Career path...

Its been a couple of days, not that you've missed much.

Kata and I had some time talking about our future and how to make it happen, so its time I got my finger out and actually did something to move towards that goal.

I'm sitting working out a resume, which is different to the classic CV we're taught to write in the UK. The resume is more of a "personal sales document" where I'm supposed to sell myself to a prospective employer rather than the CV where I'm being less subjective, rather I'm being more objective, showing off my qualifications and abilities in a less brash way.

It kinda goes against my character to push myself this way, I'm far more self deprecating and self effacing than this wants me to be. Some find it endearing (mostly north Americans who tend not to see it in everyday life) and some find it aggravating (Europeans mostly).

In the UK we're on the cusp of two societies. On the one hand there's the brash New World to which we're strongly allied, where long held class distinctions aren't considered as important, or in many places vilified entirely. On the other hand there's the Old World, mostly Europe, where class distinctions are almost everything, through generation after generation of lives lived apart from those considered better. or worse, than you and yours. Granted a lot of this changed after World War 2, as with much of society, but it still holds sway in much of our culture.

North America in particular like to believe it has a meritocratic society, for the most part based on a person's ability to make and spend money. This may have been true in the early years of the European colonial years, or for many countries, for the post European, post revolutionary years (see much of South America and the USA and Mexico in North America) but for the last couple of centuries (19th and 20th) an aristocracy has developed, based on a family's historic ability to make and hold on to money and hence power. Rockefeller, Hilton, Heinz, Guggenheim, Kennedy and many more I can't think of. For most of these families its the first or maybe 2nd generation who make and maintain the family's name through hard work and business acumen, but much past there and the family turns into the typical trust fund brigade of playboys and layabouts. No different to old world aristocratic families.

The new world has become much like the old world and the meritocracies have developed anew in the ex-communist countries (or in China's case, tacitly capitalist mostly communist country) but how long will this last? That depends on when or indeed IF Africa manages to pull its political and social systems out of the terrible situation they've been left with/descended into after generations of colonial and despotic rule. Also it depends on how the rest of the world's modern economies survive the coming changes that the slow but inevitable death of fossil fuels and the coming collapse in raw material supply that will force greater recycling and even mining of old land fill sites.

So what's my point? I guess I need to evolve myself into this different frame of mind required to sell myself in North America since its where I've decided to spend the rest of my life (if possible).