So this article in yesterday's New York Times attracted a lot of feedback/opinion on the Times' comment section, Twitter, and Facebook; with the majority seeming (in my highly unscientific analysis) to back the article's premise — that college graduates are fleeing former industrial strongholds in the Midwest and elsewhere (places like Dayton, Ohio, which was the focal point of the article, but also — and even more so, really — smaller cities like my hometown and current location of Rockford, Illinois for larger, culturally richer, and more diverse metropoles like Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and of course New York, among others.)
I don't dispute the article's main thrust, which boils down to something like "the better-educated you are, the better-suited you are to enjoy a larger city's cultural offerings and the more likely you are to want to be in a similarly well-educated populace." I myself have zero intention of remaining in Rockford, and intend to head to Seattle, New York, hell, even considering Melbourne, Australia when the time comes. Yet at the same time, returning to Rockford — particularly as it was unplanned, that itself a lengthy and separate story for those who don't know it — has forced me to reevaluate this unaesthetically-pleasing, benighted, depressed, mismanaged, crime-infested city. It may be the case that the young and educated get the hell out of here as soon as they can. I graduated from Guilford High School here in 2003, and promptly went to New Hampshire for my college education, then to Frankfurt, Germany, and Boston. In another words, half a country and half a world away.
But — and maybe this is just my Midwestern sentimentality peering through — there's a sense of community here I didn't experience in Hanover, Frankfurt, or Boston. That could be due to the "stay calm and carry on" sense of resilience among Rockfordians or maybe even what's often referred to as "Midwest nice" (which is true, by the way, if not necessarily sincere). I guess what I'm trying to say is that for a smallish Midwest city like Rockford (160K pop., 330Kish metro area), I'd be willing to stay here if it seemed possible to establish a youth culture here, to open a business, or run for office. I spent my teens hating this city, and have only recently, since returning, learned to appreciate the good things about it — and there are many. So no, I don't foresee staying here, but I don't think the so-called Heartland is really dead; it's just going to take a creative mix of public policy measures and private entrepreneurship to create the kind of climate that fosters, celebrates, and can afford an outstanding creative class.
Update: Edited twice to correct two minor punctuation errors.
5.28.2012
My Top 100 Books
Created this list just 'cause; feel free to comment and disagree, but this is my top 100 novels ever written:
My best hundred
works of literary fiction (limited to that category specifically; there are
many authors and works I love and admire not listed here and intend no writer
any disrespect). Obviously these are my own views and in no way represent any
organization, author, agent, or anyone else. Also, this list is based upon my
own 26-year history with literature, with the acknowledgement that there are
many works I have not yet had the opportunity to read.
100-80:
100) Ensalo sobre a cegueira (Blindness), José
Saramago.
99) L’Étranger (The Stranger), Albert Camus
98) V., Thomas Pynchon
97) Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
96) Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
95) Nana, Émile Zola
94) Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
(okay putting Tolkien above the previous folks could elicit some controversy,
but think it justifiable; and purely sentimentally, Tolkien I came to when I
was 11, the above quite later).
93) Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
92) A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man,
James Joyce
91) For Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest
Hemingway
90) Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
89) Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
88) Return Of the Native, Thomas Hardy
87) Neuromancer, William Gibson
86) El Otoño del Patriarco (Autumn of the
Patriarch), Gabriel García Márquez
85) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
84) A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
83) Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
82) Il Barone Rampante (The Baron in the Trees),
Italo Calvino
81) 村上 春樹
(Norwegian Wood), Haruke
Murakami
80) Light in August, William Faulkner
79-60:
79) Hav, Jan Morris
78) Malina, Ingeborg Bachmann (some might
find this controversial, but a truly game-changing novel by an underappreciated
author)
77) The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
76) Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse (an overrated
novel, while quite excellent, that gets more attention than his better works,
to which we’ll get)
75) Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
(though it won the 2009 National Book Award, I feel this work has been
overlooked of late to some extent; it really is a wonderful portrait of a place
and time)
74) Light in August, William Faulkner
73) Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
72) Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
71) The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
70) Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
69) The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
68) War and Peace (Вoйнá
и мир), Leo Tolstoy
(Overrated, Anna Karenina so much
better… to which we’ll get)
Just ‘Cause: Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby (just cause I’m
an Arsenal nut and take “Gooner” as a high compliment)
67) Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
66) Бесы (The Possessed/Demons), Fyodor Dostoevsky
65) 海辺のカフカ (Kafka On the Shore), 村上 春樹 (Haruki Murakami)
64) Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
63) Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
62) Rabbit, Run, John Updike
61) Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí (The
Unbearable Lightness of Being),
Milan Kundera
60) Pamela, Samuel Richardson
59-40:
59) Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
(have to say, after four readings, I don’t get this book, but yet I have no
issues recognizing its brilliance. So… you’re an ass, Faulkner.)
58) Раковый Корпус (Cancer Ward), Алекса́ндр
Иса́евич Солжени́цын (Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn)
(better than “One Day,” underrated, though “Gulag Archipelago” remains
Solzhenitsyn’s crowning achievement, just not eligible for this list. Wish it
were fiction.)
57) David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
56) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,
Raymond Carver
55) Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
54) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken
Kesey
53) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter
S. Thompson
52) Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann
51) Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra (might seem low for many, but really, this book – while good – grabs
the top spot or near there on similar lists only because it was one of the
first)
50) Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
49) Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
48) Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
47) Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
46) The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
45) The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
44) O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ),
José Saramago
43) Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, David
Foster Wallace
42) Amor En los Tiempos del Cólera, Gabriel
García Márquez
41) Bleak House, Charles Dickens
40) Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad
39-20:
39) On the Road, Jack Kerouac
38) Falconer, John Cheever
37) The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
(first tattoo, have to say, is the Tristero horn on my left underarm; one of
the books that changed my entire view of fiction and what it could do)
36) The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
(Not a huge personal fan either of Hawthorne or this book, but good is good.)
