As the chasm widens
A few weeks ago I was at a concert in Shibuya. I was by myself, but I wasn’t feeling all that lonely. Plus, I was enjoying the show. I so rarely get the chance to see a band in a live house in Japan and hear songs in English.
I was not the only foreigner in the audience by far. There were many young men and women from America, and probably other places, in attendance (many of whom donned dog tags). During the break between the opening act and the headlining band, a group of young foreigners (whom I gathered to be in their early twenties) came to stand behind me. They were not model citizens by any stretch of the imagination. They made crude jokes, yelled obnoxious things to the road crew members setting things up on stage, and generally made asses of themselves. I tried not to listen in. I tried to focus my thoughts on other, calming things. It was to little avail. I eventually took out my phone and started occupying myself with the sending of e-mails to various people.
I should mention that I hang out with pretty intelligent people, those who have read books for pleasure, who recognize allusions to older works in popular culture references. I assumed, I suppose erroneously, that most people were like my friends. They weren’t necessarily geniuses, but I figured most people were smart, and relatively sophisticated.
My mistake.
Listening on the conversation going on behind me, I began to think that my preconceived notion was wrong. Now, I’m not saying my friends and I always engage in cerebral discourses. Sometimes we base it up just as much as the next bloke. But that doesn’t account for all of our discussions. Not even a majority of them. We vary our topics. Variation makes things more interesting. I’d like to think we maintain a certain level of (warranted) pretension in our conversations, whether the subject be communism or comic books.
These folks dragged on about getting drunk: how drunk they were at that very moment, other times they’ve been drunk, times they’ve been too drunk to function, times other people were too drunk to function, and so on. They discussed which recreational drugs could fuck you up the most. My personal favorite was the diatribe on how much one young man had to take a piss. This last part would not have been so amusing, had it not gone on ten minutes. For an hour I listened to these people converse about the most (in my opinion) banal subjects. Absolutely scintillating.
I was struck with bemusement at their choice of conversation topics, as it reminded me of my younger days. I, too, would carry on for hours with my friends about stupid subjects, or subjects I suppose outsiders would regard as stupid. And I didn’t mind the background noise they provided. That was, until one young woman described a paradox she was experiencing: She wanted to get another beer, but didn’t want to leave her spot in the crowd, because she was sure that as soon as she did, the headlining band would start their show.
“It’s like Newton’s Law,” she told her compatriots. “Something happens at the worst possible time.”
I felt my body tense up. For a moment, I let myself believe that it was just a slip of the tongue. Surely she meant Murphy’s Law. It’s a simple mistake. They’re both disyllabic names. And M and N are close enough to each other in the dictionary to make switching understandable. Yes, it was simply a mistake, and one of her friends will realize it and correct her.
Or maybe not.
Her friends agreed with her, one man commenting that “That Newton guy’s an asshole.”
I was further perturbed when one of the men asked, “Who was Newton, anyway? Why’s he get a law named after him?” To which a woman replied, “I think he was some scientist in the fifties or something.” This led to an argument among the group, each claiming a different decade in the twentieth century and a different occupation for Sir Isaac Newton.
I died a little inside.
Very rarely am I overcome with the feeling that a person is a complete, irredeemable idiot. It’s a little silly for me to pass judgement on these strangers based on snippets of conversation, and I feel like a pedantic asshole when I think of how stupid I thought them to be. But seriously, how do you graduate high school and not know who Isaac Newton is? He’s the guy who’s credited with discovering gravity, for god’s sake! He came up with the laws of motion! You don’t have to know intimate details about his life, but at least remember his contributions to physics and math!
It was at that moment I felt older than my years. I’m twenty-four, and I’m seemingly worlds away from these people who aren’t a few years my junior. It made me think about the people I hang out with now, and how isolated I’ve been feeling from those closest in age to me. I feel more comfortable with the folks pushing thirty than I do with the twenty-somethings. When did this happen? Where was I when I matured?
I can’t imagine acting now the way I did in college. I even cringe at the idea. Three years ago, I didn’t care about what I did. Now I do. I think before I act. More than necessary, sometimes. I plan. I try to look ahead of me instead of dwelling in the present.
Have I become an adult, I wonder? Is this what it feels like? It must have been a gradual change, but when did it begin?
The darker part of my mind wonders if I’ll ever feel as carefree as I did when I was younger. My current worries are about rent, car payments, work, and a slew of other things. I worry about graduate school. I worry about Ph.D. programs. I worry about whether or not I’ll ever get anything of mine published. I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to get married.
But worse yet, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to love anyone as passionately as I did when I was twenty.
I don’t know.
How can I be an adult if I don’t know anything? Adults are supposed to know everything. They’re supposed to be confident and smart and capable. I don’t feel like I possess anything of those qualities. I’m too young to be an adult. I can’t be an adult.
