schweblog

1. Yes, you feel alone, confused, worried about the future, and existentially bewildered. This does not make you special or unique. People have been feeling this way for A Very Long Time, even before the word “existentially” had worked its way into common parlance.
2. If you try to quantify the feelings in (1) in an effort to compare your condition to others, you’re doomed to failure. And you’re just making things worse for everyone. Try to empathize and the differences become irrelevant.
3. If you think your sentiments can be adequately expressed with an animated .gif, then you should probably turn off your computer for A Very Long Time.
4. There is no substitute for concentrated, deliberate attention to any subject—academic, emotional, or otherwise. This attention need not be intellectual.
5. Sometimes the trite solutions are the best ones. The trite solutions typically require the most attention.
6. Inauthenticity will destroy you. When it finally leaves you, you will be on your deathbed with more regrets than your geriatric mind can count.
7. Distractions are typically worse for you than the affliction(s) you’re trying to distract yourself from and are far more likely to bother you for A Very Long Time.
8. The world needs more grand gestures.
9. It is harder (and far more noble) to commit oneself to a cause than it is to treat something with irony.

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Rockers. Jocks. Goths. Gangbangers/gangsters. Preppies.

My teenage years were filled with concern over the prototypical social molds of the 1990s. Baggy pants? All black? Flannel? These concerns evaporated by the time I hit college, one of those things that is uncanny in how much it matters one moment and how little it matters the next.

And let’s not pretend otherwise. It was vacuous. Your ability (or willingness) to drop $50.00 on a pair of JNCOs was, for a few short years, what separated the cool from the not-so-cool. A shitty pair of pants was what decided which social circles you would be permitted into and those you would be shunned by.

It all seems ridiculous. Not just seemingly ridiculous. It was ridiculous. (I’m sure said paradigms still exist, in other permutations, amongst youth today—I’m far too lazy to learn about them, although I’m sure my life as a high school teacher will enlighten me in this regard.) And now that my peer group has matured a little bit, everyone seems to be more or less comfortable in their own skins. The paradigms are gone and we all look back at the days of our youth with a smirk of embarrassment.

And now there are hipsters.

Somehow, this has caught on amongst twenty-somethings. Somehow, a weird social paradigm has managed to survive past many people’s teens and an entire generation is caught up in a milieu of tight jeans, fixed-gear bicycles, Toms, record players, and…uh…irony? And, oh yeah, obscure things you probably haven’t heard of.

Urban Dictionary’s top-voted entry for hipster is, “the blend of every failed fad of 1990s.” Independent of the accuracy of such a definition, I’m still astounded at how many people my age have committed to this…lifestyle? The thing is, I’m hesitant to call it a lifestyle because…well, it’s too easy. It’s not a lifestyle, no more than the goths, jocks, and preppies of our youth were a lifestyle.

HYPOTHESIS: The “lifestyles” (again, I use this term hesitantly) of our youth didn’t melt away, but were forced out by real (more substantial, textured, whatever) lifestyles as we developed into self-authoring adults who cultivated real interests and passions, etc.

So lifestyles/social paradigms/whatever still persist into adulthood. Hipsters are just one of them, right? Why pick on them? Well, again, because being a hipster too easy. I have many hats that I think lump me in with a group: philosophy, education, reading, descriptivist grammar. All of these are products of me cultivating a passion. Spending time doing stuff. If someone could buy a collection of Plato and become a philosopher, then my study of philosophy would be utterly meaningless. It would be silly. It would be vacuous.

One of the key aspects of these more substantial, textured lifestyles is that they are predicated on things besides owning shit. I.e., you can’t study philosophy by purchasing a pair of pants. And this, I think, is what makes the hipster paradigm so goddamn puzzling. I can go drop a couple hundred dollars on some paraphernalia, claim that my appreciation for everything mainstream is tongue-in-cheek, and become a hipster overnight. And since there’s no substantial investment required to do so, my ownership of said products is necessary and sufficient for me to become a hipster.

I thought we were done with this…?

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Being only halfway employed has its perks. I have copious amounts of time to read the stack of fiction that collected over the course of my graduate career. I can spend lazy afternoons at the cafe reading said fiction. Or go on a bike ride during the first weeks of spring weather. Or cook some labor-intensive dish that I would otherwise lack the energy to even think about.

But I have also been applying for some additional part-time gigs to pay the bills. After all, I really should consider trying to pay off my student loans at some point. So some of my precious free time has been used for applying to jobs. It is monotonous, on the whole, but occasionally I have experiences so surreal that I can’t help but revel in the peculiarity.

I went in for an interview yesterday with a personal practice attorney. Attorneys, as people, vary as much as any other group, but when they are quirky, they are absolutely quirky—quirky with an energetic absurdity that is almost beyond imagination. I’ve worked extensively with engineers, too, who more or less come as close to the Platonic form of “weird” or “awkward” when they are weird or awkward, but they are decidedly not quirky. No. Lawyers have within them the seeds of pure, undistilled quirkiness. I have felt this way for a long time, but this interview reinforced this sentiment so strongly. After the usual introductions, the exchange went something like this:

Lawyer: Here, fill out this short little personality test.

Me: OK… [This is downright weird. Personality tests belong in big corporations looking to quantify human capital, not in a personal practice attorney's office. I have never seen anything like this. Nevertheless, I quickly complete it.]

Lawyer: All right, let’s see…you’re yellow. Which means you’re creative!

Me: I’ve always considered myself more analytic, but I guess I have a creative streak.

Lawyer: If you’re creative, why aren’t you writing poetry? Or a book?

Me: Well, I’ve never been that interested in writing fiction. I enjoy reading it…

Lawyer: Now, it says you studied philosophy on your resume. In the context of this personality test, you just discuss ideas forever and ever, on and on! [No, I am not making this up.]

Me: Well, I enjoy discussing ideas, but I’ve always been drawn to philosophy that can be applied to the world.

Lawyer: You didn’t listen to me! I said, in the context of this personality test! That wasn’t a comment about philosophy generally. [Having read over said personality test, I am sure there was nothing about philosophy, or philosophy majors, on it.]

Me: OK…

Lawyer: All right. Tell me when you were born?

Me: Uh…September 28.

Lawyer: Ah, so you’re a Libra! Libras like to talk a lot!

Me: Uh…I enjoy discussions, but I really don’t talk all that much, I don’t think.

Lawyer: Do you happen to know what time you were born? [Yes, really.]

Me: 9:30 a.m.? …I think? I’m not really sure.

Lawyer: That’s alright. I’ve heard enough. I like what you have said here and I may be in touch to schedule a follow up interview.

Me: [seriously puzzled, standing up] Uh, OK. Thanks…thanks for meeting with me.

Lawyer: Sure! That’s the backdoor over there. Just take that door out. Yeah. See you later.

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