35) Native Son, Richard Wright
34) To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
33) Finnegan’s Wake, James Joyce
32) Appointment in Samarra, John O’Hara
31) An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
30) The Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
29) Dubliners, James Joyce
28) 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu
27) The Adventures of Augie March, Saul
Bellow
26) Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
25) Los detectives salvajes, (The Savage Detectives) Roberto Bolaño
Ávalos
24) Cairo Trilogy (okay, kind of a cop-out,
but they just go together), نجيب محفوظ (Naguib Mahfouz)
23) The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle, 村上 春樹 (Haruki
Murakami)
22: 1984, George Orwell (to be straight
honest, the other two iconic English-language dystopian novels Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 – not to mention Margaret Atwood’s excellent
two-released-of-three trilogy that began with Oryx & Crake and really came into its own with The Year of the Flood as well as Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин's Мы (We ) [(Yevgeni Zamyatin's We) (and I have no clue yet how
punctuation works in Russian, so added an apostrophe 's' there anyway) also
came under considerable consideration, as they've all impacted the manner in
which I regard our future and their merit as fucking good writing) and Orwell
has become the defining metonymic term for any form of totalitarianism, state
surveillance, and denial of pleasure.
Its literary merits might fall short of others on this list, but as far as
impact goes, I believe it's hard to argue that 1984 isn't near first on the list of books you read at fifteen and
realize that the world is far more complicated, implicated, and fraught than
you had thought).
21: Jane Eyre, (Brontës had to happen, yo. I'm
as unhappy about it as you might be. Or ecstatic, I dunno.)
20: Pride and Prejudice, (see above but with reference to Austen)
19-1: Now it gets
real.
19: Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
(if you read that
and believed it for more than three seconds, I owe you something).
19: Преступлéние
и наказáние (Crime and Punishment), Фёдор
Миха́йлович Достое́вский (Fyodor Dostoevsky); have to say, it was hard to put Crime and Punishment this low, as it was
really the novel that – back at age 15 in my intro to C++ computer programming
class back in my sophomore year of high school (with a teacher named Lyle who
always had a thermos at hand and always smelled strongly of cleaning fluid...
if you catch my drift. Did I mention this class was at 8:45 am?) really opened
my eyes for the first time to what great writing could accomplish, and to
themes and concepts that have since perpetually caused me many a headache. I
think, though, C&P's heavy-handedness re: redemption
places it lower than a couple of Dostoevsky's other works.
18: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. I
hated this book the first time I read it, and have no qualms saying so. I
thought Conrad’s prose ugly (to put it kindly) and repetitive: how many times
does one really need to write “inscrutable” or some variation. I had to reread
it for my senior AP English class, and really gained a new appreciation for
Conrad’s haunting prose (i.e. the “whited sepulchre” reference to the Book of
Matthew) as well as a grasp of the overarching theme of a Nietzschean anti-hero
consumed by his own power and the lust for more. That concept has become almost
cliché nowadays, what with Cersei Lannister and Walter White running around,
but it was Conrad who gave us that in its crispest and most phantasmagoric form
(as well as Brando saying “The horror, the horror…”).
17: Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne.
Nothing to say really but hilarious.
16. Der Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse. I rank
this novel so high not only because I think it shows perhaps the complementary
angle to L’Étranger of the isolated
and seeking white male of indeterminate but relatively young age following a
long-brewing impulse, etc., but more so because I guess I read it at the right
age and in the right place.
15. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov. The greatest
love story ever written.
14. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The greatest love story written to a generation.
13. Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner.
Perfect.
12. Doktor Faustus (Doctor Faustus), Thomas Mann
11. Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass-Bead Game), Hermann Hesse. My
physics teacher as a junior in high school gifted me this book when I
graduated, and I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time; read it again later in
English and then in German, and am more grateful to him with each passing day.
10. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace. One
of those books that changes one’s entire view of fiction and what it’s capable
of.
9. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark
Twain
8. Cien Años de Soledad, Gabriel García
Márquez. Perhaps cliché, but one of the most radiant and memorable works I’ve
ever read.
7. Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), Thomas Mann, stunningly brilliant work, still
need to read in German.
6. Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov), Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский (Fyodor
Dostoevsky). Putting this so low has some basis – and don't get me wrong, Karamazov was a book I cherished
reading, even in the Constance Garnett verson. Certainly one of the most
amazing books ever written, but No. 2 on my Dostoevsky list, second to the
winner of this quasi-competition.
5. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
4. Ulysses, James Joyce
3. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon;
Pynchon changed everything for me in terms of fiction. I wasn’t even aware of
the kind of things he’s been capable of until I read “49” and “Gravity’s
Rainbow.” Stunning work.
2) Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina), Leo Tolstoy, Need I say more? The
Kitty-Levin story alone would put it in the top 20, not to even mention the
rest of a stunning stunning novel.
1) Фёдор
Миха́йлович Достое́вский (The Idiot,
Fyodor Dostoevsky) — just a novel without flaws. From the naïveté of Prince
Myshkin to the diabolical Nastasya Filippovna, just perfect.
As Walter
Benjamin once said, all great works of art either dissolve a genre or create
one, and these are the books that accomplished both in my amateur opinion.
Welcome any feedback, as I’m sure I missed works deserving of acclaim.
Update: Huh, I have Heart of Darkness on here twice. Leave it at #18, and #55 we'll just leave open. My bad.
Update: Huh, I have Heart of Darkness on here twice. Leave it at #18, and #55 we'll just leave open. My bad.
5.27.2012
Quarterlife
(Not the show, just to get that out of the way, though it's worth your time)
This is going to be a somewhat longish and relatively rambling post (as are most, no?). I'm 27 on the day I'm writing this, so "quarterlife" for me would extend to 108 — which I doubt I'll get to and am not really sure I would even want to. But "quarterlife" generally includes pretty much the entire time between about 24 and the day you turn 30. As well, pretty much the point in an educated, privileged, ambitious, lonely and relatively young existence that those are the years you figure out what you want to do with yourself — because there's so much you want to do, and so many people you want to become. So you try on identities and roles, work jobs you're — on paper, at least — overqualified for, fuck as often as possible and with whomever's willing. You move back home if that's where quarterlife takes you, hit your parents up for money, wake up with extreme guilt, and then forget it happened: until next month, at least.
