Becoming something…

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Like how Iraq was mission accomplished 5 years today, I too felt accomplished. I was just about to finish high school and I hadn’t even decided on a college. I was though flying high, mission accomplished. I had recently regained trust by my parents and summer “adult” freedom was ripening on my tongue.

I forgive Hilary for voting for the war. If was voting on mis-information too. Grownup had arrived. Today I know I have a lifetime of growing up to do.

So I am reemerging not to fill the spaces of the pages but to fill some parts of me that I too often look elsewhere to. I know that my mission isn’t accomplished and that I’ll consume lots of coffee to get there. The reset button is close by, could you push it? No, just a soft reset. I don’t want to lose everything.

Lets not fault Bush for calling a war or even calling it to a close super early, lets fault him for not listening to the experience and learning from it. Get out of there!

It is hard. It is what defines his stay in office. Victim to simple quick fixes, time is a difficult illusion. The longer you stay in it, the further you fall face first into reality.

I have spent a lot of time recently on MBA applications. It has been a while since I had to so craftily praise myself in front of others; it was never this specific. I am defending passion and my future career plans. In definition, I have gone through a transition. Unlike the addictions of war, I have turned the red tide. What are you surfing on when you need something else to keep the momentum?

We are not alone for a reason. Use your developing intuition and growing heart in sync to determine self-motivation. Look to those you know to be real sensors of your being. At the very least there is a technique that is simple to surf through the rougher and lonelier times.

List accomplishments of your day, w/o your minds side commentary; if any slips in, you are forbidden from making further note of it at all.

Today:
•  Entry to baited blog
•  Made progress on scholarship guidebook at work
•  Speedily organized home office
•  Felt reemergence of China-fondness
•  Large Mexican latte instead of small

Find your coastline and ride…summer is coming whether you want it to or not.

Are adults made? A recent article by Kay Hymowitz from City Journal suggests something about young men today in our society:

Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The suggestion is that for various social reasons, we are bypassing the previous generations’ milestone of marriage and a family when we supposedly begin our adult lives with the start of our careers. That first main job and first step now equals independence. Am I socially stunted, stuck in a culturally locked puberty (video games, the internet, and career changes)? I’m not in college anymore and much of that activity has gone by the wayside. There isn’t much like the structure of a full-time job, other personal pursuits, and a growing long-term relationship to have other things take favor. Yet, I still long for the long nights, long papers, and long haphazard days.

My relationship and new job is the cornerstone to a growing foundation that I think is moving me beyond this immature middle ground. Priorities change and whether or not I like to admit it, I’m heavily invested in both. This is by choice. This implies that this stage is under our own self-control. Is it important to take action?

Action would be contrary to what is rewarded in our culture; action which requires forward thinking loses to the many short-term excited battles our cultures supports. How can the weekend (or even every day) be one of exciting battles if you are settled into a life track, one long battle with something or short ones with quick feedback and results? Immediate gratification is clearly our cultural winner. It usually takes an event or emotional commitment to be able to recognize the importance of the former, long-term action, possibly to just return back afterwards.

Even today, they say SYM (Single Young Males), Hymowitz’s term, or this millennial generation in general is distracted by many new things, a world of instant gratification. Take your college life for example.

[Jones, S] (2002) indicated that 72% of all students check their email daily, and 26% of college students use instant messaging on an average day. A similar survey in 2005 found that 83% of adults in the 18-29 age range participate in online activities [Demographics of Internet Users] (2007 ).

Digital-Distractions

We learned in and with this environment. Conveniences have become crutches.

So what of women? I don’t necessarily think they are excluded from this phenomenon but they sure are talking about it. The child-man article continues,

In Internet chat rooms, in advice columns, at female water-cooler confabs, and in the pages of chick lit, the words “immature” and “men” seem united in perpetuity…Men feel threatened by female empowerment, these thinkers argue, and in their anxiety, they cling to outdated roles.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The CEO phenomenon is one example of the ever growing worth and exchange value of a single individual. Females with this power, on this scale, is historically rare; they have a right to enjoy it, even in the face of the above mentioned masculine uncertainty. It would be wrong to not point out that only twelve of Fortune 500 companies are headed by female CEOs, which debunks Hymowitz’s argument above.

