My mom purchased me this collection of essays and letters titled “Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society” and I read a handful of pieces it contains but that was almost 2 years ago when I was recovering from surgery - I am now revisiting them to make clearer the dim reflections of ideas & sentiments which are increasing in relevance to me. The first essay “Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation” written in 1835 just before his graduation from the Trier Gymnasium, a secondary school, is brimming with a lofty vigor that asserts Man was bestowed the general goal “to improve mankind and himself”, and insists upon the careful consideration of a vocation that is of best fit. Marx’s piece finds purchase through his humanistic elaboration of the aforementioned, in which as one searches for a profession they must be guided by a drive for our perfection - “the welfare of humanity”. Accordingly, true fulfillment can only be found through a vocation which is driven towards that perfection, a position which one can be the most dignified, not a servile tool, but able to create independently within their own circle.

Undoubtedly many consider it typically naive to dream of work that is individually and socially meaningful, but the derisions of such a concept come from the principle of reality that has been forced upon us, to perform at ever increasing paces for profits that will never benefit us commensurably.

As I engage in the typical rite of youth in searching for an occupation I find it necessary to turn to a guiding ideology, but Marx warns of the grave burden of a position based on ideas whose truth escapes and which we can no longer hold to a high esteem. And when my worldview shatters as it so periodically does, I’m left aimless, apathetic, scrambling for something great to assuage my existence. It’s the ideas that have lasted with me throughout the years that I know to be integral to my being & becoming. This is one reason I write - to commit the process to posterity, cohering into a whole ideas whose truth I am completely convinced of. Let myself no longer be prone to spurious ambition.

My search for fulfilling work has not been fruitful and I grow frustrated at my impotence - I need not be impatient on top of it all. Despite the feeling, I remain hopeful and optimistic - emboldened by the things that I read, the people that I meet, the beauty I find in this world - all which threaten a position for me to belong and find dignity in.