Now just as an aside, I do have to mention that I've grown up and become an adult in the confines of a very middle-class family. I consider myself privileged for the facts of having had hard-working and loving parents who (irrationally in my mind, but we'll get to that) support me in a variety of ways even when I'm a complete wreck (and those who know me well know that said situation is not an infrequent scenario). My father got his B.A. when he was 37. My mother has been a nurse for decades, even as nursing has gone from a respected profession to merely the ground crew of corporate healthcare. I received grants to attend the wonderful college I attended, and couldn't have done so without those grants. And yeah, I've been paying loans since they began coming due and likely will for quite some time. "Privilege" means having had the chance to earn those opportunities, not being given them. And if that smells bitter, let me just say that I have nothing against anyone who grew up in a household where that sort of progression was assumed and paid for. Not at all. You can't control the circumstances into which you were brought up, just what you do given them.
With regard to the above, the point is that you become who you are by having a foundation and finding your personal direction.
Maybe if you're like me, quarterlife insidiously helps you develop the will to do the sorts of things you never had the courage to do before. In my case, the above have so far included piercings, tattoos, coming to terms with my bisexuality, moving from a rebellious atheism to a more considered and more serious and defensible (though still in flux) sense of spirituality, and developing the sort of "fuck it" attitude I always admired when I was younger, but never had the confidence to adapt. Maybe that's quarterlife or just me; I can't speak for anyone else, and I've always lacked in confidence. I've been bulimic since I was 14 and a quasi-functioning alcoholic since about 20, though overcoming both for a while now with all I can muster.
I fell in love (many times) then transitioned to believing that love wasn't meant for me. Not quite falling out of love, but just losing the belief that anyone could love me -- that there was something fundamental about me that disqualified me from that part of human experience. I still am unsure of this particular bit. I like to think there's a boy or a girl out there for me, but don't know, and for the purposes of this post, am okay with that lack of knowledge.
The attitude is something I believe I've come to belatedly. I don't mind being a late-bloomer, so to speak, though I've yet to really bloom even. There was a time when I would have minded that, would have cared what people thought about me coming to realizations that most people go through in their teens or college years, but that I've waited until my mid-to-late-20s to work on. But whatever. The past few years of my life have been pretty shitty. I tried to kill myself with all intent twice and spent time on a psych ward for each attempt. I lost my one-time fiancée and best friend from my own stupidity and reprehensible behavior (the guilt I bear in that regard I will carry to my grave). I had to move home from Boston to dear old Rockford, Illinois just to stay alive. That might sound dramatic, but really, that's kind of where things were at the time. And yet, even though that sort of interruption was nothing I'd planned on as a callow collegiate, I'm grateful for it. I'm a better person now for having been a bad person and a broken person then. Not where I want to be yet, but I've been to the deep and dark places, and I survived.
Quarterlife does something else. It forces you to critically assess what you believe. That may sound banal, but really it's a big fucking deal. I studied intellectual history and philosophy in college, and spent a year after graduating mostly drinking South African pinotage [at €2.99, who could argue? and playing World of Warcraft (which wasn't the complete time sink of which one might accuse me with a great deal of justification; I met several friends whose friendship I value highly and with whom I am still in touch. This might come across as a means of self-justification, but as I said, our new world functions in pretty weird ways)] in Frankfurt am Main. But also studying philosophy, working through a crisis with my then-girlfriend and meditating, often along the bike/walking/running path on the Main River and trying to assess those questions. As an undergraduate, I had always assumed I would go to law school, make some bank, and move toward a career in politics. Naturally, like many quarterlifers, I realized after taking the LSAT and starting applications that it wasn't for me. I had to do something in which I could work, work hard, and come home at the end of the day and not have lingering qualms about what exactly I had done that day. Some days I would run along the Main, on nice days I'd grab a baguette at the nearest Bäckerei and just stare out at the water, thinking about Adorno or the Stockhausen my American friend there had just introduced me to, or missing the girl, or just fate, existence, or what exactly the fuck I'm doing looking at a river and thinking these things. Law may still be in my future — I think I'd be good at it, and no, I don't really know what that means. We shall see.
Quarterlife is by its very nature a time of transition, one that doesn't necessarily fit within age brackets, and one for which the very designation (though I think it fairly accurate and almost cliché) can apply equally to anyone trying to figure out who the hell they are. I'm always a bit suspicious of folks who don't doubt, and ones who know with certainty who they want to be at 22 or 25 come across as particularly suspect. I think — and I imagine most would agree — that when you're my age you really don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, and if you say you do regardless, you're full of shit. Of course, it used to be different back in the day, and I imagine (without researching) that there's a practical army of sociologists who could tell you exactly why that is. But whatever. We live here and now today, in a world shaped by our forebears who couldn't tweet a picture of whatever they're eating at that moment on their iPhone.
Quarterlife is a process, I'm coming to find. One that's often no fun, no matter how many hookups or summer evenings passing a J and leaning back in awe of strewn stars. It's hard work, yo. Maybe I'm just late to the game, or don't really know what I'm headed for, what to do tomorrow, that kind of thing. Yet I find quarterlife as exhilarating as it is frustrating and incomprehensible. All of the anger, pain, confusion, rage, desire, desperation seem to point toward some sort of image of yourself as that person you'd like to be, even — and especially if — that image remains blurry. Quarterlife means learning things about yourself you hadn't known, reading books you hadn't heard of until today, seeing films and shows you might not have seen, exploring a faith you didn't know you had. Quarterlife presents you with the courage to open up your door and go for a run in November, to open up that Word file and start writing, to open up a business, to run for office. Quarterlife presents the possibility of impacting in new ways the lives of those about whom you care.
