Carving a Life

p A recent span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="Cnn.com" data-scaytid="1"Cnn.com/span span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="op-ed" data-scaytid="11"op-ed/span piece asked: Are jobs obsolete?nbsp; To those who are unemployed, this questionnbsp;is a luxury.nbsp; There are those who, deep down, ask this questionmdash;fleeting asnbsp;it arrives on our mental landscapemdash;and ponder the existence of life without ldquo;a jobrdquo;.nbsp; We look at the unemployment numbers, we see images of people in linesmdash;multitudes who have been out of work in the large cities and in the not-so large cities. nbsp;nbsp;Black unemployment is twice that of whitesmdash;and factoring in the sub-prime mortgage crisismdash;most black people view the current climate as a depression rather than a recession. nbsp;nbsp;We see unemployment among black youth ages 16-24 at a staggering 31%.nbsp; Resumes are printed, job workshops are scheduled and we scan the online and offline sourcesmdash;as well as our personal circles--for job leads, anything.nbsp; Meanwhile, our people are more demoralized, depressed, sick and anxiety-ridden than ever./p p nbsp;/p p Many of our cultural and community educators and activistsmdash;such as Luis J. Rodriguez a href="http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/"font color="#222222"(/fontspan class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="www.luisjrodriguez.com" data-scaytid="3"www.luisjrodriguez.com/span/a)nbsp;and Nelson span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="Peery" data-scaytid="15"Peery/span (a href="http://www.speakersforanewamerica.com/nelsonpeerydialogue2.html"http://span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="www.speakersforanewamerica.com" data-scaytid="5"www.speakersforanewamerica.com/span/span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="nelsonpeerydialogue2.html" data-scaytid="7"nelsonpeerydialogue2.html/span/a), among othersmdash;who have labored in the factories and in the military industrial complexmdash;have seen the shift from manufacturing to white collar, finance based jobs.nbsp; Industrial jobs that once provided decent wages have been sent overseas or have been diminished by corporate greed in collusion with government/lobbyists to undermine and break unions./p p nbsp;/p p The CNN span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="op-ed" data-scaytid="13"op-ed/span cited the rise of digital technology and its ldquo;Slow but steady replacement of working humansrdquo; as the cause of the problems plaguing the US Postal Service.nbsp; People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did 4 years ago.nbsp; According to the op span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="ed’s" data-scaytid="19"edrsquo;s/span author, the real culprit is email and other net-enabled means of communication such as electronic bill payment. nbsp;Other examples of jobs lost to emnon-homo sapiens /emare Google self-driving automobiles--rendering taxi drivers obsolete, span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="EZ" data-scaytid="21"EZ/span passes replacing toll-takers and supermarketrsquo;s use of automated check stands.nbsp; The logical progression of this process was thought to be that the replaced workers would be trained to fix or program the robots that have replaced them.nbsp; But the people needed to make the robots are not as many as the people they replace.nbsp;/p p nbsp;/p p Henry Miller once wrote that making a living has very little to do with living.nbsp; Perhaps what should be asked is how we make a emlife/em?nbsp; The stuff that is made in our society is, presumably, to provide us the essentialsmdash;and often times non-essentialsmdash;of life and/or a standard of living that will make us comfortable.nbsp; But as humans are increasingly taken out of the production equation, where does that leave us?nbsp; With no job, we have no moneymdash;the bottom falls outmdash;and the effects reverberate through our livesmdash;shattering our health, relationships, self-esteem, and ultimately, the future of our children.nbsp; Is it a job that we really need when most of what we needmdash;food, shelter, health caremdash;given the countryrsquo;s productivitymdash;could be provided to the entire population with just a ldquo;fraction of us actually workingrdquo;?nbsp; As the span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="op-ed’s" data-scaytid="23"op-edrsquo;s/span