When I got home from the bar I didn’t feel like watching a movie. The pressure to start my career was too much to ignore. I put on an episode of Socrates from my own dvd collection and looked for a job. My inbox had thirty new emails. I only used it for job searches so it was all responses. It had become so tedious by then, like a full time job in itself. An unpaid job.

 CGI was everywhere in movies, video games, television, and commercials. Ubiquitous as it was, I still didn’t have a job in it. The ideal career would have been, of course, Walt Disney Studios. The animation giant had been a beacon of quality for a century. The industry leader, Disney, focused on the traditional, hand-drawn style of animation. For a while, it was the only player on the scene. But with new technologies other companies got their hands in the pot. My skills were much better suited for the studio that started the technological revolution, PIXAR.

The company actually emerged from the Magic Kingdom itself, with  John Lasseter. While working on a movie about a talking toaster, he experimented with computer animation. Despite it being no more expensive than the traditional style, it wasn't accepted and he was let go on the spot. From there the first fully CG film was created by his own startup Pixar studios and the rest was history. Four blockbuster successes later and they were still going strong.

It was easy enough to understand the old days when characters like Socrates were hand-drawn, but the new technology confused everyone. If there was a special effect in a movie that clearly wasn't hand-drawn, it's obvious that it was made with a computer. Yet, it was not so obvious that the computer didn't regurgitate the effect onto the screen. I would explain that I designed things like in the movies. That somehow was not enough to get through. 

My peers didn't understand either. The anime fans that were obsessed enough went to school for animation. They believed that they could eventually live in a cartoon, or at least Japan. I respected cartoons as an art form. I held sacred the bouncing ball, the sack of flour and the holy teapot. Above all were the Twelve Commandments, the principles of animation. Realistically I knew I would not be animating a wacky anime cartoon, but I would have been more than happy to just be in a menial desk job as a vertice pusher, straightening out model topology one point at a time. My small circle of friends all got jobs right out of the gate. It was like the giant claw machine in Toy Story choosing who would go and who would stay. I stayed.

Looking for the dream job was more like a nightmare, one where I was running in place. I needed to get my foot in the door soon or the industry would move on without me. Technology moves too fast to be out of the loop for an extended period of time. If I don’t get a job anytime soon I’d be a relic, extinct.

My applications went to every kind of job from big studio careers to startup internships. They all needed one thing in common, experience. Three to five years was the average requirement. With a hurdle like that it had become impossible to get started anywhere. How was I supposed to find work when I needed to find work before getting hired? That is the question of our times. 

“Last time on Socrates and Friends…”  The narrator calls out in the background. “Socrates awaits his trial in a long line outside the Athenian courthouse. In front of him is a young man in a rush. Another opportunity to discover truths.” he observes.

“What might you be so eager for today, my boy?” inquisitions Socrates.

“There was a murder on my farm, and my father is to blame. A servant was left in a ditch to die after he was caught killing another farm hand.” the boy explains.

“You are prosecuting your father? That is not very respectful Impious, really.”

“I don’t care if I come across as impious. What matters is that justice is served.” Whines a scrawny Euthyphro, the young Athenian to wise Socrates.

“Concerning piety, what is it?” He asks.

“Let's see... It is what the gods love!” He blurts back.

“But all the gods are different, some may like one thing but a different one another. Which is right?” speaks Socrates.

“You move my words around Socrates! That’s not what I meant.” wails Euthyphro.

“Then I am better even than the sculptor Daedalus who could only make his own creations move! You still have not explained impiety.” Exclaims old Socrates.

“I don’t have time for any of this. I have to prosecute my father’s heinous crime!” Euthyphro complains as he storms off.

“His case does not stand a chance. He doesn’t even know the definition of impiety.” Socrates bemuses himself.

“And now…” The narrator says.

“Socrates, you stand on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens before a jury.” The Judicator announces as if on a daytime courthouse broadcast. “Plato is among the jurors. The accused pleads his case and contemplates his death sentence.”

A circle of stone bleachers surrounds the thinker under an open sky. He is joined by some of his friends, his closest followers. Stern faces glare down at him, ready to hear what has to be said, reluctantly.

“You stand accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and justice must be preserved. What is the meaning of all this lecturing in the market?” announces the Judicator.

“I am like a gadfly pestering a horse when the State needs pestering.” Socrates explains.

“What does that have to do with justice?” the Judicator asks.

“He doesn’t mean that!” one of his friends chimes in.

“Justice? What is justice?” Socrates asks.

“Here we go again…” the other friend sighs.

 “You do not know what justice is, Socrates? Are you claiming ignorance of the law as your defense?” the Jusicator replies.

“If you know the definition then it is most important that I become your student.”

“Justice is the letter of the law, the law that you are accused of disobeying.”

“Justice is written rules then? When new rules are written, does that change the meaning of justice?” Socrates questions.

“I think we all have had enough of this.” the Judicator scoffs. “The penalty is death.”

“Death!” one friend shreiks. “You must allow us a counter offer for the sentence.”

“It is your right.” the Judicator declares.

“Now Socretes, don’t mess this up.” the friend begs.

“I wish to be sentenced to be given free meals for life as a guest of honor in the courthouse.” Socrates decides.

“Death it is then.” the Judicator rebukes.

“Why did you say that! They are going to kill you!” 

“Death is nothing to fear, for we do not know it.” The old man began. ”It is foolish to fear what we do not know. Death is either nothingness or a pleasant dream.”

The Judicator summons the guards and Socrates is taken away quietly. Plato rises out of his seat and steals away.

I did a keyword search on my emails. “Rejected.” Thirty results. The entire month wasted filling out resume forms that my resume already covered, writing cover letters lying about how much I would love the honor of working at their company and networking with other lost souls all having the same problem.

I had to make a change, so I decided to do something desperate. Taking out a piece of physical paper, I wrote a letter. More like hate mail, to Dexter Shuman. The page filled with personal insults and my own grievances about the industry and about life. I declared that I will make my own movie and I didn’t need anyone else.

On the way to the mailbox at the corner, the street was dark as charcoal as I walked. Not a single street lamp or porch light existed and the only sound was a freight train in the distance. A clattering disturbance from the tracks pushed through the dead trees carried by hard, bitter, December air. I dropped the letter in the box and my heart sank with it. It was an immediate regret and the only thing I'd done worth regretting. I fumbled with the hatch to get it back, reaching my whole arm inside before giving up and turning in for the night.

 My manifesto gave me the confidence to start this project and I built my character with HAL. The primordial cube was there, it had always been there. By dividing it in half, then extruding limbs from either side it took on the form of a humanoid. Two horns rose out of the head and a small tail from the back. His polygon count multiplied as his arms went from boxes to bending noodles. Through the X-ray of wireframe vision I added a skeletal structure under his skin. Each bone was influencing the next and then attached to invisible strings. Out of the simplicity of a single cube rose a character called ‘Billy Goat Black.’ It’s alive, I thought.

It had gotten really late so I crawled into bed. I wasn't tired and I just wished I could continue being productive. All I wanted to do was work more on my project. That always happened before I slept, when I couldn’t turn my mind off. I had to focus on something simple to bring it down.

There was nothing wrong with looking forward to the next day, I told myself. The end of one day isn't the end of the world, and sleep isn't actually death or even little slices of it. But, there I was, anxiously  drowning in an ocean of thought and dreams.

I woke up in a daze the next morning and depressurized into the overbearing morning light. Fleeting images, strange objects and places drifted out of my mind never to be seen again. Like a deep sea dive, reality slowly leaked in for me to adjust carefully. I layed in bed a few more minutes until I was completely reintegrated.