I Used to do That for a Living; Landing and Leaving 108 Jobs Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 | Page 14

I Used to do that for a Living

Before I quote some Scripture (I was raised to
express myself that way), I’ll note that I quote a
lot of books, not all of them good. It so happens
that the aptest caveat regarding me as anybody’s
role-model comes from The Gospel According to
Matthew: “And if the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch.”
At three I wanted to be a ballerina when I
grew up; that is, until somebody explained that
only a girl could be a ballerina. Had they mentioned that there was such a thing as a ballerino, who knows? At ten I felt certain that I would
someday be an illustrator like Norman Rockwell
or Paul Detlefson. At thirteen I read Cancer, Cocaine, and Courage, a biography of Dr. William
Stewart Halstead, followed it with the lives of
Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and various other practitioners of the healing arts, and set my
heart on becoming a medical historian. By sixteen I had spent a few months working in the inhalation therapy department of a hospital and
determined that I should endeavor to become
a thoracic surgeon. At nineteen I happened on
Pierre Cabanne’s Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp and committed myself to the study of art
history. I was twenty when I first became interested in game design, my primary occupation for
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