Right?
~Mai
“I'm curious about everything- even things that don't interest me.”
I was not the only foreigner in the audience by far. There were many young men and women from America, and probably other places, in attendance (many of whom donned dog tags). During the break between the opening act and the headlining band, a group of young foreigners (whom I gathered to be in their early twenties) came to stand behind me. They were not model citizens by any stretch of the imagination. They made crude jokes, yelled obnoxious things to the road crew members setting things up on stage, and generally made asses of themselves. I tried not to listen in. I tried to focus my thoughts on other, calming things. It was to little avail. I eventually took out my phone and started occupying myself with the sending of e-mails to various people.
I should mention that I hang out with pretty intelligent people, those who have read books for pleasure, who recognize allusions to older works in popular culture references. I assumed, I suppose erroneously, that most people were like my friends. They weren’t necessarily geniuses, but I figured most people were smart, and relatively sophisticated.
My mistake.
Listening on the conversation going on behind me, I began to think that my preconceived notion was wrong. Now, I’m not saying my friends and I always engage in cerebral discourses. Sometimes we base it up just as much as the next bloke. But that doesn’t account for all of our discussions. Not even a majority of them. We vary our topics. Variation makes things more interesting. I’d like to think we maintain a certain level of (warranted) pretension in our conversations, whether the subject be communism or comic books.
These folks dragged on about getting drunk: how drunk they were at that very moment, other times they’ve been drunk, times they’ve been too drunk to function, times other people were too drunk to function, and so on. They discussed which recreational drugs could fuck you up the most. My personal favorite was the diatribe on how much one young man had to take a piss. This last part would not have been so amusing, had it not gone on ten minutes. For an hour I listened to these people converse about the most (in my opinion) banal subjects. Absolutely scintillating.
I was struck with bemusement at their choice of conversation topics, as it reminded me of my younger days. I, too, would carry on for hours with my friends about stupid subjects, or subjects I suppose outsiders would regard as stupid. And I didn’t mind the background noise they provided. That was, until one young woman described a paradox she was experiencing: She wanted to get another beer, but didn’t want to leave her spot in the crowd, because she was sure that as soon as she did, the headlining band would start their show.
“It’s like Newton’s Law,” she told her compatriots. “Something happens at the worst possible time.”
I felt my body tense up. For a moment, I let myself believe that it was just a slip of the tongue. Surely she meant Murphy’s Law. It’s a simple mistake. They’re both disyllabic names. And M and N are close enough to each other in the dictionary to make switching understandable. Yes, it was simply a mistake, and one of her friends will realize it and correct her.
Or maybe not.
Her friends agreed with her, one man commenting that “That Newton guy’s an asshole.”
I was further perturbed when one of the men asked, “Who was Newton, anyway? Why’s he get a law named after him?” To which a woman replied, “I think he was some scientist in the fifties or something.” This led to an argument among the group, each claiming a different decade in the twentieth century and a different occupation for Sir Isaac Newton.
I died a little inside.
Very rarely am I overcome with the feeling that a person is a complete, irredeemable idiot. It’s a little silly for me to pass judgement on these strangers based on snippets of conversation, and I feel like a pedantic asshole when I think of how stupid I thought them to be. But seriously, how do you graduate high school and not know who Isaac Newton is? He’s the guy who’s credited with discovering gravity, for god’s sake! He came up with the laws of motion! You don’t have to know intimate details about his life, but at least remember his contributions to physics and math!
It was at that moment I felt older than my years. I’m twenty-four, and I’m seemingly worlds away from these people who aren’t a few years my junior. It made me think about the people I hang out with now, and how isolated I’ve been feeling from those closest in age to me. I feel more comfortable with the folks pushing thirty than I do with the twenty-somethings. When did this happen? Where was I when I matured?
I can’t imagine acting now the way I did in college. I even cringe at the idea. Three years ago, I didn’t care about what I did. Now I do. I think before I act. More than necessary, sometimes. I plan. I try to look ahead of me instead of dwelling in the present.
Have I become an adult, I wonder? Is this what it feels like? It must have been a gradual change, but when did it begin?
The darker part of my mind wonders if I’ll ever feel as carefree as I did when I was younger. My current worries are about rent, car payments, work, and a slew of other things. I worry about graduate school. I worry about Ph.D. programs. I worry about whether or not I’ll ever get anything of mine published. I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to get married.
But worse yet, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to love anyone as passionately as I did when I was twenty.
I don’t know.
How can I be an adult if I don’t know anything? Adults are supposed to know everything. They’re supposed to be confident and smart and capable. I don’t feel like I possess anything of those qualities. I’m too young to be an adult. I can’t be an adult.
Right?
~Mai
“I'm curious about everything- even things that don't interest me.”