I hate the realities of Life. I worry about taxes, and I worry about an income, and survival. But – I also feel that I can take this. I don’t particularly want to, but the world has thrown all sorts of things at me, and I seem to be able to maintain a “this too shall pass” attitude.
I worry about my friends though.
I was out today with Gwen, wandering in search of Thai food, and I was talking to her about what my aspirations are, what I want to do – and I guess, why I want to do it. This all came out of a conversation about how a lot of my younger friends are graduating/have just graduated/are just about to graduate from college, and a lot of them are going through the pre-Real-Life crisis – realizing that they don’t quite know what to do with their Lives – and it doesn’t really do any good to tell them “I’ve just found my direction recently – worry about it if you haven’t found a purpose in Life in another ten years” – but… they’ve all just come out of a systemized indoctrination that tells them “four years ago you chose to be (insert one: journalist, sound engineer, teacher, telephone sanitizer) – and for the past four years you have been preparin to be (insert one: journalist, sound engineer, teacher, telephone sanitizer) and now you shall be a (insert one: journalist, sound engineer, teacher, telephone sanitizer) – and there truly is this HUGE stigma to changing your mind.
Universities make it worse – as you go through your schooling, they blur the lines – they try to fool you into thinking you’re already in the field! And sometimes people realize they don’t want to BE in that field – but at that point, perhaps it seems impossible to reverse.
So my friends feel trapped – hopeless. I was fortunate enough to have a job offer right at the end of college – and it seemed that teaching high school was as good as anything at that point. I’d graduated with a degree in illustration and a hatred for my chosen “profession” – but it doesn’t get much nobler than teaching… I had an easy option laid out for me.
I think the natural course of events is for a college student to graduate, flail around in a dead-end horror of a job long enough to get so frustrated that they QUIT – and then start making the first REAL decisions of their Lives.
Majors and minors and bullshit degrees – it’s all about that piece of paper that you receive at the end. And half the time it doesn’t matter if your paper and your Life match…. the paper is like this tree-composed skeleton key. Most people don’t bother looking at the label – they want to know that you had the work ethic and the wherewithal to actually make it through school. The useful stuff – the real job stuff – is never learned till you get on the field.
Anywho – what was I originally ranting about? Oh yeah – purpose.
I want to be a rock star. Not for the fluffers and filtered M&Ms. I want the freedom.
As I worked at Glovia, I was only making $50,000 a year – but to the average college student, or the kid waiting tables… or the intern tiger tamer, that’s a veritable fortune, and I spread that veritable fortune around liberally.
Perhaps I was stupid – it means that while Steve made rent, or Sandy got dinner purchased for her here and there so she could afford art-supplies – I was NOT saving up for my future. I have no stock portfolio like my business savvy cousins. I am not an entrepeneur. Possibly, I can’t even spell it.
But I took care of my friends. And in the spirit of karma, or reciprocity, or just the turning of the tables, today people are taking care of me. Gwen bought lunch today, and in turn, I can afford to buy gas, and we can make another gig. It’s this huge swinging table of scratching of the back.
Or something.
I feel Loved.
But I look at my friends, and I think “who here is going to make it big” – I mean really big…? Do I have a chance? I might. With the right drive, the right will – well – maybe I’ll just collapse inwards and have to get that damnable dayjob again. Or I’ll go back to freelancing. One day I hope to maybe get a Masters and go back to teaching – but… my friends… I want to take care of them.
I can figure out the connexions and the webs of legalities – I know I can – and I want to be in the position to say “Amy, I’m going to make sure you don’t have to worry about moving again – you make the art, we’ll find the buyer. I’ll take care of you” – and I want to tell Brennan – “you take care of my cables, make sure the sound keeps coming out of the little speakers. I’ll take care of you.” – The belief that people have an internal worth – it’s not really allowed for, is it? The idea that if you don’t work for a Living, you have no worth – it’s sort of outmoded. Our world is rapidly heading towards a society where there is less and less menial labour, and more and more administrative labour – and one day there will be a Microsoft application for $99.99 that organizes it all – and half the world will be out of work…
And what happens then?
What happens when there is a surplus of food, a surplus of produced goods – and it’s all being systemized in some sort of almost workerless factory? Do people starve because they don’t have a new way of fitting into a niche? I don’t know. It seems that there is a glut of kids getting jobs in shelving books and running computer networks – not because we need more books shelved or networks being debugged – but because the kids need those jobs.
It’s a waste.
I don’t know. There should be an inherent worth to people – they should be allowed to exist on the merit of their being. They shouldn’t have to waste Life to make a Living.
I REALLY wish I could tell Heather “I’m going to take care of you – relax lady” – but I’m worried that I can’t.
Pling.
Enough of that. I’m sitting at College Perk, listening in to conversations and flinching.