“Excuse me. I was wondering how one might become a member of your fine organization?”
The booth attendant looked up from a freshly collected stack of dollar bills and eyeballed his visitor – this wasn’t exactly the type of question he’d been hearing all day.
It was Christmas time and he was manning a booth at the Union Square holiday market; a sort of pseudo-pseudo-intellectual Spencer’s Gifts. There were fake Einstein mustaches, Nietzschian ‘Ubermensch’ tee shirts with a bright blue ‘U’ on a yellow Superman shield, even fuzzy little Freud footwarmers marketed as Freudian Slip-pers. It was an outpost of the Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild, a group that operated mainly via catalog, shipping tacky crap to socially awkward academics across the country, but around holiday time they dropped into the real world to run booths at local fairs or markets.
Though it’s less than distinguished merchandise wouldn’t suggest it, the Guild was completely for real; they actually did only admit unemployed philosophers. Once an unemployed anthropologist tried to join, claiming that his work ‘incorporated many philosophical elements’ and the Guild nearly rode him out of town on a rail; there were strict criteria.
The attendant tucked his cash away and faced his visitor. He looked just as he had expected: white, a few months out of college, longish hair. The conversation they were about to have was one that the attendant had had many times before, so he already knew how it was going to end. The prospect of trudging through the script yet again produced not a sharp pain in his body, only a dull ache. In this position, he felt it necessary to treat his visitor with a mix of ambivalence and contempt.
“Well,” he said, closing the cash box, “what are your qualifications?”
“I’m an unemployed philosopher,” the visitor chirped, congratulating himself for being as clever and quick on his feet as the last 50 applicants who gave the same stupid readymade answer.
“You think so?” the attendant asked.
“I know so – last two months. I haven’t even had a temp job in three weeks.”
There was a long pause as the attendant noisily freed a Chiclet from its foil seal and popped it in his mouth. He chewed for a while with his mouth open, and the visitor could hear the hard shell of the gum cracking and splintering into smaller and smaller pieces until it had dissolved completely. He finally spoke.
“Where did you study?”
“Hopkins. I got my BA last May,” the visitor replied.
“What did you study?”
“Aesthetics, philosophy of art; especially philosophy of music.”
The attendant nodded his head in acknowledge and took a second away from his gum chewing to respond with a noise halfway between “Oh” and “Uh.” He had nothing more to say.
When the visitor realized that the onus for speaking was on him he nervously waded back into small talk. “What did you study?” he asked, sounding like a little kid trying to hang out with his older brother’s friends.
“Existentialism,” replied the attendant.
“That’s cool. I always wanted to take an existentialism class, but, you know, it never really worked out, because of other classes and I took piano lessons, and practice with my band … it just, you know …” The visitor slowed, seeing that the attendant was aimlessly playing with his tongue on the back of his teeth and rapping his fingers on the counter; he wasn’t listening. Regardless, the visitor decided to at least finish his sentence and pushed a mumbled “it never fit my schedule” past his lips.
The attendant, who had, in fact, been listening, just not very interestedly, chose to explore a small piece of the visitor’s muddled response. “So you played in a band in college?” he asked.
“Yeah I did, well I do now too.”
“Oh. Same band?”
“No. Different band.”
The attendant arched his eyebrows in surprise. He had figured this visitor for a ‘same band’ type. “So is that want you want to do for a living?” he asked.
The visitor froze. Is that what he wanted to do? As he made to answer the question he realized that there was no one thing he really wanted to do. He liked doing a lot of stuff, and he thought he was good at a lot of stuff. ‘Honestly,’ he thought, ‘how can a person pick one thing to do out of everything?’ In some ways, even thinking about picking one seemed worse than doing nothing. He knew that it was a privileged lament, to bemoan one’s overwhelming capability, but this didn’t make it any easier to deal with. He started speaking with his head down and only brought it up a few times as he spoke.
