What People Want?

Not too long ago I was driving to a show in Boulder with one of my very best friends. The hour or so drive was permanently punctured by our laughter and conversation, much like the wheel of an old music box, that turns to make a song as the little needles plunk away toward their destination. It was just as lovely, too.

We reached a point in our conversation where we were discussing a mutual friend, who she knows far better than I do. She talked about how happy it made her to see him happy, to see him doing what he loved to do, because she just didn't see him like that very often. I'd picked up over the weeks that this fellow had a hard time of it growing up, and as I always did upon hearing this information, simply added it to the catalogue of the person I was getting to know, so that I might make special note of it should it come up in conversation between us. These things, these growing up things- they really bring certain schools of people together.

At any rate, she related to me how he had been homeless at a young age at one point, and how that seemed to have affected his outlook toward life in ways she couldn't understand. I asked if she had ever had a friend who had spent time really being homeless before, and she said no. I told her about my friends who had done so, and how they always returned to the old life (meaning the daily, work and have a home life) a lot quieter, with far more to say and a kind of deep blockage that wouldn't let them say anything. It really changes someone, I said, sometimes forever.

We further dissected this friend of ours, trading information and impressions to try to understand together who he was and how he worked. What he needed from a friend, and what we might do to help him be a happy person someday. These things are very important to her and I. If we know you, and we decide that we love you, or that you are worthy of love, we will actively work on the problem of your not being happy. Many would say it's a maternal instinct, but personally, I always thought of it as a family instinct. As in, you don't choose your family. They choose you. And at the same time, you're family in not always who you're born into.

She mentions a conversation she had with our fellow the previous week, to illustrate her lack of understanding in regard to his outlook. She told me that he said he would be perfectly content, and in fact was considering, going to New York to live humbly, playing trumpet in the subways there for money. He could be perfectly happy doing this, he said.

This blew her mind. She wasn't offended or snotty— she was fascinated. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like him," she said. "I mean, I always thought The Goal was to make money and have a family; I always thought that's just what people do. And here he is, perfectly happy to do nothing but play for pennies for the rest of his life."

And this blew my mind. "You already know tons of people like this," I said, citing friends of ours that had traveled the trains, lived in collectives, busked on street corners and so on. She was still thrown. It was like she always knew this fact, really, but had never realized it. Had never held it up to her eyes, in her fingers, to see for herself what it really meant as a concept. And the crazy thing was, that I was doing the exact same thing with her original concept...

People just want to make money and have families?

It was like we were in the training room of the Matrix, where the simple knee jerk of an idea might throw your partner into the rafters, based on the programing of the system you were in. In her system, people grew up to go to school, went to school to go to college, went to college to make money, and made money so they could have a family. When I spell it out like this, it seems so simple. But it's not.

For me, I grew up to learn, I learned to survive, I survived to live, and I lived to... well... that changed every few years or so. But it was never to make money. And I've never wanted children. I've always wanted a lover, someone to marry. But that has nothing to do with money, or the cycle of life, or why we do things. That's just something everyone wants. I mean... you just do what you need to to live, and then you live however you want. If you're smart, you figure out what makes you happy. If you're not, then you continue to simply be a product of your life experiment, and too often, that's just miserable and messy. That's how I've lost a lot of old friends- whether to death or just to incurable unhappiness.

Two different view points. Two different outlooks. Two radically different ways of seeing and living in the world. And yet, here we are, two peas in a pod. And ever since that night a week ago, I keep asking myself, well, what do they want? You spend your whole life thinking it's not a matter of want, but a matter of need. That it's not a matter of desire, but of circumstance. After a while, you realize you have more control then you believed, but even after that... you may have noticed, most people never change.

Most people forget to ask themselves what they want.

The Predictive Nature of Toys 'R' Us

From Frank Turner’s 2008 album Love, Ire and Song to the Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and the A.V. Club’s review (that I’ve just read )regarding LCD Soundsystem’s recent This Is Happening, there appears to be something happening in music. It appears to be, once again, speaking for a generation.

I know that not everyone who reads this blog will have heard all of these albums, and admittedly, I haven’t heard This Is Happening myself. But you don’t need to be familiar with the lyrics to understand what I am about to tell you about them. Because, you see, all of them are talking about something I and my friends have been having a complex and multifaceted time dealing with and discussing: growing up.

Could Toys ‘R’ Us have been right? All of those commercials, I can still remember the first part of the song I used to sing: ‘I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid…’ I used to know all the lyrics. And what I find so interesting about this subject, is that it has crossed my mind from so many different directions that it has finally begun to trace something like a bull’s eye in the center, the likes of which I am trying to throw a dart at as we speak.

I’ve read in numerous articles over the past few months, from periodicals such as The New York Times and Time Magazine, that my generation is showing a disturbing new trend: We are not growing up. Or at least, this is the broad conclusion being drawn by many professionals. The bare bones of the sociological study regarding this subject are that young adults ages 18-28 are not moving out of their parent’s houses.

