I visited New York City this weekend and I really had a wonderful time. The vibrant energy and sheer volume of everything in that city really is something to behold. But as my girlfriend and I were walking home from the train station, I realized that beyond enjoying the city I had also become faintly homesick.
Chicago is not as densely populated as New York. The things to do are not quite as plentiful and there isn't quite the same vibe. But at the same time I couldn't help but get caught up in the affective memory of the architecture of the city running along the Chicago River. The sheer wonder of standing on the bridge flanked by the Wrigley Building or of the wonderful escape places like Hyde Park could afford for those weary of the pressures of the Loop. Skyline scenes standing in Grant Park at night still provide me with a deep sense of joy.
And I would suspect myself of having "the grass is always greener" syndrome except that I loved Chicago when I lived there. That is, of course, not to say anything against New York. Its just not my home. It captures a different kind of energy for me that, while exciting, doesn't quite give me the same kind of peace that Chicago does.
I am settling in fairly well to life in Princeton, make no mistake about that. I do enjoy many things about not being directly in the city anymore and I'm starting to (slowly) figure out the pace of things here. But still, I just can't quite shake this feeling I have for the city I grew up with and love. I think about driving at night, east bound on the Kennedy, when the colorful displace of the City of Broad Shoulders comes into view. I imagine the cavernous Loop with is massive walls on all sides. The marble and steel and glass form a brand new environment along the wide streets. The wonderfully abrupt sight of the L hovering over the street still, for whatever perverse reason, gives me a sense of home.
This may simply be the nature of home sickness. I bring to the fron everything about a place that I liked and I sideline everything that I didn't care for. But that may also simply be the nature of any place we come to call home. Even standing on the top level of the Target parking garage and looking to the city brings me a smile. The quieter, tree line streets who have stolen their peace among the buzzing of the city streets remain fond memories. Even the decaying landscape of the South Side as we ran through the streets on a training run still stand out in positive lights.
I got lost in my memories again.
I don't really have much of a point save to remind people that the places we call home rarely every disappear in our minds. And when we find new homes they are defined in the terms of the places we left behind. But this can be a great source of joy, and one that I relish.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Its Ok, We Can Not Understand Science Together
Since I still have time to read news sources in the morning, I spent a little time on NPR this morning. On the right-hand side I saw this little gem: "In GOP Presidential Field, Science Finds Skeptics." My blood pressure is elevated here.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I have no problem admitting that intelligent people can be conservatives in a sense of the word that extends beyond our vernacular use of it. There have been many people who I have met who have rooted their beliefs in a philosophy that is often coined "conservative" on the American spectrum. I'm perfectly fine with that because I can understand and respect that. What I have a huge issue with, however, is when something like this happens:
The fear of "big government" has become the driving force in global warming denialism- not a skepticism of the science. I have come to understand that there are many who believe that global warming is a plot to simply generate more taxes- which makes it all the more peculiar that it is not only American scientists who see evidence of global warming. This misapprehension of the way in which one should disagree or agree with a scientific point is precisely what leads to presidential candidates who lack a fundamental understanding of scientific findings can somehow find themselves in front of their primary.
By the way, at least two of the candidates in the GOP field also deny evolution on grounds that they mask as being scientific but which are firmly religious.
This ties in well to a point I have tried to make with many of my friends in the so-called "hard sciences." They have asserted that the rigor of their fields and the objectivity of their work give the hard sciences some sort of privileged position among other fields of study. I have contended that science works very well among those who understand it and who are willing to engage it on more neutral terms (though never wholly neutral). However, science only matters to non-scientists in so far as it confirms or improves the reality they have constructed and perceive. Controversial science among the non-scientific public is not that which is still up for scientific review or the findings are still left for interpretation, but rather that which upsets the socio-political order that people wish to maintain. In this case, it is a move away from federal government and towards a "free-market" state.