“Well, I’d like to at least do something music related, maybe be a music teacher or, really, any sort of elementary school teacher, or maybe high school later would be cool. Also, I had this internship with the ACLU two summers ago and I would definitely like to go back to an organization like that. Or maybe just be a personal assistant or something like that, I don’t know.” At this point the visitor threw up his hands just to illustrate his devil-may-care attitude, but it only made him seem even more nervous than he really was.
The attendant smiled. No matter how many times that attendant had listened to similar applicants bumble through similar lists, he found the visitor’s nervous prattle charming. “Yeah, either or” the attendant laughed, moving his hands up and down like the plates of a balance coming to rest. He was making a reference to Kierkegaard’s existentialist bible, “Either/Or,” and while the visitor didn’t know the book, he did get the gist of the comment and joined in a healthy self-deprecating laugh with the attendant. Once their briefly shared chuckle died down, the attendant felt the need to return to business.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” he began. “In
order to become a guild member you have to be hired first by the company,
and unfortunately we’re not hiring right now, so there’s
no way to become a member. You can take a catalog and send us your
resume for us to keep on file and we’ll give you a call if anything
opens up.” He slid a catalog across the counter and pleasantly
tapped his fingers on it to let his visitor know that their
exchange was over.
“I mean,” stammered the visitor, “I will, but … your logic is … a little screwy … I think.” His words came out in spurts, like he only had enough courage to speak three at a time. “I don’t … know how a … whole … guild of philosophers hasn’t … realized it yet.” He paused, waiting for encouragement from the attendant, who was dutifully feigning surprise at his visitor’s objection.
“Why, what do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, this is the Unemployed Philosophers Guild, right? – so it’s for unemployed philosophers. Now, you said that I’d need to be hired before I could become a member, but once I’m hired I won’t be unemployed anymore and I would be ineligible for the guild. Do you see? It’s a paradox.” The visitor had grown confident during his speech so that now, in the wake of his triumphant declaration, he stood staring at the attendant demanding an answer to his academic rigor.
The attendant liked this visitor’s intensity; it reminded him of a child striving for a ball held just above his reach. His mind began to wander and he all but forgot about the visitor’s challenge. From deep in his head his eyes wandered, scanning the crowd: a sea of fat people buying schlocky gifts to stick under gaudy Christmas trees for their wives and children and uncles. His conversation with the visitor was like clockwork, right where it should be and right on time. When his gaze finally came to rest on the visitor, the attendant remembered that he had not answered his objection. He drew a deep breath, and slowly and carefully pronounced his verdict: “You’re employed.”
The visitor’s contentious expression was steadily replaced by one of growing confusion. “Do you mean … are you giving me a job?” He began to smile, thinking that he had finally cracked the attendant’s code. “Was this some sort of philosophy test that everyone needs to pass before they get a job or something?”
The attendant smiled at his visitor’s hopefulness, but only because it was so naïve and so far from the truth.
“No, I’m not giving you a job,” he chuckled, still
smiling as he began to restock a bunch of cardboard gliders with pictures
of Descartes on the tails – ‘Cartesian planes.’
Now, not only was the visitor confused, he was also embarrassed. Was
he the butt of some grandiose philosophical joke? Were this guy and
his guild even for real? “I don’t understand,” he
started, “I mean, I thought I finally knew what you were talking
about, I thought you were giving me a job, but now you’re saying
that I don’t have a job and you’re laughing at me, and…”
The attendant interrupted him without even turning from his restocking duties. “Your logic is flawed,” he said. “You’re saying that a person is born a philosopher and keeps it his whole life and dies with it, regardless of the circumstances, but that’s wrong. Being a philosopher isn’t like being Caucasian, it’s not an immutable property of you as a person. Do you know what I mean?” One of the attendant’s planes fell to the ground, and he stooped to pick it up, continuing as soon as he was upright. “It’s like gender. You will be male from the cradle to the grave, but when you were an infant you weren’t a philosopher, when you’re old and senile and demented you won’t be a philosopher. You understand?”
