Thirty-One
This may be the last birthday post I ever write.
My generation grew up affluent and rather indolent. I've never seen myself as either one of those things, but that doesn't mean I'm not. At 17 I fell into the "deep subculture" of underground Amsterdam, several strata below the straight world, and didn't pay any rent or taxes until I was 26. It took me some long years of self-directed social rehabilitation to break the surface topside, and even today I struggle occasionally with the protocol. I'm not proud of it and I'm not ashamed.
I thought everyone had lived a wild subcultural youth until I got to London, where I learned that some people actually go to university at 18 and study something they're interested in. Some people are lucky or driven and turn this interest into a career. By the age of 31 those people have turned that career into a sustainable, even comfortable living. Good for them, I say.
Suffering and misery are found everywhere, as are happiness, joy and gratitude. It isn't possible to make the "wrong" choices, but it's possible to make choices that you will later fight to justify, to yourself and others. It isn't possible to make the "right" choices, but it's possible to make choices that help lubricate your path through the social world and the slippery negotiation of capital, which a person is slowly supposed to accrue, Sisyphus-style, as s/he goes through life. We are born free, but the most accomplished of us will end up laden with assets: mules of our own making and proud of it, paid-up citizens in the thingly world. Nothing to be proud of, really; but nothing to be ashamed of. What else do we have, after all?
At 31, I've got time to accrue some assets and responsibilities of my own: buy a house, bear a child, who knows? [And if I did, what then?] It doesn't look that way from where I'm standing now, but if I've learned anything it's that where-I'm-standing-now is subject to any number of factors including one's age, sex, race, geographical location, physical and mental health, gender identity, financial situation, marital status, the food in one's belly (or lack of it), length and quality of last night's sleep, time of year, time of day, favourite colour, most-played song, etc.
What else do we have?
All we have is where-we're-standing-now.
I say this will be my last birthday post, because at thirty-one I feel like putting away a few childish things and blogging in a personal capacity is one of them. But I also believe - passionately and inarticulately - that one only ever writes* in a personal capacity, contingent on where one is standing at any given time. The great poets, philosophers and songwriters all exhibit some of the madness associated with youth; a madness in which we assume our own relevance, rightness and particularity in the face of the glaring indifference of the wide world and everything in it; in the face of inevitable demise; in the face of the fact that our passions are subject (and certain) to change.
Affluent and indolent, my generation are able to remain teenagers until their late forties if not forever. But I've been rehabilitating myself for years, and in the end it worked. I got rid of the sickness of hedonism and the madness of youth. I inherited that old Protestant work ethic that harangued my own parents out of their hippie dreams, and I
I don't know if I'm any good at it. But I try.
A kid I know has a birthday shortly before mine. He turned 20. I told him it gets better, but it doesn't: it's a relief when the terror and self-consciousness of youth start to recede, but other niggles, phantoms and shades of grey come creeping in to replace them.
If nothing really matters in the end, it can't be possible - in fact, it's ontologically impossible - to make a "wrong" choice. But the madness of ageing is that one can forget this, ensconced in the bondage of a life like a person of true faith, forgetting that what one calls one's "life" is utterly contingent, subject (like everything else) to where-you're-standing-now.
Any life's as good as another.
At 31, I'm not proud. But I'm not ashamed. And what else could there be, but that?
JD, London, 2011
* builds/thinks/makes/cooks/sees
My generation grew up affluent and rather indolent. I've never seen myself as either one of those things, but that doesn't mean I'm not. At 17 I fell into the "deep subculture" of underground Amsterdam, several strata below the straight world, and didn't pay any rent or taxes until I was 26. It took me some long years of self-directed social rehabilitation to break the surface topside, and even today I struggle occasionally with the protocol. I'm not proud of it and I'm not ashamed.
I thought everyone had lived a wild subcultural youth until I got to London, where I learned that some people actually go to university at 18 and study something they're interested in. Some people are lucky or driven and turn this interest into a career. By the age of 31 those people have turned that career into a sustainable, even comfortable living. Good for them, I say.
Suffering and misery are found everywhere, as are happiness, joy and gratitude. It isn't possible to make the "wrong" choices, but it's possible to make choices that you will later fight to justify, to yourself and others. It isn't possible to make the "right" choices, but it's possible to make choices that help lubricate your path through the social world and the slippery negotiation of capital, which a person is slowly supposed to accrue, Sisyphus-style, as s/he goes through life. We are born free, but the most accomplished of us will end up laden with assets: mules of our own making and proud of it, paid-up citizens in the thingly world. Nothing to be proud of, really; but nothing to be ashamed of. What else do we have, after all?
At 31, I've got time to accrue some assets and responsibilities of my own: buy a house, bear a child, who knows? [And if I did, what then?] It doesn't look that way from where I'm standing now, but if I've learned anything it's that where-I'm-standing-now is subject to any number of factors including one's age, sex, race, geographical location, physical and mental health, gender identity, financial situation, marital status, the food in one's belly (or lack of it), length and quality of last night's sleep, time of year, time of day, favourite colour, most-played song, etc.
What else do we have?
All we have is where-we're-standing-now.
I say this will be my last birthday post, because at thirty-one I feel like putting away a few childish things and blogging in a personal capacity is one of them. But I also believe - passionately and inarticulately - that one only ever writes* in a personal capacity, contingent on where one is standing at any given time. The great poets, philosophers and songwriters all exhibit some of the madness associated with youth; a madness in which we assume our own relevance, rightness and particularity in the face of the glaring indifference of the wide world and everything in it; in the face of inevitable demise; in the face of the fact that our passions are subject (and certain) to change.
Affluent and indolent, my generation are able to remain teenagers until their late forties if not forever. But I've been rehabilitating myself for years, and in the end it worked. I got rid of the sickness of hedonism and the madness of youth. I inherited that old Protestant work ethic that harangued my own parents out of their hippie dreams, and I
b̶e̶c̶a̶m̶e̶ tried to be a "grown-up."I don't know if I'm any good at it. But I try.
A kid I know has a birthday shortly before mine. He turned 20. I told him it gets better, but it doesn't: it's a relief when the terror and self-consciousness of youth start to recede, but other niggles, phantoms and shades of grey come creeping in to replace them.
If nothing really matters in the end, it can't be possible - in fact, it's ontologically impossible - to make a "wrong" choice. But the madness of ageing is that one can forget this, ensconced in the bondage of a life like a person of true faith, forgetting that what one calls one's "life" is utterly contingent, subject (like everything else) to where-you're-standing-now.
Any life's as good as another.
At 31, I'm not proud. But I'm not ashamed. And what else could there be, but that?
JD, London, 2011
* builds/thinks/makes/cooks/sees
posted by JD at
10:59
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