Anxiety
There's so much anxiety within my self and my generation about "going somewhere". Everybody I know in their twenties is planning some trip to some bigger city or some other continent; or they're gunning for some horizontal movement within their company or their college or their scene. Facebook presents a constant flow of ego-filtered messages from everyone you ever worked with, went to school with, or met at a party, and the retro motive of "keeping up with the Jones" becomes a burden of self-examination and contrived affectation.
"Going nowhere"
I know that I'm going nowhere, and I like it. Throughout my childhood my family would pack up and move every three to five years. I've been to a total of nine different schools during my education (three elementary, two middle, three high, and one technical college), some where I fit in and some where I was too depressed to show up for class. I was not only used to change, I needed it.
But right now, in the Twin Cities, I feel more or less fulfilled. I'm finally at a school I love (I've been there since 2007), I'm respected by the people I work with (clients are another story), and most importantly I'm in love with a beautiful woman who I want to spend the rest of my life with.
There's a sentiment I've been repeating lately that even the worst job is doable if there's someone you love waiting for you at home. As a restaurant server I often have perform my duties with passive confidence under situations of heavy stress. Forcing a pleasant attitude and submissive demeanor because your money depends on it can become an excursion in soul-sucking and self-induced dehumanization when you're tired or hungry or your serving a dick. But when I'm not at work I'm not working on my graphic novel, or building furniture, or recording an EP: I'm with my girlfriend, having fun or doing whatever. It brings me out of the "smiling depression" that consumes me when I strip back the facetious veneer of enthusiasm with which I greet a world in which I have no influence or true importance.
A strong family is built on a strong relationship, and strong families are the cornerstone of strong communities. By just spending time together around town with my girlfriend and my friends I'm making my community stronger and improving my surroundings, ultimately improving my quality of life. Small, tight knit communities have higher life expectancy rates than disconnected ones because other community members look out for each other. I've learned to realize that community means I help you when things fall, so that someday there will be someone around to help me.
Help!
Unfortunately, civic responsibility is not an aspiration for the entire population. When I'm alone I can feel the jungle-law pervade my consciousness. I'm hunted: by deceptive salesmen, ticket-happy cops, conniving seductresses, arrogant social rivals, and scheming co-workers. A side effect of being a good citizen is the overbearing fear that you're being taken advantage of and the unsettling knowledge that you really are. The successful wonder: "Why not do what I do?", but never come to realize they only win because we lose, and we only lose because otherwise there's no game.
These days, as I watch people who were once close friends silently write me off as wasted potential with the whites of their eyes, I refuse to let myself feel inadequate. I will proudly aver my status as a twenty-four-year old child living in his parent's house in the suburbs, taking part time classes at junior college and turning tables at the Olive Garden. My clothes never fit, my phone/car/PC frequently doesn't work, I wear ugly glasses and have a gross haircut (a cross between a mullet and a bowl cut), and I'm always in the process of quitting smoking and relapsing. Most of my music is from 2010 (which is a year in music that I will defend to the death) and I haven't seen whatever movie you're talking about, so stop asking.
Men face a societal pressure in regards to status not unlike the one women face concerning body-image. Even in the most effeminate (straight) male circles competition and self-aggrandizing subtly break into conversations like dolphins on the ocean's surface: Indie music is a sport, where you "know guys", hear "new material", and "see it live" to earn points. Seeing art and attending events becomes something that you begrudgingly interrupt your comfort stupor for, only to later tell the internet that you did it. And the internet itself is an ocean full of messages-in-bottles where the blogs and memes that you are positive will catch on never make it past a hundred views.
I can't compete, or rather I won't compete. I don't want to struggle to "get somewhere" in life. I don't want to amass money or nice things that are intended to impress other people. I don't want to have the most cutting edge technology or the best clothes or all the other things that the television advertises to my valuable demographic. I simply want good food, great wine, and even better sex; and it doesn't hurt to have a job in biking distance from my home. The most valuable thing I have is something I give myself, and that's the time to do whatever I want.
Watching TV, getting stoned, maybe cooking something really good or playing guitar: that's how I'll waste my potential. I can feel all the haughty intellectual self-importance drain out of me when I'm two beers into a Futurama marathon and I'm free to drift off, thinking in a language unfiltered by company and without separated meaning and image. I value this time above all else. I stay up late and get dumber and dumber until I feel profound. Satisfied, I go to bed to start the process over again.
World's Dumbest Loser
Enjoying your life for what it is can be a controversial lifestyle. The success and mobility engine is shocked when it's engaged by a proud townie; nagged by it's own subconscious doubts as to what it wants from life. Once it's clear I'm no threat the immediate predator instinct kicks in and I'm summed up for a sucker, someone to be grappled into submission and mined for resources. I maintain my rigidity well enough, and am able to defend myself always but I'm haunted by the motives of others. Do they not know the sacrifice I make for them by choosing the way of the loser? I give my money, sweat, and blood for my love and my community because I'm integral to the system that the unnecessary leisure class feeds off of. Success's mixed messages of "Why can't you be like me?" and "Get your own!" are the two-fisted slap of a desperate animal: the dog which finally caught the tail it was chasing, only to realize it didn't want what it got.
So, now more than ever, by choice, I will be the world's dumbest loser. With love and the infinite depth of my imagination I can enjoy a life free from the shackles of success. Allow my failures to bring you all great fortune and I promise that I will let you all down until you've built yourself up enough to reach your dream. Just don't forget that it was my dream that died to get you there.
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