The visitor jumped at the chance to speak. “Yes, I understand,” he said, “But why do you think that’s what I said?”
“Because that is what you said!” the attendant shot back, deeming this statement important enough to at least turn around and face his visitor for the time that he spoke it. “You said ‘I am a philosopher. I do not have a job. Therefore,’” – he jabbed three points of a triangle in the air – “‘I am an unemployed philosopher.’ It’s the equivalent of saying ‘I am a man. I do not have a job. Therefore I am an unemployed man.’ But the difference is, no matter what else you do with the rest of your life, if you are ever unemployed you will be an unemployed man – and I mean man in the bris sense of the word, not the Bar Mitzvah sense. You don’t have to do anything special to be a man. But being a philosopher is different, and you need to start thinking about why.” The attendant placed the last of the planes on the shelf and turned his attention to displaying a box of herbal Socra-teas. When the visitor didn’t say anything, he continued.
“Being a philosopher is like being a plumber: if you’re not fixing pipes and snaking drains you’re not a plumber, if you’re not thinking and questioning and probing you’re not a philosopher. It’s an activity, it requires something of you.”
The visitor still did not understand and he grew more and more upset. “Are you saying that I’m not really a philosopher?” he asked, leaning into the question with his head cocked to the side and his eyebrows furrowed.
The attendant, surprised at his visitor’s ire, turned to reassure him. “No, no, no,” he said, “I’m saying exactly the opposite.” He sighed noisily at the visitor’s dullness and put the tea aside so that he could speak directly to him.
“What I’m saying is that you probably spend half your day sitting around thinking ‘I have so many interests, I’m so smart, I’m so talented, and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to know what I want to do. Does anybody really know what they want to do?’” He rushed his hands back and forth searching for another question. “‘Is it morally permissible for me to lie about my experience in a job interview, even after I’ve been unemployed for two months and on the verge of moving back to Maryland?’ Half the day you’re just sitting around, burrowing your way through these thick, murky problems – problems that there are really no solutions to, right?”
The visitor didn’t speak or even nod, but his downcast eyes and drawn expression signaled his growing comprehension. When he finally did look up he was met by the attendant’s strong gaze. The visitor felt that all the sound had been sucked out of the entire market, so that the attendant spoke into a vacuum where only he and the visitor stood.
“You say that you’re unemployed, and in the sense that you don’t have a job you’re right – you could get a check from the government. But you’re so employed as a philosopher that I doubt you have time for anything else. Maybe a little depression here and there, but that’s practically a branch of philosophy in itself. You’re an employed philosopher, congratulations.”
After a few seconds the visitor began to laugh quietly, the first sound he’d made in quite a while. So this was the grandiose philosophical joke, this was his life turned inside out. He was relieved to reach the end, and his puckered grin warmed the frozen tension in his face into a hot blush on his cheeks. He began to think of parting words for the attendant, probably some joke about hubris, or something.
The attendant, however, was not about to let him leave. He knew that the story was not over and did not share the visitor’s relief. For him, the unhappy ending was still ahead. He dropped his hands on the counter and leaned towards the visitor. Even before he spoke, the visitor noticed his heavy expression and waited quietly for him to speak.
“So you can’t join the guild,” the attendant said, “This guild is for unemployed philosophers. For the ghosts of philosophers who spend all day in front of a computer, all day on the phone, all day on their feet. The philosophers who after work are too drained to do anything but watch reality TV when they get home.” The visitor looked down to avoid the attendant’s glare. “Do you think I spend my free time reading Sartre? What for? So I can realize my shit lot in life isn’t going to get any better? No. Ever since the day I started this job I’ve been trying to forget that I ever learned that stuff. The closest I get to philosophy nowadays is selling Casmus-mus over the phone to overweight professors at my old school.” The attendant’s voice was sad and cracked with resentment. He leaned even closer to the visitor, so that he was practically whispering in his ear. The visitor could feel his breath as he spoke. “I am an unemployed philosopher,” he whispered. “You are just a poor philosopher.”
