it's my fault. I'm face to face with the hard reality of what a messy, complicated, ever-changing process is required to try to turn horrible black goo into something you can burn in your spiffy German diesel sedan

this is not a job to be merely _endured_. if I try to do the job with that attitude I'll break in no time. I can't force myself through this job, gritting my teeth while trying to snatch what intervals time I can grab on the things that mean something to me--food, sleep, friendship, laughter, science, magic, anything

this is a job I'm going to have to figure out how to inhabit

and I think I may have a way, and it's going to sound very silly

I've made no secret of how I've turned Undertale into a kind of anchor for myself, an armature around which I've shaped spiritual meaning. I daresay that some people think I'm a bit loopy (or at least tiresome and boring) for doing it, and also @KaylinEvergreen has had some sound advice for me about anchoring oneself to archetypes that are older and more powerful than anything that can be constructed from relatively ephemeral popular media. I've felt bad, sometimes, about going back to the Undertale well again and again

but what can I say, the water's extremely refreshing

I bring that up because, by one of those coincidences that @kel loves, the Undertale fanfic that we've been working on most recently is leading towards the moment when Alphys and Undyne are, basically, going to have to set up their own factory

because while I'm writing _now_ about how Queen Toriel is gearing up to fire Alphys, I'm writing THAT because soon Toriel is going to be coming back to Alphys for help

because I figure that whatever arrangement Toriel makes to be permitted to settle on the Surface in my fictional world, she's going to want to have as few strings attached to human society as possible. she's going to want to make maximum use of whatever limited resources end up within her grasp.

she's going to need the help of someone who knows how to turn garbage into gold