What Hath We Wrought?

The day my older brother graduated from college, he took his diploma, his cap and gown, and stuffed them in the back of his car and went to work. He was off to be useful. He had a job waiting. No time spent lolling around, staring at the ceiling, wondering where the road might take him. It took him to work.
My very good friend the architect was working for an architect when he was in high school and once he graduated from college, he was ready to be an architect. He never wavered. His was, and continues to be, an unwavering line. There wasn't a pause for questioning. His mission was clear and remains so.
While I cannot lay claim to this same for my own career trajectory, I can relate to the importance of staying employed. I left a shift at the video store to attend my commencement exercises, and returned the following day to work all day Sunday. Those copies of Top Gun weren't going to rent themselves, after all. I had been working pretty steadily since I started mowing lawns at a nearby trailer park back in junior high school. I did take a year off during my freshman year of college. I don't know exactly what I did with all that free time. Of course I do. Binge drinking. Upon reflection, that was more of a vocation for me at that point. I hoped to go pro in my sophomore year.
It was that next year that I found my way back to Arby's, where I had spent my gap year, and I stayed for two more years. When I retired my brown polyester vest, I quickly found a spot on the trailer crew at Target. From there it was an obvious leap to the video store where my skills could be maximized and my studies of liberal arts made me a valuable asset. And very good at Trivial Pursuit. When our Block was Busted by chains, I pulled myself from the wreckage of the video rental business and slipped neatly into a position on a crew installing modular office furniture.
And so on. What I am suggesting here is that I have always felt a compulsion to be employed. That is why I can empathize so directly to the struggle my son is experiencing, having been "furloughed" after the first month of COVID-19 from his job selling big screen TVs to the masses at Best Buy. He never planned a career in consumer electronics, and maintains a vision of the future that has him writing for a living.
Silly boy.
But he has also felt the clock ticking these past months while he tries to figure out his spot on the chain gang. He wants to get back to work, and aside from repairing his beloved sports car, he has been stuck with a number of chores that have not been full employment. Now he finds himself on the brink of landing his first job as a college graduate. Not as a screenwriter, but using his substantial and encyclopedic knowledge of how things work. Because he gets a great deal of satisfaction from being useful. He is, to quote a childhood friend of his, a very useful engine.
And I know where that comes from.