So it's exciting. I'm at a sort of transition, I guess. To come back to this part of my own story, in 2009 I attempted with all seriousness suicide. I don't have a problem admitting that — I think an honesty about mental illness and suicidal thoughts can only help prevent that outcome and encourage those suffering from depression to seek help. I know I'm grateful that my ex-girlfriend found me in time and called 911. She and I aren't exactly in contact anymore, but she saved my life. At the time I didn't really give much of a shit if I lived or died — and that itself is a difficult thing to explain to someone who has had the fortune of not finding her/himself in that position. It's a shitty thing to write, but I found myself disappointed to come to in the hospital. Shitty, not out of guilt or out of the horrific experience of drinking activated charcoal (which tastes something like an unholy admixture of Pepto-Bismol and gasoline — not that I've consumed gasoline, but the smell of gasoline was unmistakable in the taste of charcoal).
It wasn't really a part of my life of which I'm proud. I did some pretty unforgivable things that, as I mentioned, I'll probably have in mind on my deathbed, whenever that happens. I won't go into details, but I bring it up to say that I'm learning it's harder to forgive yourself than it is almost anyone else. This is part of quarterlife too, I think. Arriving at the mental and emotional stage where you can look back at stupid shit you've done, bad things, even crimes and come to the point where you can truly believe that you're judged for your actions, but that all you have today is today, that yesterday's gone, and tomorrow's a new day. I think that's the kind of thing that quarterlife brings into sharper resolution.
Now, I find myself here at 2:20 a.m. CST on my 27th birthday, looking out my window and seeing a nearly full moon sliding through drifting clouds. When I was a teenager, I used to go for walks in the middle of the night, just for the pleasure of being alone, the moon and me. I'm a night person; anyone who knows me even marginally knows that, even if from just looking at the timestamps of my Facebook comments or tweets. I've always wanted to be a morning person, and I still do. There was a period encompassing my sophomore year of high school and about the first half of my junior year when I'd wake up between four and 4:30 just to sit in a dilapidated armchair and read Will Durant, Emerson, and Kant. Yet what the night offers is the sort of complete solitude the day doesn't. No birds chirping, coffee beans to grind, cat yelling at you, just you, the moon, a good glass of whiskey, and a blank page with a blinking cursor staring at you.
To that end, quarterlife is possibilities. There have been so many times I've traded glares with that fucking cursor, not even to mention the paper clip that managed to insult a paper clip (a feat I had previously thought impossible), but didn't have the courage to type out a single word. Or, if I did, I wouldn't save it. Quarterlife has brought me to a place where frankly, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to sit in my uncomfortable desk chair, throw on some CSS, and just let it go. It's likely horrifically bad. I'll probably not disseminate any of it, but quarterlife has brought me to a place where I don't give a shit frankly, and I'm going to write even if it's terribad. (On the off-, off-chance it isn't). I couldn't do that when I was 21 or even 24. I watch these YouTube clips of 11-year olds stunning an audience mostly out of awe. There's no way in hell I could have done that at their age I think, followed immediately by Shit there's no way in hell I could do that now. But now at quarterlife? I don't give a shit.
Our generation (which large and corporately-funded media organizations have preciously dubbed "Millennials") often gets painted in hugely optimistic terms as far as our savvy with technology, our entrepreneurist tendencies, our ability to "network" and effectively utilize social media platforms —to paraphrase some of the stock lines of the global companies seeking to hire we shiny avatars of clean living — makes us ideal candidates for a lifetime of ladder-climbing. This is hardly new. It was referred to as "the rat race" as early as the late 1970s. Yet the paradigm is similar in many ways to the preceding decade, the '60s. This, of course, is borne out each Sunday night on AMC's Mad Men, which as we all know by now, traces the lives of various folks of various ages and backgrounds during the heyday of Madison Avenue, and whose lives are all in various forms of turmoil, likely gin-related. The comparison to the '60s is apt, though, for both the separation between those with their eyes set on Madison Avenue or that sort of track and the rest as well as the simmering but hardly-discussed undercurrent of dissatisfaction and loneliness among those of us dubbed the "most-connected."
I'm a socialist, have no problem saying that, but I'm not antithetical to entrepreneurship or capitalism in general, and I think there are some encouraging trends in business — fueled largely by quarterlifers —leading to greater attention on individual employees and the social impact of the business. That dissatisfaction and loneliness I believe hiding in the background for so many of my fellow quarterlifers is effecting positive change in many organizations, and that's a good thing. But there's still the feeling of alienation that our iPhones and twitter accounts can't bridge. It's not the kind of thing we can talk about really, though it's my belief that it's pretty much universal. Quarterlife presents one forwardly with that question: do you confront your demons, your existential angst, and surpass them, or do you let them take charge?
In all, quarterlife is a tremendously confusing experience, and one for which I was not ready and didn't even realize I was embarking on until I was well on the way. Yet, it's also been the most richly rewarding time of my young life, not always happy (rarely, even) and full to the brim with mistakes, bad decisions, weaknesses, flaws, et al; but I've learned every (mis-)step of the way, and hope I can take that knowledge forward for whatever and wherever awaits me. So ¡Viva Quarterlife!
Note: I began drafting this on 08 April, which was the birthday alluded to; just finished it today and elected not to change that initial reference. So please no birthday wishes until April 2013 if you so choose =D
This is going to be a somewhat longish and relatively rambling post (as are most, no?). I'm 27 on the day I'm writing this, so "quarterlife" for me would extend to 108 — which I doubt I'll get to and am not really sure I would even want to. But "quarterlife" generally includes pretty much the entire time between about 24 and the day you turn 30. As well, pretty much the point in an educated, privileged, ambitious, lonely and relatively young existence that those are the years you figure out what you want to do with yourself — because there's so much you want to do, and so many people you want to become. So you try on identities and roles, work jobs you're — on paper, at least — overqualified for, fuck as often as possible and with whomever's willing. You move back home if that's where quarterlife takes you, hit your parents up for money, wake up with extreme guilt, and then forget it happened: until next month, at least.