I suppose the only point I want to pull out from all of this is that the idea that denying global warming is not being a skeptic- its confusing science and political posturing. My suspicion is that a few of the "conservative" lawmakers and candidates are fully aware of this and are deliberately stating these positions to garner votes. However, I have a much more sickening suspicion- namely that a few of them actually believe what they are saying.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I have no problem admitting that intelligent people can be conservatives in a sense of the word that extends beyond our vernacular use of it. There have been many people who I have met who have rooted their beliefs in a philosophy that is often coined "conservative" on the American spectrum. I'm perfectly fine with that because I can understand and respect that. What I have a huge issue with, however, is when something like this happens:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has publicly doubted the science of climate change and says creationism should be taught alongside evolution, is the new front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.I know many people who are global warming deniers, and they all seem to formulate their opinions based not upon the actual scientific principles behind the phenomenon and instead on the political ramifications they perceive from the "pushing of the global warming agenda." Look, it's really not difficult to understand that the evidence for global climate change is not based upon local weather but on chemical reactions occurring in the atmosphere and in the oceans. The fundamental principles of these chemical reactions are extremely simple and not negotiable. These are things that any one, irrespective of their major field of study, can understand. But instead, the understanding of the science is dominated by some political point being made.
The fear of "big government" has become the driving force in global warming denialism- not a skepticism of the science. I have come to understand that there are many who believe that global warming is a plot to simply generate more taxes- which makes it all the more peculiar that it is not only American scientists who see evidence of global warming. This misapprehension of the way in which one should disagree or agree with a scientific point is precisely what leads to presidential candidates who lack a fundamental understanding of scientific findings can somehow find themselves in front of their primary.
By the way, at least two of the candidates in the GOP field also deny evolution on grounds that they mask as being scientific but which are firmly religious.
This ties in well to a point I have tried to make with many of my friends in the so-called "hard sciences." They have asserted that the rigor of their fields and the objectivity of their work give the hard sciences some sort of privileged position among other fields of study. I have contended that science works very well among those who understand it and who are willing to engage it on more neutral terms (though never wholly neutral). However, science only matters to non-scientists in so far as it confirms or improves the reality they have constructed and perceive. Controversial science among the non-scientific public is not that which is still up for scientific review or the findings are still left for interpretation, but rather that which upsets the socio-political order that people wish to maintain. In this case, it is a move away from federal government and towards a "free-market" state.
I suppose the only point I want to pull out from all of this is that the idea that denying global warming is not being a skeptic- its confusing science and political posturing. My suspicion is that a few of the "conservative" lawmakers and candidates are fully aware of this and are deliberately stating these positions to garner votes. However, I have a much more sickening suspicion- namely that a few of them actually believe what they are saying.
Monday, September 5, 2011
The Blue Sky Torn Asunder.
The ten year anniversary of 9/11 is just around the corner, and as every conceivable media outlet and pundit gears up to delve into their "expansive coverage" I think that maybe I should say something before I get disgusted and fed up with their commentary. What I am going to say comes not from ten years of expert study and analysis of the events of that day or the "post-9/11 world" but instead from growing up in the wake of that event. My perspective is one marked by a childhood before the event and a period of growing up after that event.
Ten years ago, on September 11th, I was getting ready for middle school to start. I was in the 7th grade, and classes didn't begin until 9 am. I remember, very vividly, that I was walking out of the shower and into the living room when I saw that the Today Show was on, as it always was in the morning. Only this time, the images were very different than the cooking segments or interviews that usually occupied the show at that time. The first world tower was spewing smoke, and Matt Lauer's comments came only sporadically and in short bursts. He was, like me, in absolute shock and disbelief. I remember that the first thing that went through my mind was that this had to have been an accident. But how could a pilot not have seen the tower? The airports were fairly close, so of course they could have been that low over the city if something had gone seriously wrong. But as this train of thought was progressing, on screen came the second plane. And flames. What was happening? I just couldn't put it together. It made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
By the time I made it to school, the notion that someone had actively attacked the World Trade Center had go around through the student body. I remember that my speech class was replaced by the entire class watching a tv set up. The whole day was marred by a strange silence that was spoken. We were talking, we just weren't really saying all that much. I also remember that fear was cropping up everywhere. Outside my science class, students were talking about how we might be the next target. When asked why we would be targeted, someone else responded "McHenry county is the fastest growing county in the country!" I don't know if that was true at the time, but it just demonstrates that we, as a bunch of 7th graders, really just let our fears plant themselves firmly. Everyone was seriously uncertain about what was going to happen next.
When I think back to that day, I imagine a vast, blue sky with that kind of summer morning warmth everywhere. Then an earth shattering bang. This is just the sense I got from that day. An average summer morning completely torn apart.
These are the memories most of us have, and what a lot of us are going to think about over the next week or so. But what I think also deserves reflection is just how much life has changed since September 11th, 2001. For me, there's this cognitive barrier between the pre-9/11 and post-9/11 world that may well not exist at all. Still, right around that time I just can't remember what the dominant sentiments were- how the world was different (if it really was different on a local level). I have to think about the world now, and what 9/11 really did to the world.