Obviously, the economy has a lot to do with this- especially the collapsed housing market. Add on top of that the fact that we face minimal job opportunities post-graduation, and the tightening of purse strings is universal. I would wager to say that many are staying with their parents because of one or more of the following reasons:

• They cannot afford to move out on their own
• Their parents cannot afford for them to move out on their own (thereby missing that added kick toward the mortgage payment)
• They cannot find steady work, and the financial security that comes with it, that allows one to peacefully sign a long-term lease
• They are broke and swimming in debt from student loans and/or medical bills

Now, obviously these four points I’m making all assume that everyone, like me, wants to move out on their own as soon as possible. Where a study to be conducted, I would again wager that I would be right in this assumption- but then again, I usually think I am right. What irks me about these findings is that everyone is assuming these people just want to play with their ipods and aren’t willing to get a job. That, my friends, I declare BS.

I have little to back me up on this Proclamation of the Bogus except personal experience. A close relative of mine, for example, has struggled to maintain a living wage and his own apartment for years. It certainly isn’t because he wants to live off of others’ hard work- that I can guarantee. Many friends of mine, upon graduation, have spent a year or more looking for work, in the meantime taking whatever jobs they can, and eventually are forced to move back in with their parents. Most of my friends have three or more roommates.

But I digress- because the point is that no, we don’t want to grow up. But not in the way you think we don’t. You’re very close to the mark, Society, but you’re just a little over the top of the main idea.

Privacy, independence, free will, all we hold dear, essentially, is only achieved in one’s 20’s by NOT living with your parents. So what do I mean then, when I say that I don’t want to grow up? I mean what Frank Turner meant, that the fight’s still in me and I’m not willing to let it die out in the face of how I am supposed to age. Like all of the superficial, fantastic, and multicolored pop and dance music I throw in on a Friday night, I just want to dance and talk about music and sit in coffee shops and engage with groups of people like me until I die. I just want to play, and I want to retain my ability to see the magical and naive, because I think something my generation has come to the conclusion of, is that when you lose that ability, you lose something really important. And honestly, it looks like the last couple of generations, and especially our parents, lost that ability long ago.

You lose a piece of that child-like magic when you divorce, when you buy a house you know you can’t afford, when you succumb to apathy, or bitterness, or a permanent state of drunkenness. When you get too much power, or worry over not having enough. When you let yourself focus on the car ride instead of the bike ride. These things are so common, and they are pulling you apart piece by piece.

So I don’t want to grow up like you did- like you do. I am holding on to what I still have and working toward understanding what I already left behind. I live on my own, I go to work and I succeed in school. And I may have to move back in with my parents after I graduate. But I am a child in all of the right ways. Like those Arcade Fire songs, I am willing myself to let go of the adult-themed adolescence I had; to let go of the disillusionment that won over when punk rock failed me and the rest of the world wasn’t any better than my parents. But you see, because we are taking a little more time with the dialogue… great things can happen.

Ahhhhhh this strange path! Sure! It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. And I like to think it’s changing the way things might be done- the way the next generation might be raised. With a little more wonder and a little less drama maybe. A bigger mind and a more fluent tongue. This is what I like to think of when I realize I sometimes relate more to my friend’s kids then I do my friends- that really, the faith and hope I have for me and mine is a faith and hope I have for the future we will create.
Don’t be so negative, folks. It was bad, yeah, and sometimes it still is. But it’s what we choose to let go of that defines us more then what we choose to hold on to. At least, that’s what I like to think on days like this. And on matters such as these, I really am the betting type.

Three Tales of a Winter Day

Three things just happened within the last hour that I would like to tell you about. They are as follows: My Native Americans in American History class had its final session (In The Court of the Conqueror), A girl came into the restroom while I was leaving and began to throw up (A Spirit Says Hello) and my Spanish professor told me that her mother had died (I Am Reminded of My Place).

In The Court of the Conqueror

This was the first class in a long time to move me, and to make me think differently. My professor was very passionate throughout it. We ended the class by learning about sacred sites to native peoples, and how they have, in the past 50 years, begun to pursue legal means of protecting these sites from non-native interests, preserving them for future generations of Indians. Normally, this would be very dry reading, but the importance stressed upon us by our professor made it exhilarating, and gave me the golden sense of not only leaving the classroom with an opinion, but feeling confident that I had the knowledge to back it up. Often, if I don't speak my mind in conversation, it is because I lack this confidence.

He ended the class by telling us of the same class that he has before us in the mornings. All semester, he said, an Apache student had been taking this class with little participation in classroom discussion. He was obviously native, and our professor knew him to be bright through the written assignments he turned in. The class, on this final day, was debating the outcome of the Cave Rock legislation in Tahoe, in which the Washoe tribe won litigation to protect their sacred site (quite literally the spiritual center of their world) against an organization of rock climbers who wished to use it. The story was dramatic and impressive. My class all seemed to be in agreement that we were happy with the turnout of the case, but this prior class continued to discuss how a better compromise might have been reached between the two parties. Near the end of the class, the Apache student, for the first time, raised his hand to speak.

