FOREST GUMP WAS WRONG: LIFE IS LIKE A FUNNEL.

Remember middle school? Those were good times. The teachers shuffled us around between reading, math, gym and art class, and then after school we played a sport or watched cartoons. We were forced to dabble in everything, with the hope that we would be good in at least one subject. I remember one time I god interviewed by a magazine because I had improved at something, and even though that something happened to be organizing my backpack, it was a welcome achievement. In fact, this success of mine has been immortalized via “the Google” (as our old president Bush calls it)… you can read about it HERE.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that middle school is the last time I can remember being allowed to focus on a number of different possibilities for myself as a person. Back then, we were still young enough to develop a bizarre interest in some weird science project, or to suddenly bust out at a spelling contest with some amazing display of alphabetical talent. We were all undiscovered, waiting for the system to start us along with the filing process, shooing us in directions gently and with all the non-precision of bowling alley bumpers.

When I was in middle school, I always liked art best, but I was also good at math and spelling. For some reason, this disturbed my teachers. It was as though they could foresee my future, and realized how much of a struggle it would become for me to pick between everything I liked. When I got to high school, I was dramatically forced to choose between sports and band. Gosh, what a choice! I remember beleaguering the decision until I decided to secretly do both by lying, cheating and stealing (I was an aggressive high school student). That was my first taste of the system of specialization, where we are eventually forced to funnel ourselves into one specific activity. Voila: our supposed occupation!

The problem I have with the idea of the “occupation” is that it implies being involved in a specific activity all of the time. This feels inherently wrong to me. I used to cherish the feeling of getting released from school, hearing the bell ringing so that I could fling shut my locker and dash outside, immediately forgetting everything I had previously been thinking about. I like to think of those days as my old form of healthy ADHD, where I paid attention during specifically delegated chunks of time, and then allowed for my brain to become interested in whatever else it felt piqued by. Being a grown up means losing that sense of mental experimentation, honing down and thinking about one thing almost all of the time, having one specific skill and getting paid to do it over and over. I guess this is what we get for developing as a species and coming up with occupational specialization, possibly the best and worst thing to happen to humans. I just hate the way that computers (e-mail in particular) have caused work and play to merge into this clumpy goo of everything-at-once. I work on a computer, I play on a computer, I pyramidrome on a computer. This brings up the problem I attempted to solve during my thesis studies at Vassar: the disparity between digital media and meaningful experience. Can you do both at the same time? I’d like to think yes, but it’s turning out to seem more and more impossible.

When I started PYRAMIDROME, I thought it was going to be a venue for facilitating discussion between the frustrated 20-somethings as we search for employment and sense of worth. As I have suddenly found myself with a stressful job and a lot to think about, it has become much more a point of meditation for me. “What would my inner pyramidroming self think of me now?” I go to work and stare at my computer for 8 hours, then come home and go on my computer more, and suddenly it’s late at night and I feel like I haven’t DONE anything all day. I can never figure out what it means to “DO” something, but what I’ve come to think is that it basically just means doing anything that is unrelated to computers. Suddenly my middle school self has stopped participating in math, science, reading, art and gym class. All I do is sit in computer class, pecking away at a keyboard all day. By middle school standards, I would be a freak! I went to liberal arts college to get a balanced education, which I feel strongly was important to my development as a well-rounded, informed and analytical person. Now I wonder how to keep fulfilling this sense of “roundness” with a job, when I get home with only an hour left of daylight, barely any time at all left for hugging trees, becoming a ballerina and changing the world. Oh, my middle school self had so much prospect!

Basically I want to finish this post off with a shout out to my fellow p-dromers. I feel sort of like I betrayed my flock by finding a job, but I want to verbalize my opinions on the matter: ALL IS NOT SOLVED BY EMPLOYMENT! Before I had a job, I felt aimless and anxious. Now that I have a job, I feel exhausted and anxious. I remember fondly the times I spent pondering on the meaning of life, taking walks to pass the days by, talking on the phone commiserating with friends and writing in my sketchbook. I haven’t done any of those things in the past couple of weeks since I’ve been working, and I worry that once I am actually employed I won’t even remember that I used to like doing those things. It scares me that the prospect of a mid-life crisis feels probable, after contributing to the American workforce for less than a month. I don’t understand how most people are capable of getting up at 7am, working all day, coming home at 6pm and then feeling like they have any energy left for “hobby time!” (not that anybody calls it hobby time self-admittedly). In college, I was lucky if I spent a good 4 hours doing anything productive in one day–now all of a sudden I’m expected to be up and at ‘em all day! What the hell! Chu crazy.
I apologize for this rambling post, and I especially apologize for bringing up middle school (who do I think I am?). I want to finish this piece of shit by declaring war on the American system! I don’t believe in the idea of occupation. Employment is a fake word. Like I said earlier, we get two things from the American capitalistic system: a way to toil most of our lives away, and a way to get money to enhance the remaining portio (the part of our lives that isn’t spent toiling). Neither of these benefits excite me very much, so I’m left wondering: how can I navigate the system in a way that is fulfilling? I like what Liz’s dad said: “Don’t get depressed!” It reminds me a lot about what my dad said, and what my mom says, and what everyone is always saying. “Yeah, it sucks, but don’t let it get to ya’!” Okay, okay, I’m really trying to not let it get to me, but it’s tough! I feel like I want to gather all of my friends in a big group hug and tell everyone personally how I think they’re great, and that they shouldn’t get demoralized, and that we should all be happy just to wake up every morning and smell the roses and eat cereal and take the long way home! But c’mon now, we did that shit in middle school (ahem), and now we must prioritize. If I only get an hour to myself a day, how am I going to spend it? I don’t know, but I’m guessing it has something to do with liquor.