Now just as an aside, I do have to mention that I've grown up and become an adult in the confines of a very middle-class family. I consider myself privileged for the facts of having had hard-working and loving parents who (irrationally in my mind, but we'll get to that) support me in a variety of ways even when I'm a complete wreck (and those who know me well know that said situation is not an infrequent scenario). My father got his B.A. when he was 37. My mother has been a nurse for decades, even as nursing has gone from a respected profession to merely the ground crew of corporate healthcare. I received grants to attend the wonderful college I attended, and couldn't have done so without those grants. And yeah, I've been paying loans since they began coming due and likely will for quite some time. "Privilege" means having had the chance to earn those opportunities, not being given them. And if that smells bitter, let me just say that I have nothing against anyone who grew up in a household where that sort of progression was assumed and paid for. Not at all. You can't control the circumstances into which you were brought up, just what you do given them.
With regard to the above, the point is that you become who you are by having a foundation and finding your personal direction.
Maybe if you're like me, quarterlife insidiously helps you develop the will to do the sorts of things you never had the courage to do before. In my case, the above have so far included piercings, tattoos, coming to terms with my bisexuality, moving from a rebellious atheism to a more considered and more serious and defensible (though still in flux) sense of spirituality, and developing the sort of "fuck it" attitude I always admired when I was younger, but never had the confidence to adapt. Maybe that's quarterlife or just me; I can't speak for anyone else, and I've always lacked in confidence. I've been bulimic since I was 14 and a quasi-functioning alcoholic since about 20, though overcoming both for a while now with all I can muster.
I fell in love (many times) then transitioned to believing that love wasn't meant for me. Not quite falling out of love, but just losing the belief that anyone could love me -- that there was something fundamental about me that disqualified me from that part of human experience. I still am unsure of this particular bit. I like to think there's a boy or a girl out there for me, but don't know, and for the purposes of this post, am okay with that lack of knowledge.
The attitude is something I believe I've come to belatedly. I don't mind being a late-bloomer, so to speak, though I've yet to really bloom even. There was a time when I would have minded that, would have cared what people thought about me coming to realizations that most people go through in their teens or college years, but that I've waited until my mid-to-late-20s to work on. But whatever. The past few years of my life have been pretty shitty. I tried to kill myself with all intent twice and spent time on a psych ward for each attempt. I lost my one-time fiancée and best friend from my own stupidity and reprehensible behavior (the guilt I bear in that regard I will carry to my grave). I had to move home from Boston to dear old Rockford, Illinois just to stay alive. That might sound dramatic, but really, that's kind of where things were at the time. And yet, even though that sort of interruption was nothing I'd planned on as a callow collegiate, I'm grateful for it. I'm a better person now for having been a bad person and a broken person then. Not where I want to be yet, but I've been to the deep and dark places, and I survived.
Quarterlife does something else. It forces you to critically assess what you believe. That may sound banal, but really it's a big fucking deal. I studied intellectual history and philosophy in college, and spent a year after graduating mostly drinking South African pinotage [at €2.99, who could argue? and playing World of Warcraft (which wasn't the complete time sink of which one might accuse me with a great deal of justification; I met several friends whose friendship I value highly and with whom I am still in touch. This might come across as a means of self-justification, but as I said, our new world functions in pretty weird ways)] in Frankfurt am Main. But also studying philosophy, working through a crisis with my then-girlfriend and meditating, often along the bike/walking/running path on the Main River and trying to assess those questions. As an undergraduate, I had always assumed I would go to law school, make some bank, and move toward a career in politics. Naturally, like many quarterlifers, I realized after taking the LSAT and starting applications that it wasn't for me. I had to do something in which I could work, work hard, and come home at the end of the day and not have lingering qualms about what exactly I had done that day. Some days I would run along the Main, on nice days I'd grab a baguette at the nearest Bäckerei and just stare out at the water, thinking about Adorno or the Stockhausen my American friend there had just introduced me to, or missing the girl, or just fate, existence, or what exactly the fuck I'm doing looking at a river and thinking these things. Law may still be in my future — I think I'd be good at it, and no, I don't really know what that means. We shall see.
Quarterlife is by its very nature a time of transition, one that doesn't necessarily fit within age brackets, and one for which the very designation (though I think it fairly accurate and almost cliché) can apply equally to anyone trying to figure out who the hell they are. I'm always a bit suspicious of folks who don't doubt, and ones who know with certainty who they want to be at 22 or 25 come across as particularly suspect. I think — and I imagine most would agree — that when you're my age you really don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, and if you say you do regardless, you're full of shit. Of course, it used to be different back in the day, and I imagine (without researching) that there's a practical army of sociologists who could tell you exactly why that is. But whatever. We live here and now today, in a world shaped by our forebears who couldn't tweet a picture of whatever they're eating at that moment on their iPhone.
Quarterlife is a process, I'm coming to find. One that's often no fun, no matter how many hookups or summer evenings passing a J and leaning back in awe of strewn stars. It's hard work, yo. Maybe I'm just late to the game, or don't really know what I'm headed for, what to do tomorrow, that kind of thing. Yet I find quarterlife as exhilarating as it is frustrating and incomprehensible. All of the anger, pain, confusion, rage, desire, desperation seem to point toward some sort of image of yourself as that person you'd like to be, even — and especially if — that image remains blurry. Quarterlife means learning things about yourself you hadn't known, reading books you hadn't heard of until today, seeing films and shows you might not have seen, exploring a faith you didn't know you had. Quarterlife presents you with the courage to open up your door and go for a run in November, to open up that Word file and start writing, to open up a business, to run for office. Quarterlife presents the possibility of impacting in new ways the lives of those about whom you care.
So it's exciting. I'm at a sort of transition, I guess. To come back to this part of my own story, in 2009 I attempted with all seriousness suicide. I don't have a problem admitting that — I think an honesty about mental illness and suicidal thoughts can only help prevent that outcome and encourage those suffering from depression to seek help. I know I'm grateful that my ex-girlfriend found me in time and called 911. She and I aren't exactly in contact anymore, but she saved my life. At the time I didn't really give much of a shit if I lived or died — and that itself is a difficult thing to explain to someone who has had the fortune of not finding her/himself in that position. It's a shitty thing to write, but I found myself disappointed to come to in the hospital. Shitty, not out of guilt or out of the horrific experience of drinking activated charcoal (which tastes something like an unholy admixture of Pepto-Bismol and gasoline — not that I've consumed gasoline, but the smell of gasoline was unmistakable in the taste of charcoal).
