Bummer

I was cleaning out my computer documents when I came across a draft of an opinion piece I planned on sending into my school's newspaper before I graduated. I got busy with finals, totally forgot about it, and am now a bit bummed because I think my fellow graduates could have related to some degree. But as they say, you're not a writer unless you have an audience, so critique away...

Graduation:

In the wake of the ceaseless fuzz that surrounds the life of us pending graduates, I can’t help but feeling not only utterly helpless but also completely annoyed. Being thrust into the real world amidst the worst economic crisis of the passed several generations is not something that soothes me to sleep at night. But what only picks at the wound of such a realization is the incessant “what are you gonna do?” questions that get tossed my way numerous times a week. For the record, to answer such questions truthfully, upon graduation I don’t plan on doing fuck.

That isn’t to say I have no ambition, do not have any talents, or any long-term goals, because I have plenty of them all. However what this does say is that I am not thrilled about the prospect of becoming one of the flies that buzzes around the shit that is the application and interview processes of the current job market. Rather, I plan on using the money I saved at my job while busting my ass in school to do some summer reflections. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? Summer Reflections. It could almost be the title of some cheesy self-help book you see right as you walk into Borders. But really, that’s what I plan to do. Move back in with my folks, work intensively at perfecting my various personal interests, and use the summer as a vantage point for discerning my future plans. May not be quite the money maker, but I’ll feel good doing it.

In the early 1930’s, the Russian poet and novelist, Andrei Bely, once wrote “the triumph of materialism has abolished all matter.” He made this statement in surveying the war-torn state the Bolshevik Revolution had left his country in. In surveying our computer culture that is oversaturated with technological stimuli, I have a made a similar observation, and have concluded that the triumph of our materialism has enveloped matter. We live amidst perpetual noise, perpetual clicking of buttons, perpetual notifications filled with unimportant and trivial statements; we are perpetually logged on and tuned in. What strikes me most is that these factors will inevitably not only become more ubiquitous as we grow older, but paramount to our success.

But maybe all this is idealist drivel, maybe Danzig was right after all; perhaps it is “time to be an android and not a man.” The choice is yours.