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July 20, 2007
Trying to stay cool
Between work and vacation, blogging has been nill lately. But, I don't think this blog is dead just yet.
Since I'm in this situation myself, one theme that has been of interest to me lately is that of the current crop of twenty- and thirty-somethings trying to define what adulthood means. One the one hand, for example, are the New Victorians. On the other hand are the grups/yipsters/yindies/whatever.
(Both articles are fascinating; this post is really just an excuse to link to them.)
Part of me sympathizes with the grups/yipsters/yindies - I was even, coincidentally, listening to Arcade Fire while reading the articles. And spending the rest of my life working in middle-management in a cubicle does sound like a level of hell. Perhaps that is merely because I have seen Office Space 10 too many times. Or, perhaps the grups really are on to something - you should work to make your life a little more meaningful by infusing it with "passion", beauty, art, and some excitement.
At the same time, I think the New Victorians have a slightly better end of the deal. One of the key things the "grups" article brings out is the blending of childhood and adulthood:
This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag, with two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano.
There are a couple of ways, it seems, to bridge the generation gap. One is to make adults like children. The other, and what the New Victorians seem to be kind of pointing to, is to make children into adults.
I think this is because, in the end, one of the fundamental aspects of being an adult, and especially of being a parent, is self-sacrifice. Giving up the $450 jeans and the snowboarding vacation in order to pay for diapers, for example. Being willing to be slightly uncool in order to make sure your family is adequately provided for. Working at a job that is, at times, dull and rewarding in order to stay out of debt. And so on.
Still, I don't plan on giving up the Decemberists any time soon.
misc | By maphet | 01:11 PM
