Act your age
It's been over a year since I posted anything in this damned electronic clap trap - and even now the only reason my mind's uncontrolled flailing finds itself on Livejournal is because I'm not sure where else I can put it without worrying about who sees it.
I suspect 1 or 2 people may be subscribed - but alas it's in my head and needs to get out.
The last week:
I'm finally moved into a permanent residence in Astoria. The Job's great. The House is great. Life was seemingly great. How nice that felt.
During that week I'd finally put behind a frantic first month in NYC where I wasn't quite sure I belonged at all. That week put doubts to rest - but that week isn't the problem. Rather, that week lies bare before my eyes today as the most clear incongruity in my life to date.
For one week I believed it to be normal that a 22 year old should operate, live, breathe, exist without any sense of insecurity or self-doubt. Olaf left me - and I feel everyone around me - with the belief that 22 is the new 30. While searching for a job helps to assuage certain aspects of the "2230 Mindfuck" as you realize that you're hideously unqualified for any job beyond tying the shoes of an assistant to an executive assistant (note: the assistant who's shoes you tie has 6 other assistants just like you vying for the same glimmering hope of advancement that you clamor for). While that burp in the "2230 Mindfuck" restores a small sliver of sanity, the rest of the syndrome pushes you forward into a void of absurdity.
The "2230 Mindfuck's" greatest accomplishment: making us feel like we deserve our future-securing career upon graduation.
We leave the stage of our graduation ceremonies swinging our arms wildly in the air trusting blind luck to land us in our destined career path. Neigh. Blind luck can't get us there. Maybe the truly devoted Christians have a leg up in their belief in a God with an omnipotent though frustratingly muted narrative. Maybe. I've always doubted, in one sense or another, that any supreme being will carve out our paths for us. Similarly, I doubted a college education could do likewise (even if statistics do show the prospect of a brighter future for the academically benefitted).
They hoist us from their climate and rent-controlled dormitories and we splash down into the soggy and suffocating puddle of the rest of our lives. No matter how good a swimmer you are in literal pools - your metaphorical swimming skills don't receive much practice in the college bubble. We flail our arms and tread water for the first few months; straining to keep our heads above water - not only to breathe - but to get some glimpse of nearby land - anywhere we can swim to and put our feet down on solid ground.
Land. How precious. Unless you were born and raised on a houseboat, land is the ultimate commodity which we take for granted. When we do finally find our footing on the island floating in our new life-puddle metaphor - we begin looking for other commodities. Relationships. Luxuries. Ways to get by without exceeding the boundaries.
At 22 we've become fully functional colonies unto ourselves. Heck, if we can do this by age 22 - why not get married as well? If establishing oneself as a professional has had its age limit reduced - why can't the maturity limit for marriage be given the same "CRaZy Eddy is Slashing his prices" treatment?
So we commit to another human being. Man. Woman. Something in between that insists we neither call it "he" or "she" but rather "them". We become enamored with our loved ones - but most importantly with the concept of a relationship that will "last forever". But who are we at 22 to know anything about forever? For most of us the greatest permanence we've ever known is the world of education. That was the longest constant. I'd like to say it was a family but we all know how much I'd be indulging in idealism to theorize that scenario for everyone our age.
I'm all for the continuity of the great familial tradition that's kept human society in play. Human society, despite its glaring flaws, has made life better for humanity. (note: I say that - but I have multiple arguments against it - a few of the voices in my head sneer in disgust that I'd say otherwise in print). I know that in the days when "old" had an extra "e" on the end people would get married as early as 15 or 16 - good for them, but divorce wasn't an option (though savagely beating your spouse was - so I'm not sure how you count that as a pro or con).
Today, among quite a few others, I have two people in my life heading down the road to uber-youthful marriage. I'm not criticizing their decision. From what I've seen of these two they could very well pull it off. I won't dare predict otherwise. Never. My problem springs from the aforementioned fact that generations hold themselves as being wiser than previous generations. I'm guilty of it myself. I loathe/love it about myself.
I feel as if the free-association has taken me into a rambling spiral away from the simple fact I'd hoped to convey:
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS WRONG WITH OUR GENERATION?
Why are we so eager to push ourselves into stages of life for which we are grossly unprepared?
Why can't we sit back and enjoy the few years of fiscal struggle intended for the men and women recently reintroduced into the world?
Why does the collegiate system spend so much time convincing us that we need to find our niche within first few years of our newfound freedom?
Global may well have been the best decision of my life - even if a few shitty ones sprung forth from it's well-traveled loins. I left the culture of accelerated and irrational expectation and found something I hadn't tasted since my summers in the Caribbean.
I found the opportunity to simply exist within one's own frame of reference.
Not the reality of an American culture.
Not the reality of corporate America.
The reality of a world that would let me lose myself forever if I just committed to it.
I could still go back to that reality.
My own personal reality isn't so fucked that I need to abandon it - but I'd rather replace a few of the problematic "irrational expectations" of American Reality with those I found abroad.
I think it's possible - it's just going to take a bit of work.