We of course saw a period of tremendous injustice on many fronts. The victims of 9/11 suffered injustice in their deaths that day. They committed no crime and deserved none of what happened. People elsewhere, however, also suffered injustice. The administration launched a war in Afghanistan that did not carry with it an understanding of the enemy at hand. Countless civilians have been exposed to harm and death through no fault of their own. Just like the people aboard those planes and in the Pentagon and World Trade Centers had no part in the foreign policy that engendered the hatred of others, the people of Afghanistan did not take part in the acts on that day. Still, ten years on they live under the shadow of that day in a very serious way. The people of Afghanistan had their world changed forever. And the invasion of Iraq was brought up in the ferver of "patriotism" that rose after the attacks. When Iraq occurred, I know that many people were caught up in the rhetoric that was used to justify the war. But many more, much braver people, spoke out against it. I wish I had been old enough to really have understood what was happening at that time. Instead, I had to watch the world around me and slowly come into the world intellectually under these circumstances.
When Osama bin Laden was killed this year, my first reaction was not jubilation. I didn't jump up and cheer. It was not that I was upset that bin Laden was killed- it was that I didn't really think anything was going to change. I had a moment when I sat there and thought back to that image I have about 9/11. The blue sky torn asunder. That image didn't melt away. No death would take away that feeling. No death was going to correct the injustice suffered by the people who died on 9/11, the civilians of Afghanistan, or the people of Iraq.
I grew up in a world where racist rhetoric had been used by people who feel I am too compassionate towards the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Somehow, my sympathies are transferred to the people who perpetrated the act instead of to the families who have lost loved ones everywhere. I grew up in a world that was governed by the fear of an invisible foe everywhere. Nothing changed when Osama bin Laden died. I don't remember where I heard it, but I think the following sentiment carries my own feelings quite well: "I will never celebrate another person's death, but neither will I mourn his [bin Laden]."
I know that many of the problems I observe today existed before 9/11. There were always crazy people who thought there was some massive world conspiracy out to take away their freedoms- 9/11 just provided them another medium to paint their lunacy on. There were always racists and xenophobes who blamed others for so many of their problems and sought to demonize that which was not them- 9/11 just gave them a new platform from which to shout. There were always people who wanted to forward a crooked foreign policy- 9/11 gave them new angles of justification.
People died on 9/11 because of the actions of a few criminals. And many more people have died since because of a reaction formed too poorly. I know what I say here will upset many, but I know that I am right. There is so much more I could say, but can't (or shouldn't if I ever want this post to end). As the ten year anniversary of 9/11 comes, we will rightful remember those who died on that day. But as the 11th year starts, I wonder how many people will remember that the world changed in so many more ways since then. The blue sky was truly torn asunder everywhere.
Ten years ago, on September 11th, I was getting ready for middle school to start. I was in the 7th grade, and classes didn't begin until 9 am. I remember, very vividly, that I was walking out of the shower and into the living room when I saw that the Today Show was on, as it always was in the morning. Only this time, the images were very different than the cooking segments or interviews that usually occupied the show at that time. The first world tower was spewing smoke, and Matt Lauer's comments came only sporadically and in short bursts. He was, like me, in absolute shock and disbelief. I remember that the first thing that went through my mind was that this had to have been an accident. But how could a pilot not have seen the tower? The airports were fairly close, so of course they could have been that low over the city if something had gone seriously wrong. But as this train of thought was progressing, on screen came the second plane. And flames. What was happening? I just couldn't put it together. It made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
By the time I made it to school, the notion that someone had actively attacked the World Trade Center had go around through the student body. I remember that my speech class was replaced by the entire class watching a tv set up. The whole day was marred by a strange silence that was spoken. We were talking, we just weren't really saying all that much. I also remember that fear was cropping up everywhere. Outside my science class, students were talking about how we might be the next target. When asked why we would be targeted, someone else responded "McHenry county is the fastest growing county in the country!" I don't know if that was true at the time, but it just demonstrates that we, as a bunch of 7th graders, really just let our fears plant themselves firmly. Everyone was seriously uncertain about what was going to happen next.
When I think back to that day, I imagine a vast, blue sky with that kind of summer morning warmth everywhere. Then an earth shattering bang. This is just the sense I got from that day. An average summer morning completely torn apart.
