I'm beginning to come across a lot of interesting parallels with lockdown and fiction. The subject of this post being Alice.
A pivotal point for Alice is when she becomes quite lost in the forest of Wonderland, losing all helpful signage and indicators on which way is right. She sits down and weeps.
To continue with a fairy-tale analogy, I feel that – as a graduate seeking a free pass to real life – any helping hands that are being outstretched are rather twisted in their reason for helping. Like the hand of Grandma, an incredibly hairy and menacing thing that should be much better suited to a wolf than a relative, the means of ‘escape’ don’t seem quite right.
My email inbox is littered with job vacancy reminders and alerts each morning, lunchtime and evening. Inside each email is a long list of jobs, perhaps 10% of which I could apply to. Even then there’ll be a particularly shiny looking role that I’ll follow to its source only to find a line like this in red – ‘At least 1 years’ worth of experience in a scientific field required’. For a second my brain will attempt to work out a way to manipulate my past experiences into a scientific slant but to no avail.
Deflated, that’s the day gone.
And then there’s the guilt (– something I don’t think Alice quite feels). The guilt of thinking that I’ve skimmed over potential jobs, passing them by on an off-day when I’m too clouded by a heavy mentality to truly take things in. Guilt that my lack of successful emails back from employers is down to these off-days that can’t be helped. Yet there’s an insistence in my head that I could do more and I’m suddenly back to the argument of should I apply for things I actively do not want to do?
Monotony is not my friend. I know that a job where there is no creativity and that I would hold no love for would have me spiral, have me sit down and cry. Instead of the little creatures that emerge from the darkness and watch Alice cry, what would surround me are all the neglected job posts that I hadn’t clicked on.
Where Alice is left alone, to be in the vacuous void of job-searching is to fear being left behind.
The song Alice sings 'Very Good Advice' is quite heartbreaking as its very self-aware.
Be patient is very good advice But the waiting make me curious And I love the change Should something strange begin
If curious was swapped out for anxious then these lyrics would reflect my dilemma nicely.
Beaumont, Kathryn. "Very Good Advice." Alice in Wonderland (1951)
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