Monday, October 6, 2003

Now you can say what you want about John Mayer, but he's right about there being no such thing as "the real world." Life after college, or in the work world, or whatever you consider to be the true and actual world is....well....just different. You realize once and for all that your own future, what life brings to you and what is made for you is determined most significantly and almost entirely by yourself. Just you. No counselors, no parents, no teachers. Just you. These people may still exist in your life, may still influence you, but they cannot bring life to you. Even if you lived with your parents until they died, your life could not be furnished by them. School does that for you up until this point. You have no other choice, or rather, no other understanding of how life is except: go to school, do homework, pass classes, proceed to next grade, and the next grade, and the next grade. Always in pursuit of the next level. But the benchmarks of life are no longer annual events post-graduation. Rather they are most often emotionally influenced and can come at very different times to different people. And they're what you make of them more than anything else. It's choices. I find that more every single day. Big decisions and small. If I want the house clean, I MUST TAKE THE TRASH OUT AND CLEAN THE KITCHEN. If I want dinner, I MUST COOK IT OR BUY IT. If I want to meet people, I HAVE TO PUT MYSELF IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS. If I want to have a better job, I HAVE TO FIND THE JOB AND APPLY FOR IT AND INTERVIEW FOR IT. There are people who learn some of these lessons earlier in life, but I think it fully comes around when you're completely on your own for the first time. Without any kind of framework (like the institution of school) providing any sort of easy paths to follow. It's a trip. It's freeing, but it's a more physical change of pace.

People get into boring lives and become boring people when they lose the motivation. When doing the things they love and being the people they want to be is no longer worth the effort. Fuck that. What are you doing if you're not pursuing all that's pursuable (to borrow a line from Outkast)? It's one thing to have the revelation, it's another thing completely to live it.