The idea of vocation attaches to work a cluster of other ideas, including devotion, skill, pride, pleasure, the good stewardship of means and materials. Here we have returned to intangibles of economic value. When they are subtracted, what remains is ‘a job,’ always implying that work is something good only to escape.
Wendell Berry.
Maybe I don't watch enough television to catch them, or maybe the recent financial crises and the pandemic put the brakes on them, but there used to be a lot of financial planner advertisements based on the theme that you could retire into a new exciting career of some sort. You know, you worked hard but invested wisely, and now you were a rancher in Monument Valley (where the locals probably regard you as an interloping menace).
M'eh.
Probably, the story of Archibald "Moonlight" Graham is more realistic.
I love the movie, and always have, but it's a dark film in some ways. Almost every single character in it, no matter how cheerful they are, and they're all cheerful, is laboring under monumental internal regrets. They're provided a chance to banish the regret, but only through Devine intervention, allowing a redress across time.
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Field Of Dreams isn't the only movie that deals with regret, and even Divine intervention, but it's the only one that I'm aware of in which average characters are plagued with it and can only address it in such an intervention. The closest portrayal of a similar topic of which I'm aware is It's A Wonderful Life, in which the protagonist is about to kill himself after years of hard work at a saving and loan business he was basically forced into due to the untimely death of his father. In that film, however, a hapless angel takes him back through the lives of everyone he touched to show him how much worse the lives of those he impacted would be had he not been there. Mr. Holland's Opus is another work that has a similar theme, but with no Divine intervention, in which the dream of the protagonist is shattered by a personal tragedy, but his work, opus, becomes a huge impact on everyone around him. I like both of those films as well, but not as much, and frankly find them dispiriting for all of the wrong reasons.1 I probably shouldn't, as the message of both is profoundly Christian and, well, perhaps this below best expresses it.
A film that takes a distinctly different approach from either is Will Penny, which is a great film. In that film circumstances show an aging single cowboy, who has worked his entire life in that role, what life would have been like had he married and had a family that cared about him. Right up until the end of the film it seems that, now that the opportunity seems to be unfolding, he'll take it, but as it turns out, knowing that it has in reality passed him by, he regrets his decision, but determines to ride off and live with it. It's just too late.
Which brings me to this observation.
Recently, or so it seems to me, once you are over 50, and truth be known at some point earlier than that, unless your big planned career change is one involving only self-employment and doesn't depend much on your physical health, you're pretty much stuck with what you are doing.
The first time that really became evident to me in any fashion, oddly enough, was when I was in my 30s and practicing law. My late mother had a friend who grew up on a ranch and had always wanted to return to his former life. He'd had a long career as a banker, but now, in his 70s, he was trying to return with what was really a hobby farm. He wasn't well enough to do it, and his wife was crippled, so their location out of town was imperiling her health. My mother, who was extremely intelligent but often based her assumptions about somebody based on externals, kept referencing him as a "rancher", which he wasn't. He was still employed at the bank, and it was a hobby farm that was failing.
He moved off of it soon after my mother first referenced him in conversation, and died soon thereafter.
Why, other than that it's always been obvious to anyone who knows me that my internal vocation is one that involves animals and wild country, she pointed that out, I don't know. Probably as she conceived of him as somebody who had combined a city job, banking, with a rural vocation, "ranching" (actually farming), he was, to her, a model of what I could do. My mother was always proud of the fact that I'd become a lawyer and quick to tell anyone that, even though its something I never bring up myself and tend to reveal, to strangers, only if asked. That probably concerned her some as she wondered why somebody who had obtained such an admirable, in her view, professional degree would want to do something that in her personal experience was of a lower status.2 The point was made, as it seemed to make sense to her that a person could pursue agriculture as a hobby while admirably employed in a profession.
I viewed the banker as somebody who'd led an existentially failed vocation, banking, and was trying to make amends too late.
That's a pretty harsh judgement, but I've always been sort of "no quarters" in my view of some things, including myself. Now, some 30 years later, I could easily say the same thing about me, and be quite correct. I've had a long and respected career as a lawyer, which has not involved animals whatsoever, or wild country. I've also been a stockman for most of that time, which does. But my being a stockman is sort of a second activity, made possible as my in laws are the full time stockmen, and I'm part-time. I don't regard that as a personal success, but a personal failure. There's no two ways about it.
For all of my time as a lawyer, I've dreamed of being a judge. That's the sort of dream that's puts you in Moonlight Graham territory as chances are, you aren't going to make it. I first tried to make that switch when I'd only been practicing a few years, at which time, unbeknownst to me, experienced lawyers regarded that as impossible as you needed experience.
Later on I had the experience and applied several times, and passed by some as well. I passed by one as I knew that somebody putting in was so close to an influential figure that he'd get it, which he did. I hope that figure realizes that, even now, he's indebted to an accident of employment for his current position.