It wasn't really a part of my life of which I'm proud. I did some pretty unforgivable things that, as I mentioned, I'll probably have in mind on my deathbed, whenever that happens. I won't go into details, but I bring it up to say that I'm learning it's harder to forgive yourself than it is almost anyone else. This is part of quarterlife too, I think. Arriving at the mental and emotional stage where you can look back at stupid shit you've done, bad things, even crimes and come to the point where you can truly believe that you're judged for your actions, but that all you have today is today, that yesterday's gone, and tomorrow's a new day. I think that's the kind of thing that quarterlife brings into sharper resolution.
Now, I find myself here at 2:20 a.m. CST on my 27th birthday, looking out my window and seeing a nearly full moon sliding through drifting clouds. When I was a teenager, I used to go for walks in the middle of the night, just for the pleasure of being alone, the moon and me. I'm a night person; anyone who knows me even marginally knows that, even if from just looking at the timestamps of my Facebook comments or tweets. I've always wanted to be a morning person, and I still do. There was a period encompassing my sophomore year of high school and about the first half of my junior year when I'd wake up between four and 4:30 just to sit in a dilapidated armchair and read Will Durant, Emerson, and Kant. Yet what the night offers is the sort of complete solitude the day doesn't. No birds chirping, coffee beans to grind, cat yelling at you, just you, the moon, a good glass of whiskey, and a blank page with a blinking cursor staring at you.
To that end, quarterlife is possibilities. There have been so many times I've traded glares with that fucking cursor, not even to mention the paper clip that managed to insult a paper clip (a feat I had previously thought impossible), but didn't have the courage to type out a single word. Or, if I did, I wouldn't save it. Quarterlife has brought me to a place where frankly, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to sit in my uncomfortable desk chair, throw on some CSS, and just let it go. It's likely horrifically bad. I'll probably not disseminate any of it, but quarterlife has brought me to a place where I don't give a shit frankly, and I'm going to write even if it's terribad. (On the off-, off-chance it isn't). I couldn't do that when I was 21 or even 24. I watch these YouTube clips of 11-year olds stunning an audience mostly out of awe. There's no way in hell I could have done that at their age I think, followed immediately by Shit there's no way in hell I could do that now. But now at quarterlife? I don't give a shit.
Our generation (which large and corporately-funded media organizations have preciously dubbed "Millennials") often gets painted in hugely optimistic terms as far as our savvy with technology, our entrepreneurist tendencies, our ability to "network" and effectively utilize social media platforms —to paraphrase some of the stock lines of the global companies seeking to hire we shiny avatars of clean living — makes us ideal candidates for a lifetime of ladder-climbing. This is hardly new. It was referred to as "the rat race" as early as the late 1970s. Yet the paradigm is similar in many ways to the preceding decade, the '60s. This, of course, is borne out each Sunday night on AMC's Mad Men, which as we all know by now, traces the lives of various folks of various ages and backgrounds during the heyday of Madison Avenue, and whose lives are all in various forms of turmoil, likely gin-related. The comparison to the '60s is apt, though, for both the separation between those with their eyes set on Madison Avenue or that sort of track and the rest as well as the simmering but hardly-discussed undercurrent of dissatisfaction and loneliness among those of us dubbed the "most-connected."
I'm a socialist, have no problem saying that, but I'm not antithetical to entrepreneurship or capitalism in general, and I think there are some encouraging trends in business — fueled largely by quarterlifers —leading to greater attention on individual employees and the social impact of the business. That dissatisfaction and loneliness I believe hiding in the background for so many of my fellow quarterlifers is effecting positive change in many organizations, and that's a good thing. But there's still the feeling of alienation that our iPhones and twitter accounts can't bridge. It's not the kind of thing we can talk about really, though it's my belief that it's pretty much universal. Quarterlife presents one forwardly with that question: do you confront your demons, your existential angst, and surpass them, or do you let them take charge?
In all, quarterlife is a tremendously confusing experience, and one for which I was not ready and didn't even realize I was embarking on until I was well on the way. Yet, it's also been the most richly rewarding time of my young life, not always happy (rarely, even) and full to the brim with mistakes, bad decisions, weaknesses, flaws, et al; but I've learned every (mis-)step of the way, and hope I can take that knowledge forward for whatever and wherever awaits me. So ¡Viva Quarterlife!
Note: I began drafting this on 08 April, which was the birthday alluded to; just finished it today and elected not to change that initial reference. So please no birthday wishes until April 2013 if you so choose =D
Brief, Unfocused Thoughts on HBO's "Girls"
so i'm really coming around to hbo's "girls," after a somewhat shaky pilot, unmemorable second episode, but a third largely-cringeworthy, but wonderfully written and acted, and ending in one of my favorite scenes in 2012 tv thus far. just funny, unexpected, and genuinely touching. first thing that came to mind when i saw that scene was "fucking golden," and that opinion hasn't changed in the several times i've rewatched that episode. i think the world of lena dunham, but, as i'm starting to really get to work on my own series (and i've learned a great deal from "girls" already, and am looking forward to where it goes), the issues i have with "girls" boil down to two things, one far more important than the other.
the less relevant one is that the dialogue thus far (and i'm a fan of the show, not trying to prematurely judge its first season after only three episodes, but thus far) seems uneven and choppy at times, interspersing more than a few misses with some amazing one-liners. still looking for the consistency. secondly and more importantly, thus far the show has struck one note; it's struck it well, presenting the idiom of we snarky, jaded and media-saturated 20-somethings better than any other show yet, and, though i don't yet live in a major city (though i have, in the us and in germany), and seems to affirm that idiom's accuracy based if only on my twitter feed lol. but it's a note that has a limited range; "girls" seems to be described more often as comedy, but thus far it's been more of a tragicomedy. i'm hoping to see it expand its scope, with the understanding on my part that it's playing within its contours. none of the characters is particularly appealing, which is, of course, part of the point, but characters like adam (while extremely-well acted) just come across as one-dimensional. and maybe that's the way things are in manhattan? been there multiple times, look forward to coming back, but haven't lived there, but have lived in boston, berlin, and frankfurt, and the sort of cynicism that comes through most strongly in ms. dunham's dialogue just misses more than it hits, in my view at least. when it hits, it's pretty much the best out there, but the misses just seem forced.
