dream analysis

Have now survived four weeks of wage slavery.

That phrase is no joke to me, and it is beyond me why I chafe at the working life so much more loudly than most. I know the majority are not particularly enamored of their jobs or of needing to work, but they don't bitch about it constantly the way I do. Is this just my inflated, narcissistic sense of entitlement -- my inner paris-hilton, as it were -- or am I actually one of a breed of human that is just not built for the working world? And is there a difference?

With this in mind, I was pondering my nasty dream of the other night (see today's previous post) and was disturbed to interpret it as: I feel I'm neglecting my daughter to the point where she's "falling into a hole" where I will no longer be able to reach her. (I didn't say this earlier, but in the dream, she was following along behind me and I was urging her to come along and catch up, when she slipped backward.)

Then I remembered how my therapist might have interpreted it. She always asked two questions when I recounted my dreams: 1) What was the outstanding emotional content? and 2) What part of YOU might be represented by your daughter in the dream? i.e. What part of YOU might be "slipping backward and falling into a hole (with a "bike")?

The answer to (1) is that the emotional content was first impatient, and then frantic at the loss, followed by tragic grief. As for (2), I must answer that my daughter in the dream could represent my youth, my energy, my free spirit ... which is falling irretrievably into the "hole" of a meaningless job.

The job is meaningless for me because money is basically meaningless to me, despite the fact that one needs it to pay for things. It bothers me that working itself costs at least half of whatever I make, what with the real price of travel, eating lunch, frequently buying dinner because there's no energy to prepare food, extra wardrobe, etc., plus all the things that you can't put a price on: the many activities of your day that you can no longer do except rarely, the people you haven't got time to see, the family you have no energy for, and so on. And then, the fact that I have more money in my pocket than I used to means I tend to be more wasteful where I used to be more economical. More impulsive and whimsical purchases ... to ease the pain, I suppose.

But the impatience -- it was there before she fell backwards -- it is mixed up with the feeling of meaninglessness. I do have a tendency to impatiently demand to be shown the meaning of everything. Unfortunately, a new job reveals its meaning over a long period of time, not in the first month. Oh, a little has been doled out in this first month, but not much, and I'm impatient for the sense of meaning, because I can't bear that it's all about the money and only about the money. I am willing to suffer for meaning, but not for money. But so many people truly believe the money IS the meaning. I just can't accept that; it has simply got to be more than that.

So on a day like today, when I had nothing to do by which I could "prove my worth," and I had no one to eat lunch with and felt sorry for myself that I had to get stuck with two religious (albeit very nice) colleagues that don't go out, and I was tired and headachey and desperately want to be out in the fresh air instead of stuck in a stale office ... well, it was just one of those days when meaning is not very obvious and what's needed is faith that I'm doing what I need to be doing, and everything is actually fine even if it's not comfortable.

But it still feels like a deep hole that I need to find a way out of.