The time I first came pretty close, I nonetheless didn't make it to one of the three finalist. A friend did. It was surreal, however, as I received calls from those close to the process informing me I should expect to be one of the three finalists. I received direct information that I'd interviewed very well. When I didn't get it, and another position soon came up, I was called by a host of individuals who were within the system and urged to apply, which I had not intended to do. I did, and didn't make the finals again.
Over time, I've watched the process and realized that politics, which weren't really evident to me early on, played very much a part. One Governor in this time frame had an expressed preference for appointing women, as he thought the bench lacked them and needed them. Over time, it became apparent that women stood a much better chance than men of getting appointed. Well, he's the chooser, so I guess he gets to choose as he will.
The more recent Governor has favored very young appointees and ones who had criminal law experience. I'm no longer young, I'll be 60 next month, and I don't have criminal law experience. Nonetheless, I put in one last time when I was probably 58. Totally pointless.
Since that time, I've awkwardly appeared in front of the very young judge. That judge may turn out to be great, but the judge confessed that the hearing we were at was the first of the type the judge had ever experienced, and the judge wasn't quite sure what to do. I'll give that judge credit for that. Not everyone would admit that.
Well, at 60, I'm not putting in anymore. I'd have to retire at 70, and I'd never get selected. Oh, well.
I'm not the only one in that position. At least one other friend of mine has the same experience. Whenever we've talked about it, we always express it in an "oh well", we didn't expect to get it anyhow, and we still have our careers. But frankly, in my case, it's another career failure. I'll go to my grave as a lawyer knowing that whatever I achieved, I didn't achieve what I'd hoped to, long ago.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi.
Being almost 60, I'm at the age where law journals have articles that claim people like me can have exciting second careers. What they always entail, however, is some lawyer who moved from litigation combat to telling his younger lawyers how to engage in litigation combat, or some lawyer who moved from a big first into one that his son or daughter has, to mentor them. I guess that's sort of a second career, but it really isn't. It's more like going from being the team manager to the pitching coach. You are still showing up wearing pinstripes and a ball cap for the team. And frankly for the overwhelming majority of lawyers in the current legal environment, where it's hard to find a younger lawyer to even hire, it's not realistic.
What's notable about those articles is nobody ever suggests that any of the lawyers that they reference really were able to make a radical shift in the field. None of the Old Hands, for instance, went from practice to teaching. They keep practicing. At most, you see some who went from litigation to transactional within their firms.
And that's about as realistic as that gets. Not that such a transition is meaningless, a lawyer I knew personally who practiced into his 90s had done a similar thing at age 60, and just all of a sudden. The same lawyer, however, had wanted to be a doctor but found his dreams dashed by World War Two, during which he served in the Navy. Coming back, the lost years didn't leave him time, he felt, to do what he wanted to do. Indeed, everything about his educational path changed.
What this does do, however, is point out the reinforcing nature of occupations over time. When the ABA, for instance, runs articles about second careers for lawyers, it's acknowledging that lawyers are looking for second careers, and telling them to stuff it, they're lawyers. Not that this is a surprise as after a person has been practicing for a while, and I'm sure this is true of every other occupation, you're defined in that role. I've ridden up to cow camps on trail after having been in the field for days, dressed as a cow hand, and covered with grime, only to be identified as "oh, you're the lawyer". People who know me only casually from work, when they want to chat, open up topics on legal themes, assuming, logically enough, that what I'd really like to do in the evening while enjoying a cocktail (or more likely a Saturday afternoon at the hardware store) is chat about the law.
Societal expectations, therefore, become reinforcing. You may have a diesel mechanics certificate, but if your prospective employer finds out you're a 50-year-old lawyer, or 40-year-old lawyer, forget it. You're not getting hired as a diesel mechanic.
Radical changes, unless, again, they involve self-employment, age out. I knew one lawyer who became a partner in a small drilling company, but that was a species of self-employment backed by the fact that a collection of business associated had the money, along with him, to invest to start up. Another who had worked for years in a bank, then entered private practice, did it only briefly before returning to the bank. The brief taste of practice was enough. One I personally knew dropped out of practice to become a teacher, and one I sort of knew did the same, but they were in their 40s at the time, with time still being available to them to do that. Probably in their 50s, they wouldn't have been hired.
As I mentioned outdoor professions, one thing I'll note is that the Federal ones have age caps, in some areas, the Federal Government being an employer that can still officially do that. State ones don't tend to have official ones, but they do have unofficial ones. Federal ones tend to be based on retirement. If you can't make 20 years by 60, you aren't getting in.