i highly doubt i can ever match ms. dunham in terms of witty/current dialogue, and am not sure i want to (though i have the highest degree of respect and admiration for her). sort of always been an outsider in my generation, and as i get older and gain more experience and perspective, come more and more — really with each passing day — to take a skeptical approach to my generation's skepticism. not to bash on "girls," but at times thus far it's seemed rote, and entirely rapt with itself. i think of that scene on boston common in "good will hunting" where robin williams tells an insanely-young matt damon, that to understand him (williams) and his depth requires loving something more than himself. now that's had a great deal of personal relevance (another issue for another time), but makes an important point; that there's a spectrum that exists between treacle and nihilism (of course, and more suited to philosophy theses than some random thoughts about a random medium). not to paint "girls" with either brush, which, it seems, is ms. dunham's point.
i guess my counter (not in an antagonistic sense) — and what i'm trying to create — is a canvass on the el greco scale, or say a mahler symphony or something in that vein — with the focus on how complicated contemporary life can be across generations, dealing with 20-somethings sure, but also with 50-somethings and 50-somethings caring for their 80-something parents, all in the landscape of a mid-sized midwestern city burdened by the flight of the unionized manufacturing base. not to try to emulate "the wire" (though, as the best novel of the 2000s, is worthy of emulation, but to explore the landscape of rockford, ill.
looking forward to more "girls," and will keep you posted on my own project. all in all though, tremendous respect for ms. dunham, and i really do look forward to experiencing more of her work.
the less relevant one is that the dialogue thus far (and i'm a fan of the show, not trying to prematurely judge its first season after only three episodes, but thus far) seems uneven and choppy at times, interspersing more than a few misses with some amazing one-liners. still looking for the consistency. secondly and more importantly, thus far the show has struck one note; it's struck it well, presenting the idiom of we snarky, jaded and media-saturated 20-somethings better than any other show yet, and, though i don't yet live in a major city (though i have, in the us and in germany), and seems to affirm that idiom's accuracy based if only on my twitter feed lol. but it's a note that has a limited range; "girls" seems to be described more often as comedy, but thus far it's been more of a tragicomedy. i'm hoping to see it expand its scope, with the understanding on my part that it's playing within its contours. none of the characters is particularly appealing, which is, of course, part of the point, but characters like adam (while extremely-well acted) just come across as one-dimensional. and maybe that's the way things are in manhattan? been there multiple times, look forward to coming back, but haven't lived there, but have lived in boston, berlin, and frankfurt, and the sort of cynicism that comes through most strongly in ms. dunham's dialogue just misses more than it hits, in my view at least. when it hits, it's pretty much the best out there, but the misses just seem forced.
i highly doubt i can ever match ms. dunham in terms of witty/current dialogue, and am not sure i want to (though i have the highest degree of respect and admiration for her). sort of always been an outsider in my generation, and as i get older and gain more experience and perspective, come more and more — really with each passing day — to take a skeptical approach to my generation's skepticism. not to bash on "girls," but at times thus far it's seemed rote, and entirely rapt with itself. i think of that scene on boston common in "good will hunting" where robin williams tells an insanely-young matt damon, that to understand him (williams) and his depth requires loving something more than himself. now that's had a great deal of personal relevance (another issue for another time), but makes an important point; that there's a spectrum that exists between treacle and nihilism (of course, and more suited to philosophy theses than some random thoughts about a random medium). not to paint "girls" with either brush, which, it seems, is ms. dunham's point.
i guess my counter (not in an antagonistic sense) — and what i'm trying to create — is a canvass on the el greco scale, or say a mahler symphony or something in that vein — with the focus on how complicated contemporary life can be across generations, dealing with 20-somethings sure, but also with 50-somethings and 50-somethings caring for their 80-something parents, all in the landscape of a mid-sized midwestern city burdened by the flight of the unionized manufacturing base. not to try to emulate "the wire" (though, as the best novel of the 2000s, is worthy of emulation, but to explore the landscape of rockford, ill.
looking forward to more "girls," and will keep you posted on my own project. all in all though, tremendous respect for ms. dunham, and i really do look forward to experiencing more of her work.
LGBT Rights Are Just That... Rights
A little bit late to the game on this, but here's the point about same-sex marriage that gets obfuscated in whatever pathetic attempts at "debate" on cable news: marriage with respect to civil code (i.e. the state) has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. The rights and privileges pertaining to a married couple exist by virtue of law, not religion. If particular religions frown upon homosexuality (because they apparently misunderstood Jesus, Muhammad, or Yahweh), they have every right to do so, and to restrict religious marriage to heterosexual couples; why they would want to do that, I really don't know, but they have that right. But under the law, marriage is a strictly secular contract between two individuals who choose to commit their lives and property to each other, and, in accordance with the law, be admitted to certain rights and privileges to which as individuals they had not been privy. Now, name another legal contract the eligibility to which rests on sexual orientation. The contract between the armed forces and an enlistee used to be one, but thankfully Pres. Obama relegated that to where it belongs: the dustbin of history. Marriage should be no different. Let particular religions do what they will, but the state has no business granting special status to two individuals who love each other and are willing to commit everything to one another only on the basis of their heterosexuality. Either the rights and privileges accruing to marriage apply to all individuals willing to enter into that contractual obligation or they apply to none. Rights are rights. DOMA is unconstitutional and will be overturned. And I will live to see the day where I can marry a man if that's with whom I fall in love in every state in the country.
Going Forward
Among the many things I'm trying to or starting to try to change in my life is my tenuous relationship with my blog. I've never really lived up to it or to whatever benighted souls read it every now and then. I would like to change that. I've written many time about how I'm going to take it seriously, how *this time* I really do mean it! and how I'd like this site to really represent me as a writer, conversationally, critically, and professionally. I realize that having breached that informal contract several times in the past, there really isn't much I can say to persuade anyone that this time, damn it, I really really do mean it. But I do. Not today, but in the very near future, I'm going to be fully redesigning and renaming this site; it'll still be Destructive Anachronism, but the URL is going to be different and the post frequency much greater. Stay tuned.