These are the memories most of us have, and what a lot of us are going to think about over the next week or so. But what I think also deserves reflection is just how much life has changed since September 11th, 2001. For me, there's this cognitive barrier between the pre-9/11 and post-9/11 world that may well not exist at all. Still, right around that time I just can't remember what the dominant sentiments were- how the world was different (if it really was different on a local level). I have to think about the world now, and what 9/11 really did to the world.
We of course saw a period of tremendous injustice on many fronts. The victims of 9/11 suffered injustice in their deaths that day. They committed no crime and deserved none of what happened. People elsewhere, however, also suffered injustice. The administration launched a war in Afghanistan that did not carry with it an understanding of the enemy at hand. Countless civilians have been exposed to harm and death through no fault of their own. Just like the people aboard those planes and in the Pentagon and World Trade Centers had no part in the foreign policy that engendered the hatred of others, the people of Afghanistan did not take part in the acts on that day. Still, ten years on they live under the shadow of that day in a very serious way. The people of Afghanistan had their world changed forever. And the invasion of Iraq was brought up in the ferver of "patriotism" that rose after the attacks. When Iraq occurred, I know that many people were caught up in the rhetoric that was used to justify the war. But many more, much braver people, spoke out against it. I wish I had been old enough to really have understood what was happening at that time. Instead, I had to watch the world around me and slowly come into the world intellectually under these circumstances.
When Osama bin Laden was killed this year, my first reaction was not jubilation. I didn't jump up and cheer. It was not that I was upset that bin Laden was killed- it was that I didn't really think anything was going to change. I had a moment when I sat there and thought back to that image I have about 9/11. The blue sky torn asunder. That image didn't melt away. No death would take away that feeling. No death was going to correct the injustice suffered by the people who died on 9/11, the civilians of Afghanistan, or the people of Iraq.
I grew up in a world where racist rhetoric had been used by people who feel I am too compassionate towards the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Somehow, my sympathies are transferred to the people who perpetrated the act instead of to the families who have lost loved ones everywhere. I grew up in a world that was governed by the fear of an invisible foe everywhere. Nothing changed when Osama bin Laden died. I don't remember where I heard it, but I think the following sentiment carries my own feelings quite well: "I will never celebrate another person's death, but neither will I mourn his [bin Laden]."
I know that many of the problems I observe today existed before 9/11. There were always crazy people who thought there was some massive world conspiracy out to take away their freedoms- 9/11 just provided them another medium to paint their lunacy on. There were always racists and xenophobes who blamed others for so many of their problems and sought to demonize that which was not them- 9/11 just gave them a new platform from which to shout. There were always people who wanted to forward a crooked foreign policy- 9/11 gave them new angles of justification.
People died on 9/11 because of the actions of a few criminals. And many more people have died since because of a reaction formed too poorly. I know what I say here will upset many, but I know that I am right. There is so much more I could say, but can't (or shouldn't if I ever want this post to end). As the ten year anniversary of 9/11 comes, we will rightful remember those who died on that day. But as the 11th year starts, I wonder how many people will remember that the world changed in so many more ways since then. The blue sky was truly torn asunder everywhere.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
People Here are Weird (Don't You Look at Me!)
I have spent just four days here in New Jersey, and already I am experiencing some culture shock. Living here is going to take some serious readjustment on my part, and its definitely going to take some getting use to.
First, people walk around here at night and aren't out to mug someone and/or worried they might actually get mugged. The South Side of Chicago is not a post-apocalyptic nightmare world marred by some perpetual state of anarchy, but it also isn't Lincoln Park or Naperville. Security concerns are legitimate, and the exaggerated shadows of nightfall can really amplify those fears. Here, I think the sketchiest thing I saw was someone rolling down a residential at about 70mph. When I lived in Chicago, I wouldn't say that I walked around with my eyes constantly darting around and expecting to be shot or stabbed at any given corner, but I certainly grew accustomed to the fact that bad things happen in a city. That's just the way it is. Every walk at night comes with some level of risk. But that seems to disappear here.
My girlfriend and I walked down to Nassau street the last two nights, and it certainly is a bustling little avenue. It has a lot to offer, certainly, and its very quaint. But it really felt like the only center of activity vis a vis a population density. As soon as we started walking away from Nassau things got quieter. But not quieter like "Hey, your wallets gonna be mine and if you yell someone is probably only going to tell you to be quiet." There are just fewer people. Doorways down Leigh Ave were left wide open and the sounds of people settled in their homes wafted out onto the street. There's just a certain tension missing from the air.
