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I was in the car the other day with Kay, and I think we were driving to the Metric concert - the weather was just cool enough to be cold, and the sky was clouded over and gray so that it was really very difficult to judge based on the sky alone what time of day it was. Basically, it was afternoon and kind of crummy, and we were both in a pretty good mood because we really don't get out to shit like concerts much in general.
I'm 32, which is an age I've never really thought of. I think I remember an article back in the late 90's or the early 00's about Gen-X'ers hitting their 30's written (maybe predictably) by someone who was, themself, a Gen-X'er. It's kind of that moment when you really notice some changes in yourself and, socially, you get those big changes - kids, the marriage circuit (at least the first one) has largely wound down, people are moving into houses or getting into their careers. You know, whatever it is, it's happening. To teenagers, you're The Authority. You exude a kind of adultness maybe you're not quite feelings but in the same way that animals can tell when someone's sick, they know. They know before you do. And you literally have no choice but to fake it until you make it.
So, I'm in the car and we're talking, and we're talking about going to this concert that I actually kind of feel bad about going to because I have work to do. And it costs money. And, really, all of the things that I imagine the Fox News Boomer would be saying if he (and it's always a He) is standing over my shoulder. I'm resentful of feeling bad, so I'm in an emotional feedback loop, because I'm frustrated at feeling resentful and at feeling bad, because I should be. This feedback - the result of a psychic infection - can be let to fester but the only real way to treat it is just to puncture the premise and drain it.
Being perpetually broke means that you don't really get the same post-college or 20's narrative you generally get sold on, subconciously via interveinous media outlets but, rather, live out a totally different existance. My life was hectic enough, sure, but not really memorable in a pleasent way most times. I think that's true for a lot of people in my generation, actually, so I'm not really special in this, I don't think. I'm not really feeling a request for sympathy, you know? I'm just saying that there are years that I probably could have considered my physical prime under different circumstances - with new, fresh ideas, a half-decade of spending my money kind of irresponsibly on cool clothing and going out, when, in reality, the best memories I have by far are those of being able to pay my bills without looking at my bank account or buying groceries without any kind of mounting of seeing the cost at the checkout counter - and that wasn't the majority but, instead, was that legitimate nearly half-decade. I think I got maybe 4 years of that. And I think to myself, in the car, talking with Kay at that moment, I'll never get those years back.
I mean, there are no re-dos. Before video games, the tangibility of reloading a file isn't present. There's the idea of going back to one's youth, but there's not really anything that resembles that in practice. And I do it all the time in games, but you can't anywhere else, and I'm suffering, technically, from the same inevitable entropy that drives all of humanity to the grave. I've swallowed that truth. I have become a walkign momento mori to myself. I've seen what becomes of people who won't acknowledge death, and I don't want to become them. We are a Limited Time Only commodity to ourselves - and so on.
People will try to turn their heads from it, but for those who really kind of get into it, it's tough. It's tough because there's really no workaround and if you don't believe in a god (and I am insensate to the possibility of an afterlife - I expend no regular energy on it and I don't really let the idea in) then you're not even facing a void so much as you're facing a shut off that's anything but a clean off switch. The internalization of nothing, with no recourse and no inherant external meaning can and will probably initially drive you to despair for a while. It requires a complete recalibration of meaning and scope. But when you come out on the other side, there's a remarkable clairity in the lack of meaning and a real drive when you're always on the clock (until you're finally not).
I'm 32, which is an age I've never really thought of. I think I remember an article back in the late 90's or the early 00's about Gen-X'ers hitting their 30's written (maybe predictably) by someone who was, themself, a Gen-X'er. It's kind of that moment when you really notice some changes in yourself and, socially, you get those big changes - kids, the marriage circuit (at least the first one) has largely wound down, people are moving into houses or getting into their careers. You know, whatever it is, it's happening. To teenagers, you're The Authority. You exude a kind of adultness maybe you're not quite feelings but in the same way that animals can tell when someone's sick, they know. They know before you do. And you literally have no choice but to fake it until you make it.
So, I'm in the car and we're talking, and we're talking about going to this concert that I actually kind of feel bad about going to because I have work to do. And it costs money. And, really, all of the things that I imagine the Fox News Boomer would be saying if he (and it's always a He) is standing over my shoulder. I'm resentful of feeling bad, so I'm in an emotional feedback loop, because I'm frustrated at feeling resentful and at feeling bad, because I should be. This feedback - the result of a psychic infection - can be let to fester but the only real way to treat it is just to puncture the premise and drain it.
Being perpetually broke means that you don't really get the same post-college or 20's narrative you generally get sold on, subconciously via interveinous media outlets but, rather, live out a totally different existance. My life was hectic enough, sure, but not really memorable in a pleasent way most times. I think that's true for a lot of people in my generation, actually, so I'm not really special in this, I don't think. I'm not really feeling a request for sympathy, you know? I'm just saying that there are years that I probably could have considered my physical prime under different circumstances - with new, fresh ideas, a half-decade of spending my money kind of irresponsibly on cool clothing and going out, when, in reality, the best memories I have by far are those of being able to pay my bills without looking at my bank account or buying groceries without any kind of mounting of seeing the cost at the checkout counter - and that wasn't the majority but, instead, was that legitimate nearly half-decade. I think I got maybe 4 years of that. And I think to myself, in the car, talking with Kay at that moment, I'll never get those years back.
I mean, there are no re-dos. Before video games, the tangibility of reloading a file isn't present. There's the idea of going back to one's youth, but there's not really anything that resembles that in practice. And I do it all the time in games, but you can't anywhere else, and I'm suffering, technically, from the same inevitable entropy that drives all of humanity to the grave. I've swallowed that truth. I have become a walkign momento mori to myself. I've seen what becomes of people who won't acknowledge death, and I don't want to become them. We are a Limited Time Only commodity to ourselves - and so on.
People will try to turn their heads from it, but for those who really kind of get into it, it's tough. It's tough because there's really no workaround and if you don't believe in a god (and I am insensate to the possibility of an afterlife - I expend no regular energy on it and I don't really let the idea in) then you're not even facing a void so much as you're facing a shut off that's anything but a clean off switch. The internalization of nothing, with no recourse and no inherant external meaning can and will probably initially drive you to despair for a while. It requires a complete recalibration of meaning and scope. But when you come out on the other side, there's a remarkable clairity in the lack of meaning and a real drive when you're always on the clock (until you're finally not).