Résumé

A Curriculum Vitae deprecatingly represents a “course of life”, thinly spread on an A4 page, which emphasizes experiences we consider germane when we introduce ourselves to the world, vaguely summarized by previous jobs and education.

Some CVs nonchalantly require more details such as marital status, number of dependents (yes, children and parents are coldly and legally defined as “dependents”), number of citizenships or religious and sexual orientation. Some even push their inquisitiveness and ask for political appurtenance (how obnoxious!) or place of birth (fancy, that!). When did we start becoming statistics and stopped being individuals? Are our lives mere data under the excuse of research and ultimately social acceptance?

Our LIFE is a FILE. We choose what we think is pertinent and might be relevant, but we leave aside truly important moments that marked our lives, and that should actually be written in any “course of life” (like births and deaths). Our past will decide our future. No matter how dramatic it sounds, it is nevertheless true. We will never be what we can become, because we can never get rid of who we were.

There is no present. Just past and future. By the time we are using the present continuous “I am feeling” this has already become a continuous past of “I was feeling”.
Present is a utopia, past is memory, future is unknown.

What is irrational and painfully personal is that we never write in a CV what our genuine course of life is, as if our lives reduce exclusively to a few exams and a handful of jobs. Is that all we want to know? What about the happiest or saddest moments of our lives? Were not those a chief part of our course of life?

All of a sudden, what lingers is work. When was the turning point when our children stopped being more important than our production activity?

Why don’t we write in our résumés what we really consider important? Why my previous seven jobs and studies are more important than the moment I gave birth to my child? Why should I claim that the most important achievement in life was a job and not when I fell in love? Or when I sniffed my baby’s hair for the first time and she had the scent of vanilla, chamomile, warm milk and cookies? This is what we should write in our CVs.

If a CV represents relevant moments and gatherings of life experiences which say something about us, then it should tell all these things, even if chronologically reversed.

Moreover, we realize one’s importance in the collective conscience when their lives can be resumed with one word. Perhaps a lengthily CV should, in fact, raise a few personal questions about the necessity of writing down each activity we think is relevant to secure and back our authority and legitimacy on a matter. Isn’t a single worded CV more relevant than a 20 pages one? Shouldn’t we all aspire towards single worded CVs?

If you take a look at the CVs of the most important characters of the world - I mean really significant- not ephemerally focal-, they hardly put down a few words next to their names. Some only have one name. No, I do not have Madonna on mind, but Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, JFK, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Einstein. How many single named people come to your mind when you think world’s cultural growth? Not many, true? How many pages do you think their CVs would have, one or 20?