On Interviews

Hello, audience. I'm going to talk, yet again, about being an adult. I seem to do this every couple of months, but that's okay. Few enough people read this blog that I feel entitled to talk about whatever I please. If you want to read other things, read other blogs. It's really that simple.

Actually, that pretty much describes my philosophy toward most things about myself--I'm abrasive. Get over it, embrace it, or move along. No one is making you interact with me.

Anyway, the subtext here is that there is no greater farce than adult life. It's so much BS that even I have to cringe a little inside, and that is speaking as a confirmed bullshitter. Adult life is based almost entirely on lying all of the time to almost everyone. Intimate relationships are set apart in adult life, because those are the people you either lie less to, or lie about different things.

At least when we were teenagers, everyone knew everyone was lying about who they were and how they were doing and whatnot, and it was not encouraged. As a child, there's this ringing chorus of "be yourself! Trust people! Be honest about who you are and what you believe!" and then you get out of school.

Suddenly it's all dating people because you're supposed to be in a relationship, and trying to get a job.

To be honest here, theoretical readers, I haven't had that many job interviews. I've had enough, though, to know that they're all about both interviewer and interviewed pretending they want to be there.

You walk in, and (after making you wait long enough that you know you're at their mercy) the interviewer shakes your hand and introduces themselves, a name which you promptly forget, because you were busy wondering if your handshake was firm enough, or if you smiled when you said it was nice to meet them, or if they notice that your pants are still kind of wrinkly, or wishing you had brushed your teeth before you left.

After they sit you down and start "trying to get to know you" the real pretense starts. You have to convince them that you're worth hiring, which they have probably already decided based on your initial application, and they spend the entire time pretending to be interested in hiring you.

It's like a date, where you both try and convince someone that you're exactly what they're looking for, even though you're lying through your teeth, and so are they. "Quick! Pretend you're way smarter, funnier, more competent, more attractive, more outgoing, and more dedicated and hardworking than you have ever actually been."

Because for some reason, we think that is a good basis for any kind of relationship. Especially when the chances are that they decided whether or not they wanted you in all of three minutes.

And the answer is usually no.

This basically defines adult life. There's this demand that you seem totally together all the time, regardless of whether or not you are; it doesn't matter if you're a broke alcoholic and all of your relationships are crumbling as long as you can seem like you're a successful human being.

Maybe this is one of those "fake it 'til you make it" things (a favorite saying of my mother's), but mostly it just seems like total crap. Does this ever help anyone? I mean really. Did I just miss the day where they handed out grown-up starter kits full of instruction booklets about how all of this makes sense?

Rambling About Goals and stuff.

Hello, audience. Here's my first post for 2014, though since I haven't been especially good about posting regularly ever, I wouldn't read too much into it. It honestly just occurred to me that it's New Years day, so expect no lofty resolutions from me. I don't have plans for a regular posting schedule, or anything like that. I do intend to do more writing in the near future, but I'll have to be a little (or a lot) more disciplined about everything.

Damn you, Discipline! You and The Pendulum can just go away, and I'll keep wasting a lot of time.

 This game may or may not have eaten nearly half a day since I bought it like three days ago...

Actually, discipline is closely related to the thing I was actually intending to muse on. (Publicly musing seems dangerous, and yet it's one of my best ways to think.) My older brother was in town "for Christmas" (he actually arrived on the 26th), and something he said to me while he was here was that "you are either moving toward a goal, or moving away from it." Or something quite similar to that, anyway, and I've been thinking about that idea.

I have several goals, some of them more nebulous than I'd like to admit, and I am (despite what seems to be popular opinion,) actively pursuing at least some of them.

Admittedly, the one I'm moving toward most actively is moving into an apartment, followed by finding a different job, but those either don't seem to count, or seem depressingly impotent.

But I'm not sure I agree with my dear brother. The essence of that thought is definitely something I agree with, and it seems a little nit-picky (ewwwww....nits.) to bother disagreeing at all, but I do. Goals are not always something you can actively pursue; sometimes there's a time for such things, or sometimes goals don't always have clear paths to pursue.

This sounds a little defensive, now that I say it out loud (or in print), and I don't deny that I could definitely be working harder on most of my goals, but it's something I think is still true.

There seems to be this trend, especially in my generation--I don't know about you older or younger people, but I suspect that it's also prevalent--that you are supposed to have a Direction, and a Plan. People begin asking about such things literally the second you graduate high school, and they always disapprove if you don't have an answer, because if you don't have a mission for your life, the expectation is that you will hop into the grooves worn by previous generations and go to college, get married, reproduce, and do something professional in fields you tested well in during school. Usually in that order.

