There is this thought. It’s in me. It’s in you. It’s in every youth. It’s been brooding under the surface, a storm ready to break out with cataclysmic effects. We are no X, Y or Z generation.
We are the aftermath of the 20th century ideal. We are the children of great expectations. Parents have put forth a model for success: Go to college, possibly get a graduate degree and then find decent, earnest employment — preferably one they themselves would be proud of.
Aside from employment, our parents encourage us to find an equally hard-working wife or husband, preferably good-looking and with a good background, copulate and procreate, grow old, go through mid-life crisis, and possibly, if you’re successful enough, get a good car while you’re at it. If all goes especially well you will encourage your children to repeat the cycle.
What is wrong with this quasi-idyllic picture? A lot, as it turns out.
The issue is that we look back at our parental figures, be it our parents themselves, a mentor or a professor and see the misery that comes along with the above model.
There is anguish and disappointment embedded within this model. Even after achieving these life goals we are still at a loss. We keep on following the designated path, for it is all we know.
However, what we truly desire eludes us when we adopt someone else’s views on a successful life. Our desires lie in the magical, terrifying realm of the unknown.
Our future is by definition uncertain. We are encouraged to avoid this uncertainty and risk by our parents. So long as we do so, we are actively acting against our true desires.
And I, while writing this, have this inexorable desire to pursue the unknown. I want to reject the norms that my parents have instilled in me.
Alas, I cannot; for I, as you, am petrified by the concept of deviating from this well beaten path. “The road less taken” keeps on distancing itself as we delve into textbooks and sunless classrooms. We are overstretched, overworked, over-pressured and oversexed.
We have been bred to avoid risk. As Hopkins students it makes sense, this close to our adult lives, to make practical decisions devoid of risk.
Just look at the people around you, how many of them can truly say that they know where they are going to be or even want to be in ten years?
No profession is sufficient to youths that are constantly overexposed to blank stimuli of all sorts, from mindless “novels” to tragicomic films. We are lost in this society that dictates our every move, and within all these expectations nothing seems sufficient to satisfy ourselves or our own private audience.
How can we believe in the future we’re putting every ounce of our lives into when our subconscious is actively dissatisfied with the prospect of it? It seems absurd to break away from our socially dictated future.
Only when we begin to catch on to our true desires, will we have moved forward too far — further than ever from true happiness.
We feel chained to these asphyxiating social obligations. There is an elephant in the room and we all insist on ignoring it.
We parade our morals, our goals and our dreams, as if they are jesters to entertain the crowds and even us, letting the inherent malleability and plasticity of life slip though our fingers, relying on the predetermined lifestyle, seen in magazines and suburban houses.
We do not pursue nirvana or a Zen-like existence. Instead we are condemned to life-draining careerism.
I do not propose that we all go to Walden and lead a hermit’s bucolic life (a truly dreadful idea). This constancy in our lives can no longer apply, even though the majority of sentient hominids seek it.
We must reboot our frame of thought, and the boundaries of the “realm” in which we think and dream. Our dreams must be dynamic and our own, backed by fervor and determination.
The pure essence of morality, what is black, white and gray, will always remain the same and therefore our outer limits will always remain the same. It is the the expectations and social standards of this pax universalis that has been in turmoil, constantly changing underground.
The 20th Century ideal can longer apply, it is about to fail us. No one wants to fade away, but it has permeated the very fabric of our culture, no wonder we are all terrified of being deviants, it feels unnatural.
There are many possibilities for change, even that of a nomadic model on a global magnitude, on many levels, in relationships, intimate and social, in professions and work descriptions, and of course on a geographical level.
After all, ultimate exposure to the diversity of this earth opens our eyes to the options and experiences we have yet to engage.
As this model of society progresses to some end, we tend to have only one constant in our lives — the past. As the status quo is ever changing, people come and go, only our past is set in proverbial stone. Family is the only aspect of us that remains the same.
We have the ability to change everything, financially, religiously, socially, sexually and politically.
We are helpless to the forces of nature, whether it be gravity, tectonic movements, or volcanic eruptions. Everything changes while the world keeps turning. There is no space for supremacy and pride.
On a table that keeps on turning we must keep up with its innate rhythm. So travel, love and live precariously and realize that nothing is set in stone. Opportunities and success will come.
I heard that chance favors the bold. We have no true goals, we have only inclinations — toward some career, some type of food and some type of music I do not intend to write from a high and mighty point of view.
I myself admit to be abiding by this lifestyle and being terrified of deviating from the path, all that I hope for is that I am wrong and there is bliss hidden somewhere in this mess we call society.
Then again, it sometimes strikes me that the known is just as terrifying as the unknown. Maybe this is the zeitgeist we have to live through.