One that surprised me recently, quite frankly, was the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Its age cap is 55, which is pretty old actually for entering military service, but it's only taking veterans (and only combat veterans, it claims). Ukrainians men are liable for military service up to age 60s, but Ukraine isn't taking in any old soldiers from other lands. That probably makes sense, really, as you don't know these guys and can't really vet them much before they show up. Some vets of other armies, such as my self, are in pretty good physical health and probably could endure a combat environment just fine (maybe), others have grown sick, tired or fat, and couldn't. There's no point in investing in somebody, whose going to die of a heart attack one week out.
Still, it's interesting as there are so many Western army veterans who trained to fight the very army the Ukrainians are fighting, more or less. We didn't, thank goodness, fight them in the 80s, and we're not going to be fighting them, it appears, now.
Interestingly, the Canadian Army takes in older enlistees now. I don't know how old, but the cutoff age is something like 57 or 58. But those enlistees have to make it through basic training in the Canadian Forces. Apparently Canadian soldiers are part of the general Canadian government old age pension system, and the Canadian government figures they can get a couple of years out of any who make it through basic, which is probably about what they get out of an average enlistee anyway.
As we live in the age of certification, many jobs that were open to people 30 years ago, when I first started practicing law, have had the doors slammed shut if you don't have perfect certification. I know of one such field that loosely interpreted its certification requirements 30 years ago and now very strictly construes them.
Added to that, of course, is the impact of income and influence of disbelief. A professional changing jobs may be enamored with the idea of it, but it's pretty likely that his family, most particularly his spouse, isn't. That's also why most of the real changes, such as for example the instance I know of in which a lawyer became a fireman, happen pretty early in careers. Most professionals don't make the loot that people think they do, particularly when they start out, unless they're recruited into a really high test outfit. Indeed, the one fellow I know who fits that description looks so stressed all the time, I wouldn't be too surprised if his heart just burst out of his chest in a deposition, and he died on the spot. For most younger lawyers/doctors/accountants, etc., they're not pulling in the big bucks early on. At that point, obligations aside, they can make a change as they aren't going to be hurt on a day-to-day basis much.
Obligations, however, change options enormously. Student debt keeps a lot of people in jobs as they have to pay for their educations. By the time they have the debt paid off, chances are they have a family and a mortgage, and that keeps them in place. Most spouses have a low tolerance for dropping family income enormously and while early on couples may endure hardships bounded together by true love, later on the spouse who isn't proposing to drop household income will regard it as insane, bound down by practicalities and perhaps duty to the offspring of the marriage. Shakespeare claimed that "conscience does make cowards of us all", but debt and expenditures have a big role in that.
So too has the return to long family ties of the pre World War Two era and the insurance system of the post World War Two era. Couple of the 50s, 60s and 70s pretty much saw their children blast into independence as soon as they were 18, and more than a few families didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt about basically kicking children out into the cold world once they were that age. It was quite normal. Now it isn't, but then it really wasn't before 1940 either. Be that as it may, that has brought about a return to the situation in which the family bread winner retains some financial responsibility all the way into his kid's late 20s, which not only means late career, but it can be career extending, as people can't quite what they are otherwise doing. I know that I wanted my father to retire when he hit 60, and he wouldn't. But I'd been paying my own freight by that time, at least partially, for quite a while and knew that I could pull it all.
Or so I thought. He probably didn't think that, making him an example of somebody who probably was looking at things just the way I do know, right up until he died at age 62, having never retired.
Insurance is another matter. In the American system you can go on Medicare at age 65, but prior to that, health care is your own problem, and it's expensive. It interestingly gets expensive for most people right about the time that you really need it for the second time in your life, the first time being when women are of child bearing years. Switching from one job to another, where health insurance is covered in one, and isn't in another, is pretty hard for most people. Quite a few people keep on keeping on for years until they qualify for Medicare.4
And self-determination, which a lot of us aren't that good at, plays a major role. You are always faced with decisions when they come up, and you make them, usually, on what is important right then. Personally, the door did open for me to an outdoor career with an agency right after I had become engaged. It involved a massive income drop and a very uncertain future, as it started off with a temporary position. The responsible thing to do, it seemed to me (and it would seem to most) was to forego it, which I did.
Twice wars came up after I had left the National Guard, and in both instances I tried to get in them. That has something to do with being trained to fight. In the first Gulf War I made contact right away with my old Guard unit, but it wasn't called up as it had just switched from heavy artillery to rocketry and wasn't combat ready. The second time I contacted them as well, and then a Colorado infantry unit being deployed, but the first one wasn't called up, and the second one didn't need any artillerymen. As the wars dragged on, it just didn't seem like there was a real reason to join, and I didn't. The door, however, was open in that second instance and I didn't walk through it. At some point it slammed shut due to age, just has it has now for the Ukrainian forces. Немає (no) you are too old, age cap at 55. Будь ласка? (Please?). Nope, but here's some equipment we need you can buy. (Seriously, they suggested some sort of optical equipment, or a drone. I dread to think how much a drone might cost).