God forbid you don't have a distinct list of goals, complete with dates, deadlines, and color codes. Because the people that don't have a Plan grow up to be losers. You don't want to be a loser, do you?

Not that I can say much in answer to that mentality. I'm an artist.

Some people I've known have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish with their lives, and they're doing what they think is necessary to making those things happen, like getting the pertinent degrees and certifications and suchlike, and in some ways I definitely envy that, but I don't think it's necessary. People say all the time that life is a journey, and it's about the journey, and other variations on that idea, but it seems like no one treats it that way. Experiencing life as a series of shaping events and experiences is seen as short-sighted and lazy even as people post inspirational photo-manipulations and quotes on their social networking pages saying just that.

But only if you have a defined destination. We don't want tourists or explorers.

I think this falls into the same category of "no winning" as the housewife dilemma. For those who don't know what I mean, even after years of women being allowed to work and have careers, there is still this idea that if you have a career, you hate your kids, or are selfish for having your own life and not having kids, but on the other side, if you choose not to have a career, and stay home with those same children, you're wasting your potential, and it's seen as a total cop out of having your own life.

The difficulty with these situations, I think, is that they're both not true, and people are forcing their presumptions on someone else, and demanding that other people make the same choice for the reasons they would, when that is impossible.

Not everyone has to do the same thing. It's okay to do and think and be different. We don't have to hate people for that.

Another thing that people say and don't do...I think the internet is going to call everyone on their hypocrisy someday.

I hope I'm not online that day.

Reduced to Children by Grownups

While my thoughts on my last post were still swirling into irrelevance, I got a wonderful taste of what total crap that belief is thanks to everyone in my life over forty-five.

I have the lovely misfortune of still living at home due to my pathetic income and lack of ownership of my car, so I get to be here and watch all of the "grownups" that I know treat me like I am too young.

My realization here is that everyone immediately starts saying, "I was never that young, and even if I was, I was smarter/more responsible/more experienced/etc." Nevermind the fact that my parents and two of siblings were married in their early twenties. I'm clearly too young  to be treated as the adult I legally am by the people who know me well enough to know how I behave and how smart I am.

I first started realizing this at my parents' church. After I graduated high school, I floated around interacting with the collage-age and grown-up people there, and realized I was going to just be caught between the youth group, which I was now too old for and no longer allowed to attend, and the grown-up things, which I was not considered part of because I was too young. This isn't really a problem when kids go off to JBU (as most of their children there do), and only come back once in a while until they've graduated and gotten married, but with me and a handful of others, when you're there and they can't remember whether or not you're out of high school, no one will take you seriously.

I can accept that from strangers at a church I only go to because of my living arrangements. They're not expected to know what I'm like. It's irritating, but a necessary evil. It's when people that do know better do the same crap that it pisses me off.

We are not children set loose in an adult world to explore and do as we will. About half the time, we are adults being denied the world we have earned. We aren't trusted to make our own decisions, and when we assert our rightful independence, it's looked on with condescension and/or disapproval. We get advice and admonitions rather than encouragement, because god knows we're idiot children and don't know any better.

They will never take us seriously or respect us as our own, intelligent, autonomous individuals, because they'll never think of us as adults or their peers, regardless of how old we are. Thirty-four, three kids, a career, and you'll still be "just a kid."

We Are Children in an Adult World

Hello, Audience.

You know that scene in Yes Man where Zooey Deschanel is at a concert, and she calls all the fans by name? There's like five of them, and then the rest of the venue is totally empty except for like two guys at the bar? (My brain just filled in Wallace and Other Scott before I realized what it was doing)
That's kind of how I feel referring to my nebulous "audience." Somewhat silly, but I think it would be sillier still to actively address my posts to specific people, because then it would just be a total waste to post them like this. That's the kind of thing that should place as a conversation or email or something. And usually does. Besides, how awkward would it be to name specific people who may or may not actually read my posts? Just because they're following my blog doesn't mean they actually follow my blog.

But I was having a conversation this morning about the awesomeness of being this age. The girl I was talking to was telling me that she's going to dye her hair white-blonde, and this is the time she can do it without looking ridiculous, because right now, we twenty-somethings are old enough to do what we want and make our own decisions, but not so old that we're expected to act like grownups.

I think I act more like a child now at nearly twenty-two than I did when I was nine or ten. You know why? Because I can, and it's fun. I have all the energy and madness to be a child, and I have all the privileges and legal abilities of an adult. Plus some disposable income, which only means I get to play even more.

I know I've said all this before (especially here), but I'm periodically reminded, and it strikes me as kind of awesome every time. We don't get to stay in the middle forever, and presumably someday some of us will have to start behaving like functional adults (like in our late seventies, or when we die), but right now we have this enormous gift of being young without being children.

