Questioning the Questions

Well finally. After more than a year of anticipation, months of innuendo and rumor, news has broken about the fate of my job! I must say that it is a relief to have any news at all, especially when that news is mostly positive in nature. In August I will be working for the new company that won the contract, their goals seem to be aligned with our own and they seem to be very open, when they actually have information to provide us. Everything I had heard up to this point has unfortunately turned out to be true, our benefits will be stripped for 90 days and we won't have paid vacation for a year. I have had a good year to prepare for that blow though, so I am not to overwhelmed by the news. The good news is that the feared slash and burn techniques are not being used to reduce staff and pay, instead everyone has been offered a small reduction in pay with the goal of retaining the original team of employees. All in all the news is good, a refreshing breath of air in what has been a tumultuous year. Yet I feel just as burdened as I felt before the news came on Friday.

This feeling of unease might be attributed to the fact that I had finally achieved peace on Thursday and Friday of last week, creating a wealth of new work and a desire to write again. Then the news came Friday afternoon. After seeing the dysfunctional staff I work with gather and berate a man who had by all appearances bent over backwards for us, left me angry and uneasy. One question burdens me right now, now that I have a steady job secured with these people, do I want to keep it? I think the past year has been a largely destructive one for the team and it will take a lot of work to right the ship and I do not have a lot of faith that that will occur. Now my desire for creativity has pretty much dissipated and I am left with a hollow gnawing feeling deep inside of me somewhere.

I guess this is the course that life takes, answering one question, only to have a hundred more appear from nowhere. It's like an Ouroboros, a never ending circle of questioning, seeking answers and asking more questions. I think it is similar to the artists path, constantly struggling to give birth to an idea and questioning the merits of their own skill. This weekend I printed out my long ignored manuscript for the second of my books, as I read through it taking notes for the new version, I discovered that my own creative process is based off of a never ending cycle of questioning. Why does this character do this? Why is this plot point here? What occurs in this unused time span? Of course lets not forget that most of my stories happen out of these same questions. Who are these people? What are they doing? How does it all begin and where does it all end? It is a vital part of my own creative process one that feeds upon itself growing and expanding my horizons. It is something that I had forgotten until now.

Questions are just what they appear to be; life waiting for answers. Questioning my circumstances does not mean that I should be unhappy with the apparent instability in my own life. It means that I am alive and able to question things, I have not settled for a bland life but one that is constantly evaluated against itself. The path I have walked thus far, is the path I have chosen and with the grace of God it has turned out alright but that does not mean that I should sit back and stop questioning and testing the path before me. The future is unknown but at least for now I know that I have a job and the future is bright. Sayonara.