I feel a rant coming...
Postgraduate experiences can be dissected many different ways, but one of the most obvious and common is the distinction between staying at home for university or moving away.
Many people who stay at home for their undergrad years lament their decision post-graduation. Even greater are the number of individuals who moved away, and often feel superior as a result to their stay-at-home friends in terms of life experience.
These individuals can be identified by their dismissive hand gestures, and posited theories of "they're just making up for not moving away for university" as a universal explanation for any sort of behaviour related to post-graduate identity crises -- particularly if that behaviour involves drinking a lot and generally not being a boring adult.
Obviously these are not absolute archetypes. There are certainly stay-at-home university students who see the world with moved-away eyes and vice versa.
My thought is not so much that these delineations exist (because most of us would concede that they do), but moreso the haughtiness of moved-away eyes on their poorer and more wordly brethren.
I suppose in simplified terms, I'm talking about the existing paradigms and social constructs of "adult", "responsibility" and even "maturity". I realize this all seems terribly post-modernistic, but that really isn't what I'm getting at here. Bear with me.
My point isn't that "adulthood is whatever you make it" or any sort of frivolity. Rather I wonder more if our ideals of adulthood are not sadly, sadly misguided?
I was thinking about why I want to do what I want to do, and it occurred to me through various discussions about my chosen vocation and some political chats that the reason I feel what I am doing is important is because, well, it is important. Very very important.
All I want to do with my life is inform people. Through stories, through insight, through commentary, I want people to be educated and thoroughly understanding of the world around them from every possible angle in order to make decisions about life and their role in our global society. I feel currently we make so many of our decisions with little to no regard of the consequences of our actions.
I see blood being shed for democracy in Pakistan and Kenya, genocide being committed over the right to a fair election, and yet here in Canada we can barely get people to leave their houses to vote. Worse yet, those who do vote are often woefully ignorant of what and who they are voting for, often relegating our most sacred of civil rights to nothing more than a glorified popularity contest.
I see kids growing up (and hell, peers) who will view a youtube video 10 times before they ever watch the news, or read US magazine until it is dog-eared before they ever pick up an article in Mother Jones.
Accusations of snobbishness or not, that isn't the point. My point is that if knowledge is power, we as a generation are keeping ourselves powerless, then complaining about why our world is crumbling around us.
Why global warming? Why war? Why recession?
Why ask questions why when all you need to do is ask how?
Our definition of a mature adult is just someone who has a 9-5, raises 2.5 kid and owns a white picket fence.
But the world is bigger than your backyard, and I feel like in order to really grow up, we're going to need to realize that sooner rather than later.
Now go read a newspaper. Please.
5 comments:
oh snap
you know, i'm glad you like what you do and that you feel that what you do is very important, that being said, it's very smug of you to say that our definition of a mature adult is "just someone" who has a 9-5 and kids. Raising kids and holding down a 9-5 job is hard work. Just because someone else's satisfaction is limited to the world immediately around them doesn't make them immature. for a lot of people, that's all they can handle. of course it would be ideal to have everyone in the world well educated and informed, but that's not always realistic. you're probably going to say something to the effect of "i didn't say that people who just want to raise a family are immature", but the fact is, you're implying it. and even if you're not implying immaturity, you're implying some sort of inferiority and that's not fair. not everyone has the luxury of learning about the world, some people are happy enough just living in it.
I think its all based on your interested and not a matter of your maturity level. I have absolutely no interest, what so ever, in politics. i still vote and i admit i vote based on their portrayal (ok that isnt totally true as i have read their political platforms a couple years ago back in uni when i was very very bored), but i dont have time to waste watching boring debates when things that actually interest me are on. I am a headline news whore and i am not ashamed to admit it. Politics in my mind are all corrupt and none of them will ever fufill their promises in the near future and they all have their hands in my pocket and they all pat someone else's back. They are all backed by corporations and the ones that arent are too idealistic. Ayn Rand's book atlas shrugged really hit home for me cuz its at least partially true in the way that i view politics.
I have more interest in technology, science and things i deem more useful to me. You scoff at how people dont politically know the world and legislation around them but really do you know how power is supplied to you when you flick on that switch? do you know the physics or science of the chemicals or technology that you consume and use daily? i dont claim to know it all but the most i care to truly know about politics is the big issues that they talk about on headline news, local policies and the legislation that affects me regarding govt controls on pressure vessels and ASME codes hahaha. World issues is your job and thus interest, as structural analysis and flow assisted corrosion is mine.
I say you are i are much alike, you vote for technology based on advertising (which sony and apple are notorious for) and that is how i vote for politics - word of mouth and specific specs that appeal to my needs.
Looks like Sony won office, blu-rays have won more votes.
ASME... wha?....
aww, now i feel doubly dumb; i don't know squat about politics orrrrr all that stuff Steph mentioned, haha.
good thing i can be blisfully ignorant in my post-graduate life away from home, hahaha
what's my age again?
these posts are always fun because they put everybody on the defensive. i enjoy that.
anyways, i am not implying that raising a family is "immature". i am saying it is equally as irresponsible to raise a family and not know anything about the issues that directly impact (forget the world) but your city, your riding and your neighborhood.
there is nothing inherently wrong with raising a family and working 9-5, but if your life has become so sheltered that everything outside of that is irrelevant, then how can you explain to your kid why the community centre is being torn down, or you can't afford to drive them because gas is so expensive, or their grandparents are being mistreated in their seniors home?
isn't that your job as a responsible parent? to have those kinds of answers and help explain what's going on around you to your family, and in some cases make decisions for them based on that knowledge? would you not say failure to educate yourself in order to have an opinion on and make those types of decisions is irresponsible?
the mutual exclusivity between stability and being informed is completely something you interpreted, and assumed, despite me saying absolutely no such thing. you only feel that i'm implying that because i suppose you consider it some sort of implausibility -- i am simply being idealistic.
i think that says a lot about how jaded we have become. my point is that all we do is complain nowadays, but if we'd just seek to know the people and events happening around us, we'd be more inclined to affect change instead of just react to it.
i used the analogy of the moving away student and the stay at home student to highlight how we have these set-in-stone archetypes, but in reality that kind of thinking is just us being too lazy to consider any alternatives to the status quo, and often is leaves us in the dark about better possibilities.
as for steph's comment, i think technology and science are great -- those actually ARE world issues, provided you take an interest in how they affect people around you. i wasn't talking exclusively about politics when i say world issues, and you needn't interpret them as such.
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