All of our stupid, wild decisions get written off as being idiot kids, and we have control and accountability for ourselves. So if I decide I want to slide off a roof (which was awesome) and twist my ankle (which was hilarious), that's totally up to me. And the people who slid before and after me.

I am at the age when I can go have a couple of beers and then go play on a playground. And I do.

So go do something juvenile and awesome, guys. And if you're too old for that, mourn your wasted youth. Because your life isn't complete until, as an "adult," you've ridden the side of a shopping cart through Wal-Mart singing spy music, or chugged a gallon of chocolate milk, or eaten cookie dough and raced down a roof.

Marriage and Babies

So I was on Facebook earlier, and I saw that yet another person I knew in middle and high school has a child. I vaguely remember a pregnancy announcement around a year ago, but somehow this still shocks me.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least six couples within my age group that are married and/or have at least one child. Am I the only one this shocks and horrifies? Because we are waaaaaaaaaaaaay, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too freaking young for this stuff. Half these people couldn't even drink the champagne at their own weddings!

What's the big hurry here? I don't understand it. I am currently in a good relationship, but I'm YEARS away from all that crap. There will be no weddings or baby announcements from me or my man anytime soon. You know why? Because we're barely out of our teen years. I fully understand that it's more or less acceptable to get married in your early twenties, but that really doesn't mean we should. especially with how long we're allowing childhood to last these days. These years are a period where we get to experience and grow without all the same limitations of childhood or adulthood; the world is a huge, open place full of amazing things just waiting for us to find them. And if that's with a significant other by your side, awesome. Grow together. But why tie the cinder-block of obligation to your neck before you're ready for it?

If it's okay to act like a child until your late twenties or early thirties, how is it okay to be a spouse or parent before you can be an independent adult?

The thing is, marriage success rates are not encouraging, and people are growing up into partial adults before having children of their own. We glorify marriage as the end-goal of a relationship rather than as a beginning, and we romanticize the way kids screw up their lives by creating utter crap like that Teen Mom show. Life is big and crazy and scary, and if you're going to be embarking on that journey with anyone, and if you're going to be responsible for another life, you need to be stable enough to manage, and you need to be sure about it.

Brain spew temporarily over. Mostly because I want to sleep.

Life after high school...Ish

So, a lot of the younger kids I know are coming up on the end of high school, and that brings to mind the hazy months of senoritus, the college search, and the general curiosity about my plans for the future. In the last couple of years, I've been asked about a million times what I want to do with my life.

I understand that this question is largely because I'm an unemployed (again) twenty-something, not in school, and still at my parents' house, but really? My life? I'm not quite sure if anyone over thirty (or with actual direction for their lives) can appreciate the immensity of that question.

I am twenty years old, and it feels like I've only been out of high school for about three seconds, and yet people have been asking me since graduation what I want to do for the foreseeable future.

And that answer has always been, "I have no idea...School maybe? Have a career? Get married and pop children someday? I dunno." Because what kind of society are we in where people expect you to know what you're doing with your life in your late teens? Most people don't even choose a major in school until toward the end, or they change it at least once before they get their degree. And then comes the whole question of whether or not they even end up somewhere relevant to their degree...

I've officially come to the conclusion that most clueless post-adolescents simply follow the path laid out before them; they do what we're "supposed" to do, which is go to college, theoretically fall in love, get married, and begin the arduous work of starting a career. The thing that I think has been sadly lacking from education is that the traditional path is not the one that everyone has to choose. College isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't be treated as simply the next step of life. Life after high school is supposed to be the start of adulthood, the beginning of independence and personal accountability, which is something that I don't often see in almost anyone under twenty-five.

I think the difficulty here is that people don't want the pressure of choosing an alternate path for themselves. They can pretend the safe, socially acceptable route is enough to sustain their ambitions without ever having to seek for something other or more satisfying. Being creative in your life, not simply following the current--whether that be college, or a crappy job, or marriage--takes effort and ambition and willpower. It's a step into the unknown, and it can be terrifying to be in that kind of free fall.

Yes. This is free fall! Terrifying, atypical life choices being made >.>

I don't mean to glorify my general bummery and that of many of my acquaintances, but I think the illusion that we are ambitionless, childish, slobs is very much present, and I find that people tend to look down on those of us who don't have it figured out right now. But personally, I'd rather admit to not having all the answers right now than end up thousands of dollars in debt for my degree in Literature or whatever that I'll never use in a career. Life isn't something that generally goes according to plan anyway, in my experience at least.