I’m not sure if I see it as gender specific because I feel like many women face the the same cultural pressures that us males do.

Are these trends any different from the activities of young women who are often unwilling to surrender personal freedoms to be “shackled” by motherhood? The Sex and the City generation who see marriage as an anchor and drag on their personal lives, who embrace disposable relationships and are obsessed with designer clothing?

Editorial: Beware the Child-Man?

I’ll admit my cravings and notice that I see many peers expressing their freedom. I even would go as far to say, because of a different social experience in my youth while dealing with my sexuality, I am even more immature in certain areas. My immaturity is supported. More than ever we are rewarded for growth of self and not of family or relationships if it is in the way.

So, do we continue because we can?

We all may need to read more, converse more, and look at how thin we are spread in our social world (especially if it’s virtual). I keep wondering if I should be focusing harder or caring less? I am not a SYM, the relationship disqualifies me of that title, but the cute voices on my shoulders are both telling me that the SYM life is calling. Most of us now have the freedom to develop in the context of something, say a relationship, or develop outside of that structure.

The child-man, gay-infant, and adult-girl are real. Stuck playing video games, exploring deep relationships for the first time, and keeping time with image and power, we are our own segment of society. We will become a generation around it. It feels good, but I feel detached. Our 30s will come soon, but should our goal be to cum as much as possible before it does?

Adults don’t emerge. They’re made.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

I recently saw the musical Avenue Q on Broadway. A great show.

There is a scene where a male and female face silhouette on a T.V. screen have words come out of their mouths and move towards each other. The guy is saying, “come,” and the girl is saying, “mitment.” The guy initially sexual and intense as the girl goes from calm to frustrated. They eventually say, “commitment,” in unison.

It is true, commitment is about being in unison. It is also about combining different interests.

Always know that what is on the table isn’t just what you are bringing to it. What is the mitment to your come? What is the come to your mittment?

Great minds think alike…but what great mind do you want to think like?

Another stranger

Strong teeth nibbling at the soul,
a midnight snack of attempted progress.

My feet treaded new footsteps,
from the moment I woke up.

Sore eyes for similar,
familiar lies. I’m fooling myself again.

Putting out isn’t the same, the
first time, second time, third time around.

Give me stone eyes. Eyes that find hearts
cold. Minds that build false homes in me.

Now, I’ve opened the front door, but
nothing looks familiar. Not even
his now familiar beard.

Someone else has made my bed,
and although new things feel safe,
I’ve encountered another stranger.

I remember taking a “purity test” back when we were all on livejournal spilling our guts and taking quizzes to find out which Muppet I am most like. I don’t remember being told that I was the purest thing around. I really wondered how perverse that made me. I still don’t feel pure, but upon recent thought, I’m not even sure I know what it is.

Perverse is defined as being turned away from what is good: improper, corrupt, and wrongheaded.

Don’t we all feel this way sometimes?

In fact, it feels like it is all over the place these days. A search on Google News for “perverse” in the last day of news turned up over a thousand results. The commonality of something isn’t a reason to claim appropriateness, but it doesn’t bring any clarity. It is tough to make our own judgment calls in this type of climate. Here, though, it can be a blessing to grow older, as experience brings more and more things to compare and ponder. In my head I do have a rule of thumb.

Perversion is what has hurt you as it will probably hurt someone else; it is what your mind may accept but your heart rejects.

Easy nuff?

But…you see it and you know something or someone that is perverse, deeply perverse. You think, I’ve thought that, I’ve fantasized that, but I’ve not actually acted on it. This is of course bothersome. Are we not all perverse?

I’ve thought up a litmus test:
Be alone. Feel alone. Now add what you are questioning. If it hurts, it’s perverse. If it interrupts, you have some more thinking to do. If it enhances, embrace it.

Thoughts?

At 11:59 (EST) p.m. (notice post time) my mom ended a long labor, thanks mom!

Why does twentysomething (even 22) feel old when we know it isn’t?