5.10.2012
Obama and Faith In His Words
Maybe I'll add mine later, but for now yes. Just yes.
"In the end the values that I care most deeply about and [Michelle] cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and hopefully the better I’ll be as president."
— President Barack Obama, on his Christian faith and support for marriage equality.
"In the end the values that I care most deeply about and [Michelle] cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and hopefully the better I’ll be as president."
— President Barack Obama, on his Christian faith and support for marriage equality.
5.04.2012
#JobsforVets
Dear friends: Heard a really disturbing thing shortly ago that's really got my gander up. A friend who's active duty in the army reserves told me that having that experience on his resume has made it harder to find a job in civilian life. He described (what I'll describe as) that kind of discrimination as "epidemic" in his unit. Now, my values and faith demand that I be a pacifist and devoted progressive, and I have consistently been against both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, I strongly support our troops, both active-duty and veterans, and was frankly shocked to hear this.
My father, uncle, and both grandfathers served, so this is a personal issue as well. Our troops — male and female, (thanks to Pres. Obama's leadership) gay and straight, black and white — are people who have committed themselves to make the ultimate sacrifice, if that's what it takes, to defend the rest of us. Think about that. It takes a certain kind of cojones. Beyond that, these ladies and gentlemen have extremely advanced technical skills that are extremely valuable to the private sector, and more importantly, the leadership experience and discipline to excel at any profession, whether as a janitor (not there's anything ignoble about being a janitor) to running a multinational corporation or working in public service. Beyond even that, our troops are so much more than the folks (amazing, and I'm proud to know that I'm represented by such individuals as those who accomplished this, both on the ground and in the preparation and training) who killed Osama bin Laden; they also help build schools, hospitals, bridges, roads, assist in protecting families and businesses around the world. And if we can't help them and return the favor we owe them, then what exactly are our values as a society?
This is not a political issue. Both Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, need to do what we can to ensure that our current state of affairs comes to an end — in which the military and their families sacrifice for us — while we lead our lives separately and too often in ignorance of the particulars of their situations and the sort of sacrifices, physical, mental, emotional, financial — you name it — they make every day on our collective behalf. How can we call ourselves a community if we don't value everyone equally and strive to understand and support each other?
So join me in supporting our troops, and — though admittedly a small gesture, but one that takes little time and, ideally, helps raise awareness of the alarming un- and underemployment rate among our veterans and active-duty troops and the degree to which it's extremely difficult for our troops to reintegrate themselves into the civilian economy: if you're on twitter (and you all know by now that I am @destroy_time), please take a minute or two to send a tweet including "#isupportveterans because __" and using #jobsforvets and retweet to your followers. I would recommend sending it to your local elected officials and media, as well as @whitehouse, @BarackObama, @MichelleObama, @maddow/@maddowblog and @StephenAtHome/@ColbertReport. Whether or not you agree with Rachel Maddow's politics, she, Colbert and the First Lady have been on the forefront of addressing this issue. Thanks.
Hopefully, if we together can get this trending, it 'll make some small difference in ensuring that we properly thank our vets, active-duty troops, and their families for their service.
Updated: Fixed a sentence fragment that I overlooked (I was too fired up to edit carefully) and added a couple of em dashes.
My father, uncle, and both grandfathers served, so this is a personal issue as well. Our troops — male and female, (thanks to Pres. Obama's leadership) gay and straight, black and white — are people who have committed themselves to make the ultimate sacrifice, if that's what it takes, to defend the rest of us. Think about that. It takes a certain kind of cojones. Beyond that, these ladies and gentlemen have extremely advanced technical skills that are extremely valuable to the private sector, and more importantly, the leadership experience and discipline to excel at any profession, whether as a janitor (not there's anything ignoble about being a janitor) to running a multinational corporation or working in public service. Beyond even that, our troops are so much more than the folks (amazing, and I'm proud to know that I'm represented by such individuals as those who accomplished this, both on the ground and in the preparation and training) who killed Osama bin Laden; they also help build schools, hospitals, bridges, roads, assist in protecting families and businesses around the world. And if we can't help them and return the favor we owe them, then what exactly are our values as a society?
This is not a political issue. Both Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, need to do what we can to ensure that our current state of affairs comes to an end — in which the military and their families sacrifice for us — while we lead our lives separately and too often in ignorance of the particulars of their situations and the sort of sacrifices, physical, mental, emotional, financial — you name it — they make every day on our collective behalf. How can we call ourselves a community if we don't value everyone equally and strive to understand and support each other?
So join me in supporting our troops, and — though admittedly a small gesture, but one that takes little time and, ideally, helps raise awareness of the alarming un- and underemployment rate among our veterans and active-duty troops and the degree to which it's extremely difficult for our troops to reintegrate themselves into the civilian economy: if you're on twitter (and you all know by now that I am @destroy_time), please take a minute or two to send a tweet including "#isupportveterans because __" and using #jobsforvets and retweet to your followers. I would recommend sending it to your local elected officials and media, as well as @whitehouse, @BarackObama, @MichelleObama, @maddow/@maddowblog and @StephenAtHome/@ColbertReport. Whether or not you agree with Rachel Maddow's politics, she, Colbert and the First Lady have been on the forefront of addressing this issue. Thanks.
Hopefully, if we together can get this trending, it 'll make some small difference in ensuring that we properly thank our vets, active-duty troops, and their families for their service.
Updated: Fixed a sentence fragment that I overlooked (I was too fired up to edit carefully) and added a couple of em dashes.
5.01.2012
First Attempt at This
(wish me luck if you're so kind)
Morning Prayer:
Morning Prayer:
Dear Creator,
Thank you for giving us life and helping us enjoy this day
before us. We see the earth flourish, we speak with friends old and new, and we
revere you in the spirit of joy and happiness.
Best,
—Benjamin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