I think part of it is that I don't have any illusions about the likelihood of my having a career I'm passionate about. I would love to be able to get paid for something I love doing, but the chances of that aren't high, and since I can't think of anything else I want to be doing for the long run, I may as well not spend thousands of dollars furthering my education. Instead, I'm going to search for a crappy job so that I can save up the money to do things I actually want to do without being completely penniless afterward.

Anyways, just some thoughts from one of the many useless drones devouring your resources.

Musing: "We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means."

Thank you, friends who read XKCD. I was partway through writing this before I remembered this comic and how utterly perfect it was for my line of thinking.

I was sitting on my back steps today, blowing bubbles and crunching through candy in the sunshine, and thinking about childhood again.

One of the major themes in one of the books I read my senior year of high school (Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh, in case you're interested) was a second childhood in the midst of adulthood.

(I shall briefly Google and see if I can find the quote for you)
(This might be it. I know it's one of the ones I was thinking of.)

"In the event, that Easter vacation formed a short stretch of level road in the precipitous descent of which Jasper warned me. Descent or ascent? It seems to me that I grew younger daily with each adult habit that I acquired. I had lived a lonely childhood […]. Now, that summer term with Sebastian, it seemed as though I was being given a brief spell of what I had never known, a happy childhood, and though its toys were silk shirts and liqueurs and cigars and its naughtiness high in the catalogue of grave sins, there was something of nursery freshness about us that fell little short of the joy of innocence." (1.2.18)

This isn't exactly what I mean, but some of it is there.

I may be utterly mistaken, my darling audience, but I feel like I've aged a lot in the last couple of years. The shining indolence of adolescence is behind me, and now I have to find my place in the adult world. Which is, by the way, an utter myth and a joke.

That's not my point, though.

My point here, as much as I have one, is that life ages you according to experience, and eventually, I think you have to make a choice: to live as a grownup, aged and serious and jaded, or to stay a child.

And by child, I hope you realize I don't mean being childish.

I spend a lot of time around children, and I've noticed repeatedly while laughing at their antics that I could learn a lot from them. Somehow, when people grow up, they forget that it's alright to be joyful and exuberant and ebullient. They lose the wonder and openness of childhood.

I find that the harder and more complicated my life gets as I enter adulthood, the more I survive by remaining child-like.

Yes, this is possibly psychological regression, but that's fine. I didn't want your help building my blanket fort anyway!

Yes o.o

The moments I can think of that I've been the happiest or most peaceful are those that I'm probably behaving very much like a six year old. Playing on the playground in the snow, blowing bubbles, twirling in my ginormous skirt, singing my delight over an unexpected brownie, etc.

I've been told by multiple people that I have this mysterious way of finding pleasure in stupid little things (give me a mountain dew and a bag of sour gummy worms, and all is well in the world), and it's not that I do it intentionally, it's simply that stupid things make me happy the same way that they did when I was little. It might just be that I've grown much more Epicurean (that sounds better than hedonistic, right?) in recent years, but I think if you wait to be happy for the huge things, you'll be waiting a long time, and there'll be a lot of missed opportunities.

Bubbles pop, yes, but they're shiny and pretty and awesome, and they feel insane when I pop them every single time, regardless of how old I am. Things don't have to be permanent to be valuable.

I'm talking about retaining the freshness of youth without the ignorance and pettiness children constantly exhibit. I think the only way to make growing older tolerable is to hold on the purer joys of being alive. Without caring about looking ridiculous.

Have you ever watched a small child run? They look absolutely absurd, but they also usually have a look of utter rapture. When was the last time you saw someone over about twelve with a look like that over something simple?

The world doesn't get less amazing, guys. We just get acclimated and take it for granted, and by the time you really notice that, it's often to late to change.


(5/9/12) UPDATE:
I wanted to add this excerpt from The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer. I'm rereading it, and I love this quote from the main character, Harold Winslow.

"When I was a child, I used to look at adults half with confusion, half with envy, trying and failing to imagine the nature of the mysteries to which they'd been initiated, the pleasures they were keeping to themselves. Have you ever watched the swings of moods that toddlers go though, the way they act as if they're attending their own funeral of the axle falls off a favored toy car, or the rapturous expressions that show up on their faces when they suck on sweet things? Though the memory's fading, I can still remember feeling like that, and I thought being an adult would be even more like that--that the emotions that make us human got more intense the older you grew. Even at the age of ten, simple surprise gifts could be enough to make me feel like my heart and my brain were both about to burst. I couldn't imagine how people even survived to the age of twenty when such pleasures were lying in wait, out in the world.

But that hasn't turned out to be what happened--instead, my own father tells me that he thinks I'm turning into tin. Something inside of me is dying, and I don't know what to do to save it; something inside me is slipping away, and somehow me memories of what you were as a child have come to stand in for all the things I want to keep alive inside myself and don't know how."