author stated, ldquo;Our problem is not that we donrsquo;t have enough emstuff, /emitrsquo;s that we donrsquo;t have enough ways for people to work and ldquo;proverdquo; that they deserve this stuff.nbsp; I have always admired the person with nothing to prove./p p nbsp;/p p One such person with nothing to prove is my father James Robles (a href="http://poormagazine.org/node/2965"http://span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="poormagazine.org" data-scaytid="9"poormagazine.org/span/node/2965/a.nbsp; He worked much of his life as a janitor.nbsp; He always arrived to work on time, always did a good job.nbsp; He started his own janitorial business eventually, where I, as his sole employee, was taught the virtues of never doing a half assed job (his preferred method of spreading this particular gospel was via putting a well placed ldquo;foot in my assmdash;hence my role as ldquo;solerdquo; employeerdquo;mdash;which I still, on occasion, feel to this day).nbsp;/p p nbsp;/p p After living in San Francisco most of his life (born and raised), he moved the family to Hawaii 2 decades ago.nbsp; I left shortly after high school graduation; he stayed to raise my brother and sister along with his wife.nbsp; It is not easy to make it in Hawaii, the cost of living is high and housing is tighter than ever due to the influx of people from the so-called mainland.nbsp; He still worksmdash;now as a maintenance man in a condo on Waikiki.nbsp; His work is sometimes strenuous but not overly so.nbsp; He leaves the heavy lifting for the young guys./p p nbsp;/p p In his moments of pause, he looks out at the ocean, its movement, its blueness.nbsp; He reflects on time and life and how it passes and moves forwards and backwards.nbsp; A part of him never fully accepted capitalism.nbsp; As a family, we ate at McDonalds and drank coke with a smile; but my father was never disposable, his mind was not a blank slate for the branding of corporationsmdash;nor was his heart./p p nbsp;/p p He sought out the indigenous Filipino art of span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="Eskrima" data-scaytid="25"Eskrima/spanmdash;a beautiful art which Filipinos developed to defend their land from colonizers and invaders.nbsp; He learned the art from elders on the islands.nbsp; One elder asked, ldquo;Why should I teach you this art?rdquo;nbsp; My father replied, ldquo;This is my peoplersquo;s art, I have a right to learn itrdquo;.nbsp; It turned out the elder had waited years to hear those words.nbsp; The art is very old and is performed in styles using sticks, knives and open hand techniques.nbsp; He was a student then a teacher.nbsp; He visited the Philippines for the first timemdash;an ancestral homecoming--a few years back with his students to complete in a world span class="scayt-misspell" data-scayt_word="Eskrima" data-scaytid="27"Eskrima/span tournament.nbsp; The team did well, garnering medals in multiple categories.nbsp;/p p nbsp;/p p My fatherrsquo;s life is located in the bamboo forests of Hawaii.nbsp; The sticks that he holds, that he honors in his martial art provide the sounds that give his life meaning, gives it life. The sticks are an extension of himmdash;his ribs, his limbsmdash;growing out of the soil of resistance to the colonization of his culture, his history, his mind.nbsp; My father has carved the poetry of his life onto his skin which is the skin of wood.nbsp; He finds pieces of wood, running his hands over each unique piecemdash;burning designs onto each.nbsp; He spends hours carving facesmdash;forming noses, eyes, mouthsmdash;that ultimately speak the story of his life.nbsp; He sends these pieces of art to his family.nbsp;/p p nbsp;/p p I run my fingers across the faces, each detail is unique, giving honor to our ancestral face, our ancestral blood.nbsp;nbsp; Each mark and gap carved into the wood is a story, a memory that cannot be erased.nbsp; The carvings are evidence of a life lived in resistance, in poetry, in oneness with nature./p p nbsp;/p p Carving is his lifersquo;s workmdash;greater than a job or vocationmdash;for he does it out of sheer love.nbsp; And in that love he shares it with our family and friendsmdash;and with the world./p p nbsp;/p p I see a world where wersquo;re not defined by a job.nbsp; A job is not who you and I are.nbsp; My father has written his own life in the faces, the skin of wood by carving his own life into it.nbsp; Hersquo;s still carving./p