God, I miss that tension.
But here's a huge draw back to the way people relate to space here. If you aren't on Nassau street you must be on your way somewhere else immediately. There are fewer places with storefronts and places to linger, so people move about from one center to another, disjointed from any sort of cohesion in the borough. Perhaps once the undergraduates arrive things will change, but the way a place is during the time only permanent residents are around is certainly telling.
So Princeton is really a place characterized by several centers for communal exchange and many places people live. Its a suburb without the city and slightly more people. Movement is highly dependent on either a car or a biker with some street smarts. There's very little worry of being the victim of a crime on your way home from class, but there are also no other places of interest besides your immediate points of destination.
Let me also say that roads here make no sense. I understand Princeton was laid out before the invention of cars, but you'd still expect there to be some sort of order. Instead there are roads and destinations. That's about it. I will miss having the grid system.
What I'm learning is that I actually internalized a lot of things from living in Chicago that don't necessarily translate here. I watch my back a lot when I walk at night, which probably makes me look like a crazy person. I'm also expecting most idlers to ask me, aggressively, for money for the "bus" so they can get "home."* I'm a bit of a fish out of water at this point, but I am enjoying it at the moment. Though, that's probably because classes haven't started.
*Here, bus means drugs. And home means high. Just for those of you who didn't know.
First, people walk around here at night and aren't out to mug someone and/or worried they might actually get mugged. The South Side of Chicago is not a post-apocalyptic nightmare world marred by some perpetual state of anarchy, but it also isn't Lincoln Park or Naperville. Security concerns are legitimate, and the exaggerated shadows of nightfall can really amplify those fears. Here, I think the sketchiest thing I saw was someone rolling down a residential at about 70mph. When I lived in Chicago, I wouldn't say that I walked around with my eyes constantly darting around and expecting to be shot or stabbed at any given corner, but I certainly grew accustomed to the fact that bad things happen in a city. That's just the way it is. Every walk at night comes with some level of risk. But that seems to disappear here.
My girlfriend and I walked down to Nassau street the last two nights, and it certainly is a bustling little avenue. It has a lot to offer, certainly, and its very quaint. But it really felt like the only center of activity vis a vis a population density. As soon as we started walking away from Nassau things got quieter. But not quieter like "Hey, your wallets gonna be mine and if you yell someone is probably only going to tell you to be quiet." There are just fewer people. Doorways down Leigh Ave were left wide open and the sounds of people settled in their homes wafted out onto the street. There's just a certain tension missing from the air.
God, I miss that tension.
But here's a huge draw back to the way people relate to space here. If you aren't on Nassau street you must be on your way somewhere else immediately. There are fewer places with storefronts and places to linger, so people move about from one center to another, disjointed from any sort of cohesion in the borough. Perhaps once the undergraduates arrive things will change, but the way a place is during the time only permanent residents are around is certainly telling.
So Princeton is really a place characterized by several centers for communal exchange and many places people live. Its a suburb without the city and slightly more people. Movement is highly dependent on either a car or a biker with some street smarts. There's very little worry of being the victim of a crime on your way home from class, but there are also no other places of interest besides your immediate points of destination.
Let me also say that roads here make no sense. I understand Princeton was laid out before the invention of cars, but you'd still expect there to be some sort of order. Instead there are roads and destinations. That's about it. I will miss having the grid system.
What I'm learning is that I actually internalized a lot of things from living in Chicago that don't necessarily translate here. I watch my back a lot when I walk at night, which probably makes me look like a crazy person. I'm also expecting most idlers to ask me, aggressively, for money for the "bus" so they can get "home."* I'm a bit of a fish out of water at this point, but I am enjoying it at the moment. Though, that's probably because classes haven't started.
*Here, bus means drugs. And home means high. Just for those of you who didn't know.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Friends Back East
Welcome to your new home
Here's your bed, you sleep alone
Getting everything you wanted
Getting everything you wanted and some
Here's the kitchen, cook alone
Look at the water boil.
I am officially a Chicago transplant on the east coast, and I wont lie its going to be tough. Of course there are the financial challenges that I have to face until I get my fellowship check (I'm hanging on by just a few hairs) but there's so much more to adjust to. And these are the things I have yet to even fully process.
