What Career Planning? [WaDI - 28.08.2019]
Hello everyone. I’m writing this one on a calm Wednesday evening, sitting on the balcony while our cat Shuri watches over the neighborhood. When you look at Twitter, whole world is burning and I thought starting with a calmer note like this will help all of you. How are you all doing?
From the Blog
IFLA WLIC 2019: 20 Years of the IFLA Intellectual Freedom Statement: Constancy and Change
Sometimes I think about how I came to the situation, especially in career wise. And one pattern that keep showing up is that I didn’t plan most of it. There are always situations like there is a thing I want to do, I see an opportunity that looks close enough and I find myself doing something that I never thought I’d do. Not that I’m complaining, I’m pretty much fine with the place I’m in my career but it’s hard not to think about the ideas and notes that are sitting on a notebook somewhere.
For example, since I decided that my main job will be writing, one thing I wanted to do was telling science fiction stories. There are many reasons why I want to write science fiction, one of them is I feel like that’s the perfect sandbox to play with all the weird ideas that’s brewing in my mind. But it’s been years since I wrote a single paragraph. Same goes for philosophy.
I’m thinking about why I left these aside. Of course economic pressure comes first. If you want to make it as a writer (in my mind journalism is included in it), you have to write things that people want to pay. That’s why I did journalism and book translations. And somehow being part of the journalism circle plus having the technological knowledge got me into a position that now I write about trends on digital journalism, tech advices for journalists and people actually read and benefit from it.
Similar pattern happened in the academic side. I studied philosophy and decided to get a Masters Degree too. But what I wanted to do was not the type of stuff the academia here wanted when it comes to philosophy so I dropped. Then, for mostly unrelated reasons, I started a Masters Degree in media and communication studies, which in the coming weeks I have to start writing my thesis. In the meantime, I wrote an academic book chapter, planning a second one, plus working on couple academic papers on this field.
I think it’s normal that sometimes I ask myself “How did I get here?” I still want to do philosophy and write science fiction. But I also want (and have) to do some journalism and media studies work too. And also have to teach classes, give trainings, do some occasional consulting…
I ended up on a weird part of the #1000mphClub but I have no idea how did I get here. Is this what a freelance writer career supposed to be like?
WaDI Filter
For those who are familiar with the famous “developments in late capitalism 2014” Venn diagram, the creator gave an interview about it. Which reminded me that diagram again and now I’m thinking about it alongside the compasses.
PhilosophyTube’s latest video is on climate grief and it’s just perfect.
Damien Williams put the audio, transcripts and slides of his talk “Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice” on his website. You must check it.
m1k3y’s interview with Corey J.White is also a great read.
That’s it from this week. I have so much to do piled up and last two days mostly wasted on the shenanigans of our landlord. Don’t have any music to recommend this week because I can’t even remember what I’ve been listening lately, if I ever was listening something.
One quick advice: If a person feels like a toxic waste and not worth your time and energy, you’re probably right. Don’t wait until you’re fully exposed to that toxicity like I did, no matter what. Keep your lives toxic free.
See you all next week!
Who Writes This?
Ahmet A. Sabancı (that's me), writer, journalist and researcher. Writing about many things including technology, surveillance, censorship, philosophy, science fiction and futures and occasionally about politics and Turkey. There’s a good chance you found me through my blog or Twitter. You can find more about me here and small selection of my writings here.