The visitor started to look at the attendant, then thought it better to stay where he was. The attendant was slowly returning to an upright stance, shifting his eyes back and forth to spot anyone who had caught their exchange. No one had seen, or, at least, no one cared.
Just then a man in his mid-forties, sporting a white cowboy hat, black leather jacket and cuffed jeans ambled towards the stand, squinting to read the sign. Once he had moved close enough to see it clearly he nodded strongly and blew a puff of steam out of his mouth, letting everyone know that the sign did, in fact, say what he thought it said from 10 feet further back. He moved right up to the counter and looked around. It wasn’t very long before he spoke.
“Hey buddy. Let me get one of those Hegelian” – he pronounced it Hee-gee-lian – “reversible vests you got up in the corner there.”
The attendant flashed the man a smile and turned towards a back corner of the booth. “Sure thing,” he piped, in the benign, glazed voice of an experienced salesman. As he fetched the vest from an upper corner, the man took a step back and checked the sign above his head again.
“So you want to be a professor or something?” he asked.
“What’s that?” replied the attendant, returning to the counter with a reversible blue and yellow fleece vest.
“I asked if you want to be a professor or something,” the man said, and waving at the sign above his head added, “You know, the whole unemployed philosopher thing.”
“Oh that,” the attendant laughed, staring at this new visitor so as to keep his younger acquaintance out of sight. “No, no, the name’s just a joke because we sell all of this philosopher-ish stuff.”
The man fought a smile and cocked his eyebrow as he wagged a joking ‘shame on you’ finger at the attendant. Then, when he could no longer contain it, the man let loose with the biggest laugh that the attendant had ever heard. It seemed like it had welled up from all parts of his body and joined in his throat to burst out in a cacophony of absolute abandon. He buried his head in his chest and wrapped his forearms over the top of his head, so that this head was tucked away completely and his arms wrapped together like a straitjacket around his hat. His body was bent over double and convulsing with the power of his outburst. By its sheer force his laugh infected both the attendant and the young man, who joined in with the man. Any time one would begin to regain his composure, another would crack and start the whole group laughing again. They were just laughing because someone else was laughing. When they finally calmed down all three were gasping for breath. The man’s face, and even his ears, was completely red.
“Well…” he panted, “that is something.” He stopped for a long time sucking in deeply with his hands on his hips, until he felt that his breathing was almost back to normal. “You know,” he crowed, “you roped me right in with that name.” He started to laugh again and had to bite his lip to catch it. “I saw the sign when I was way back at the sweater shop” – he pointed the booth caddie cornered to theirs – “but I don’t have my glasses with me so I wasn’t really sure and such an interesting name…” The man tailed off, waving the men on with ‘And you know the rest’ assurance before giving one last burst of a laugh. “Unemployed Philosophers Guild… felt like I was giving alms to the poor or something,” he said. All three smiled at that.
“So how much do I owe you for the vest?” he asked, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.
“Twenty-three dollars.”
“Alright, twenty-three…well, here’s twenty-five and I want you to keep the change for yourself, okay – Christmas bonus.” The man let out another laugh and began to walk away. He turned after only a few steps and yelled to both men: “And all the best to both of you in the New Year!” With a giant grin spread across his face he spun around on his left heel and continued off.
The visitor and the attendant both answered “Same to you,” much too quietly for the man to hear them, though he raised his hand in acknowledgment anyway. The attendant pulled out the cash box and fished through to find two singles for his tip. While he was looking down at his money the visitor left also, his hands stuck firmly in his coat pockets. He moved towards the subway with his head lifted upwards, subliminally dodging crowds of embattled shoppers. His eyes were stuck on the flashing New Year’s countdown of a digital calendar, thinking that all the best in the New Year sounded pretty good to him.