And so, the lesson's learned?
Édith Piaf famously sang Je Ne Regrette Rien, but if you look at her life, I'll be she did, and plenty of them. Not that she's a model of an average or even somewhat typical life. Moonlight Graham probably is in many ways, which is probably why the character appeals so much. Maybe everyone watching Field Of Dreams feels that way a little. Maybe not, but I'll bet plenty identify with that character more than any other in the film.
I don't know if most men really lead lives of quiet desperation, but I do suspect that a lot of people highly respected in their careers have unresolved paths they didn't take. That doesn't mean that they didn't enjoy their careers. It may mean they have large or small reservations about the paths they took. I can't even begin to count how many times clients and litigants have told me "I wanted to become a lawyer" (or, pretty often, "I wanted my son to become a lawyer"), followed by a "but". I've known professionals who didn't follow up on professional sports opportunities, who had been in military service and then gotten out, who had left farms and ranches, or who had thought about becoming a Priest or cleric, and didn't, all to some element of regret. Indeed, with big callings, like the Priesthood, it probably downright haunts them.3
For those who recall it, people may imagine themselves singing Je Ne Regrette Rien, or maybe the defiant My Way, but Truckin is probably more like it.
The other lesson may be that the common American claim that you can start off doing one thing, and do anything else, is a lie.
If it's not an outright lie, it comes with an expiration date. Once you are 50 years of age, you are doing what you are doing, most likely, and you won't be getting out of it any time soon, if ever.
And this:
Well, you know I... I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?
Not without Divine intervention, there isn't. And even as the movie portrays, decisions made in the past cannot be undone. Graham reconciles it with
Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.
My wife sometimes makes the same point about my career, with "all the people you've helped". But then, this too:
We just don't recognize life's most significant moments while they're happening. Back then I thought, "Well, there'll be other days." I didn't realize that that was the only day.
Footnotes
1. I'm afraid that I'm an oddity with some films this way. Shane, the classic Western in which the protagonist comes back out of retirement in order that besieged farmers aren't run off by cattlemen, is an example. I know how the film ends, but I always hope that the cattlemen will win, and the wilderness they represent preserved.
2. My mother was not from here, and didn't hold farmers and ranchers in low esteem, but rather held professionals in very high esteem. Her family had members who had been doctors, lawyers and engineers and she regarded this as having achieved a certain status. A lot of people of her generation viewed the professions that way, and frankly, quite a few people still do.
She also tended to view being a lawyer as proof of high intelligence, which it really is not. A Democrat, she'd frequently give a reason to support President Obama as "he's intelligent. . . he's a lawyer". President Obama is intelligent, and he is a lawyer, but in reality, there are lots of fairly dim lawyers.
3. Indeed, that's one of the ones that's most openly expressed. I've known lawyers who, once they know you fairly well, will discuss having been in the seminary, or who wanted to be Priests, and it's a different conversation. It's always pretty clear that they're downright haunted by their change into the law, no matter how much success they may have had in it. Conversely, I've known one Priest who had been a lawyer and at least one who had originally intended to be, who had no regrets whatsoever about their change in paths.
Of interest here, there's often an age limit to attempting to revive a vocational call. Canon Law in the Catholic Church sets no age limit to becoming a Priest, but many dioceses do, and for good reason. Training a Priest takes nearly a decade. While I can think of stories of some "older" men becoming Priests, in reality, they were middle-aged men when they started off.
Likewise, there's a limit on trying to become a Catholic Deacon, a vocation that's spread enormously in recent decades. In our Diocese, the provision is:
The minimum age for a single man to be ordained to the permanent diaconate is twenty-five (25) years old, and thirty-five (35) years for married men. Maximum age to enter the Diaconal Formation Program is fifty-five (55) years (age 60 at ordination), unless the Bishop allows an exception.
Sixty is surprisingly late, quite frankly, and I wonder if this has been recently moved as I thought the age limit lower, although not much. Be that as it may, I know this only because at one time our African Parish Priest sent out letters to several men whom he thought would be good Deacons. I was one. I was flattered by the letter but knew I wasn't called, but I did pray on it. I'm not called, working on my own defects is a full time enough job as it is.
4. The combined impact of insurance and family responsibilities in the current era is enough, in and of itself, to quash a lot of late career transition dreams. Before Medicare, many people are hard locked into careers due to the need to keep their insurance. Changes in the law, over time, have also meant that parents pay for their adult children's insurance well into their 20s. Changing careers that involve insurance disruption is darned near impossible for many people.
And it likley would be for me, after my health issues of last year and their carryover inot this year.
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Same day, same paper. One ad celebrating agriculture, and one celebrating its destruction.