Do you really know who "completes" you already?
If you know you do - I guess you should hold on to them. But do you?
I suspect 1 or 2 people may be subscribed - but alas it's in my head and needs to get out.
The last week:
I'm finally moved into a permanent residence in Astoria. The Job's great. The House is great. Life was seemingly great. How nice that felt.
During that week I'd finally put behind a frantic first month in NYC where I wasn't quite sure I belonged at all. That week put doubts to rest - but that week isn't the problem. Rather, that week lies bare before my eyes today as the most clear incongruity in my life to date.
For one week I believed it to be normal that a 22 year old should operate, live, breathe, exist without any sense of insecurity or self-doubt. Olaf left me - and I feel everyone around me - with the belief that 22 is the new 30. While searching for a job helps to assuage certain aspects of the "2230 Mindfuck" as you realize that you're hideously unqualified for any job beyond tying the shoes of an assistant to an executive assistant (note: the assistant who's shoes you tie has 6 other assistants just like you vying for the same glimmering hope of advancement that you clamor for). While that burp in the "2230 Mindfuck" restores a small sliver of sanity, the rest of the syndrome pushes you forward into a void of absurdity.
The "2230 Mindfuck's" greatest accomplishment: making us feel like we deserve our future-securing career upon graduation.
We leave the stage of our graduation ceremonies swinging our arms wildly in the air trusting blind luck to land us in our destined career path. Neigh. Blind luck can't get us there. Maybe the truly devoted Christians have a leg up in their belief in a God with an omnipotent though frustratingly muted narrative. Maybe. I've always doubted, in one sense or another, that any supreme being will carve out our paths for us. Similarly, I doubted a college education could do likewise (even if statistics do show the prospect of a brighter future for the academically benefitted).
They hoist us from their climate and rent-controlled dormitories and we splash down into the soggy and suffocating puddle of the rest of our lives. No matter how good a swimmer you are in literal pools - your metaphorical swimming skills don't receive much practice in the college bubble. We flail our arms and tread water for the first few months; straining to keep our heads above water - not only to breathe - but to get some glimpse of nearby land - anywhere we can swim to and put our feet down on solid ground.
Land. How precious. Unless you were born and raised on a houseboat, land is the ultimate commodity which we take for granted. When we do finally find our footing on the island floating in our new life-puddle metaphor - we begin looking for other commodities. Relationships. Luxuries. Ways to get by without exceeding the boundaries.
At 22 we've become fully functional colonies unto ourselves. Heck, if we can do this by age 22 - why not get married as well? If establishing oneself as a professional has had its age limit reduced - why can't the maturity limit for marriage be given the same "CRaZy Eddy is Slashing his prices" treatment?
So we commit to another human being. Man. Woman. Something in between that insists we neither call it "he" or "she" but rather "them". We become enamored with our loved ones - but most importantly with the concept of a relationship that will "last forever". But who are we at 22 to know anything about forever? For most of us the greatest permanence we've ever known is the world of education. That was the longest constant. I'd like to say it was a family but we all know how much I'd be indulging in idealism to theorize that scenario for everyone our age.
I'm all for the continuity of the great familial tradition that's kept human society in play. Human society, despite its glaring flaws, has made life better for humanity. (note: I say that - but I have multiple arguments against it - a few of the voices in my head sneer in disgust that I'd say otherwise in print). I know that in the days when "old" had an extra "e" on the end people would get married as early as 15 or 16 - good for them, but divorce wasn't an option (though savagely beating your spouse was - so I'm not sure how you count that as a pro or con).
Today, among quite a few others, I have two people in my life heading down the road to uber-youthful marriage. I'm not criticizing their decision. From what I've seen of these two they could very well pull it off. I won't dare predict otherwise. Never. My problem springs from the aforementioned fact that generations hold themselves as being wiser than previous generations. I'm guilty of it myself. I loathe/love it about myself.
I feel as if the free-association has taken me into a rambling spiral away from the simple fact I'd hoped to convey:
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS WRONG WITH OUR GENERATION?
Why are we so eager to push ourselves into stages of life for which we are grossly unprepared?
Why can't we sit back and enjoy the few years of fiscal struggle intended for the men and women recently reintroduced into the world?
Why does the collegiate system spend so much time convincing us that we need to find our niche within first few years of our newfound freedom?
Global may well have been the best decision of my life - even if a few shitty ones sprung forth from it's well-traveled loins. I left the culture of accelerated and irrational expectation and found something I hadn't tasted since my summers in the Caribbean.
I found the opportunity to simply exist within one's own frame of reference.
Not the reality of an American culture.
Not the reality of corporate America.
The reality of a world that would let me lose myself forever if I just committed to it.
I could still go back to that reality.
My own personal reality isn't so fucked that I need to abandon it - but I'd rather replace a few of the problematic "irrational expectations" of American Reality with those I found abroad.
I think it's possible - it's just going to take a bit of work.
Do you really know who "completes" you already?
If you know you do - I guess you should hold on to them. But do you?