There is, of course, the adjustment of being away from so many of the people I know so well, and who have come to know me. Out here, its just my girlfriend and I sleeping on air mattress on the floor at night in a largely empty apartment. And my air mattress deflated last night. It is disorienting to know that I will not run into anyone I know as I explore campus. There will be no recognition or catching up. Even the people I do know here in Princeton are known only from one small weekend back in March. I both relish and fear this state of being, because being unknown liberates us from fulfilling expectations as well as traps us to the scrutiny that a bug under a lamp would experience.
This is the melodrama of the twenty-something year olds everywhere. We are cut fresh from college and sent into the winds. Some of us have had to leave behind everything and everyone we ever knew in order to take the next steps in our lives, but those steps are truly uncertain. I don't really feel the same way I did when I started college- my unbridled optimism about the next step is replaced with cautious enjoyment. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I know there are many people I grew up with who are feeling the same thing.
I'm not writing to complain about anything, because I think I have very little to complain about. I am in a very privileged position in terms of what I get to do for the next 6 years. Yes, I am desperately low on cash, and my furniture consists of a dining set and several boxes. But that really doesn't matter in the long run. What I am trying to vent, in some degree, is the fact that after college some of us feel really lost even when it seems like our lives should be figured out. Entering grad school isn't the period on the last phase of my life. Everything runs together. Grad school is me from last year without a city that he knows, or even loves. I don't know much about Princeton other than the fact that I am going to try and make my home here.
All homes have a moment when they are made. But at the same time, I am never going to really leave my old home behind. That's why I will always be from Chicago when it comes right down to it. We are all fortunate that, as we move into the post-college landscape, we are able to bring something- however intangible and tacit it really is- along with us.
So many people from my generation are now looking a new landscape in the eye. There is not the certainty of protection inside the institutions and homes we use to know. We are instead forced to not only forge ourselves continuously, but also new spaces in which we must live. Its exciting and unsettling, but its everything we really wanted. It just doesn't look like we imagined it, yet.
The song quoted at the top of this post is "Friends Back East" by Jawbreaker, from which the title is also taken.
Here's your bed, you sleep alone
Getting everything you wanted
Getting everything you wanted and some
Here's the kitchen, cook alone
Look at the water boil.
I am officially a Chicago transplant on the east coast, and I wont lie its going to be tough. Of course there are the financial challenges that I have to face until I get my fellowship check (I'm hanging on by just a few hairs) but there's so much more to adjust to. And these are the things I have yet to even fully process.
There is, of course, the adjustment of being away from so many of the people I know so well, and who have come to know me. Out here, its just my girlfriend and I sleeping on air mattress on the floor at night in a largely empty apartment. And my air mattress deflated last night. It is disorienting to know that I will not run into anyone I know as I explore campus. There will be no recognition or catching up. Even the people I do know here in Princeton are known only from one small weekend back in March. I both relish and fear this state of being, because being unknown liberates us from fulfilling expectations as well as traps us to the scrutiny that a bug under a lamp would experience.
This is the melodrama of the twenty-something year olds everywhere. We are cut fresh from college and sent into the winds. Some of us have had to leave behind everything and everyone we ever knew in order to take the next steps in our lives, but those steps are truly uncertain. I don't really feel the same way I did when I started college- my unbridled optimism about the next step is replaced with cautious enjoyment. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I know there are many people I grew up with who are feeling the same thing.
I'm not writing to complain about anything, because I think I have very little to complain about. I am in a very privileged position in terms of what I get to do for the next 6 years. Yes, I am desperately low on cash, and my furniture consists of a dining set and several boxes. But that really doesn't matter in the long run. What I am trying to vent, in some degree, is the fact that after college some of us feel really lost even when it seems like our lives should be figured out. Entering grad school isn't the period on the last phase of my life. Everything runs together. Grad school is me from last year without a city that he knows, or even loves. I don't know much about Princeton other than the fact that I am going to try and make my home here.
All homes have a moment when they are made. But at the same time, I am never going to really leave my old home behind. That's why I will always be from Chicago when it comes right down to it. We are all fortunate that, as we move into the post-college landscape, we are able to bring something- however intangible and tacit it really is- along with us.
So many people from my generation are now looking a new landscape in the eye. There is not the certainty of protection inside the institutions and homes we use to know. We are instead forced to not only forge ourselves continuously, but also new spaces in which we must live. Its exciting and unsettling, but its everything we really wanted. It just doesn't look like we imagined it, yet.
The song quoted at the top of this post is "Friends Back East" by Jawbreaker, from which the title is also taken.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)