[muse] Wasted on the Young
May. 14th, 2007 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jrisingThere was such a bad reaction to Jim that I'm going to go with James instead. I won't stop anyone from using Jimmy, but I'm going to change what I call myself. There are endless silly pros and cons and more exciting options, but hey, it's just a name.
I've been thinking about youth.
I'm in awe of a friend of mine. She has a husband, a career, a house, a dog; she's had a history of excellence in Rocky and been a leader of the community since before I joined. She approaches life as a vibrant adult, grounded but still growing. So I've always looked to her as a role model. And she's a year younger than me.
Some part of me still conceives of myself as a student, a youth, a troublemaker without a cause and without the wherewithal to be a true rebel. When I teach or organize or lead, it's with a tongue in cheek chic of a boy among boys. I have the experience and understanding to do more. And the capacity to take the endless responsibility and the responsibility to do it to my full capacity.
But there's plenty of time to be old. I never want to stop adventuring with life. I love my younger friends as peers, and I think rightly so: I'm always being impressed by their initiative, maturity, and experience. I don't want to give up my million playtime projects or get a job with a title that pretends to define me. I don't want to settle, or even settle in.
The brochure for life doesn't advertise any good packages for this. I want the best of both youth and adulthood. I'm supposed to be getting a pet (if not a child), a car (if not a house), start drinking beer regularly, stop getting too excited. But I don't want to be a tree: I'm a pond plant, growing deep roots while still living in a totally fluid world.
And it's not just me. The brochure we got was out of date when we were born. We need a new paradigm. A phase in life that acknowledges how changeable things are in the era of the internet, where people discover new interests, communities, careers, selves every five years.
I'm writing up a description of who I am when I'm at my best, in my zone, getting the most out of the incredible life I've already built and discovered around me. I want that to be James. Maybe it's time to re-read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.
Thoughts? Is it a bore to read my inner musings? I know others are in similar situations: has anyone else found such a paradigm?
I've been thinking about youth.
I'm in awe of a friend of mine. She has a husband, a career, a house, a dog; she's had a history of excellence in Rocky and been a leader of the community since before I joined. She approaches life as a vibrant adult, grounded but still growing. So I've always looked to her as a role model. And she's a year younger than me.
Some part of me still conceives of myself as a student, a youth, a troublemaker without a cause and without the wherewithal to be a true rebel. When I teach or organize or lead, it's with a tongue in cheek chic of a boy among boys. I have the experience and understanding to do more. And the capacity to take the endless responsibility and the responsibility to do it to my full capacity.
But there's plenty of time to be old. I never want to stop adventuring with life. I love my younger friends as peers, and I think rightly so: I'm always being impressed by their initiative, maturity, and experience. I don't want to give up my million playtime projects or get a job with a title that pretends to define me. I don't want to settle, or even settle in.
The brochure for life doesn't advertise any good packages for this. I want the best of both youth and adulthood. I'm supposed to be getting a pet (if not a child), a car (if not a house), start drinking beer regularly, stop getting too excited. But I don't want to be a tree: I'm a pond plant, growing deep roots while still living in a totally fluid world.
And it's not just me. The brochure we got was out of date when we were born. We need a new paradigm. A phase in life that acknowledges how changeable things are in the era of the internet, where people discover new interests, communities, careers, selves every five years.
I'm writing up a description of who I am when I'm at my best, in my zone, getting the most out of the incredible life I've already built and discovered around me. I want that to be James. Maybe it's time to re-read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.
Thoughts? Is it a bore to read my inner musings? I know others are in similar situations: has anyone else found such a paradigm?
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 06:39 am (UTC)I have no aversion to responsibility, and I strongly believe that there's no conflict between play and responsibility, between maturity and flexibility, between experience and learning. I'd want to approach adulthood the way you described... and I think I almost do.
To answer your questions, this isn't motivated by a fear of conforming, because there's very little chance that will happen. It isn't adulthood I'm concerned about-- I'm sure I'd dislike "conventional" adulthood, but I've never worried that I would become that. What concerns me is the persistence of aspects of a childhood psyche weighing down and watering down my appreciation of adulthood. The advantage of conventional adulthood is that it's well-defined: there's a point at which the child self can be definitively repressed and the adult self created out of totally disconnected terms. I am at no such liberty. On one level, I'm living that life of childlike freedom and adultlike experience... and yet I worry that pieces of my self-conception allow for only a shadow of what I'd like to be.