He said that no one in the class knew how difficult the class was for him. That some days he couldn't hardly stand to attend. That he had grown up with the history of his people, passed down from his elders. And that some days he left angry.

Our professor stood before us with a brightness in his eyes we had seen before. His voice grew noticeably louder with the words he spoke. "Can you even imagine?" he said, "What it was like for this man to attend this class, every day? To sit here, in the classroom of the colonizer, and hear the history of his own people, coming from me? To read about his people's struggles in the court of their conquerors?"

"Imagine for a second, that the United States is conquered by China in the near future, and we are seen as filthy, and backwards, and irrelevant. That our children are taken from us to institutions we don't know and can't understand- sometimes not returning. That our parents and grandparents are beaten and humiliated before our eyes. Now imagine a hundred years from now, your great-grandchildren sitting in a classroom, while a Chinese professor teaches him about his people."

The class was still. We were in the presence of something far bigger than ourselves.


A Spirit Says Hello

I shook his hand after class and told him how much I thought of him and his class, and he graciously thanked me. I grabbed my things and walked down the stairs, lit my first cigarette of the day and proceeded to walk across campus to the Modern Languages Building.

There is no contentment quite like the first cigarette of the day, taking your time while walking, on a decent day that affords you the mobility to move freely without a heavy coat.

My feet passed over the pavement like a water glider must feel on a lake- at one with the fluidity. Wishing the clouds would clear up was my only wish in the world, and I meditated deeply on the class I had just ended. How it had opened a whole new schema of information in my mind. Of the honor of the historian, and the respect I feel for story tellers. I thought about my own place within those titles, and in lieu of pride, I felt a deeper contentment.

I walked up the stairs within the building and headed toward the bathroom. I was gathering my things to leave when a girl I didn't see walked into a stall, and shortly, I began to hear her vomit. It was a deep wretch; uncontrollable once started. It was her guts pulling themselves out, and the sweat beading on her forehead, and the snot pouring from her nose. It was the negligence and apathy toward the footsteps I was outside the door, and upon leaving through that door, the uninhibited sounds of sickness following me to whisper in the hallway: Someone is not well.

It made me think of the last time I had thrown up at school, and the accompanying shame and darkness I had felt. It reminded me of mornings I poured myself a drink to cure a headache that was not entirely physical. It recalled entire days lain in bed, unable to move, for fear of breaking the crystal heart inside me, that while fragile as thin ice, had the density and weight to keep itself there, in my bed, thinking of loss and sorrow and all that held me in the night, despite the sun behind my blinds.

I walked down the hallway and knew I would never revisit that place. It wasn't a thought- it was a knowledge. A bone. A beating heart inside me.


I Am Reminded of My Place

My professor's door is open and she has no lights on; she is working by the light of the cold gray window behind her, whose blinds are down but not shuttered. Her computer has a paler glow. She looks like she hasn't been sleeping.

I set down my things and pull up a chair to the awkward desk adjacent to her. We make small talk; she is printing out the test I am there to make up. Last time I was here was also to make up a test, after I had returned from Matt's funeral. I remember telling her how quickly he had passed after diagnosis, and that she told me that her mother had just been diagnosed with cancer too. She looked like someone had just broken a pane of glass over her head when she said that. The deep sadness and sincerity behind her dark brown eyes was extremely comforting to me, however, and I hoped that mine gave her something too. She was so quiet and gracious.

I ask her how her mother is as she hands me the test. Her eyes have tears in them, and they aren't sudden. They slipped through the door quietly and softly, like a warm bath. "She died on Thanksgiving day."

I am so sorry. It happened so quickly. I know that mine was not a relative, but I understand and I'm so sorry.

She doesn't choke, she doesn't sniffle. But those soft warm tears are obscured as she looks down. "Well now don't get upset."

She isn't talking to me.

I complete the test methodically, and check over every question, correcting a few amateur mistakes I tend to make in the first pass. I am sure I have gotten an A.

I stand up and hand it back to her. You have my deepest condolences for your family. I know it's not worth much, but it does get easier. The holidays are the hardest to get through. Everyone is supposed to be happy...

"You're at least supposed to get a break from your life."

I know. When I was 16 I had a friend die over Thanksgiving weekend. I barely have a few memories of that Christmas at all-

There is a knock at the door. Her warm, brown and bathing eyes walk around the desk to answer it, and I begin to gather my things.

Another woman, probably a professor, walks in, and they awkwardly, silently communicate while looking at me and shuffling around. I move forward and give her a distant, non-committal hug, understanding that the proper person is now here to take my place in this room. I'm so sorry, I say, and thank you, for letting me make up the test.

I walk down the hallway toward the computer lounge, and I think to myself- this means something. And once again, the solace of understanding words begin to flow into my mind, and I sit down, ready to write.

Marx's Views on Wilco's Last Album

A lot of people have asked me within the last year what a hipster is. I suspect that is because I myself am one (proudly). Often I give a simple summation of any micro-culture and state "Look at the clothes we wear, music we listen to, bars we frequent, topics we discuss, and things we find important. That is what a hipster is." This, however, has got me thinking of the 'hipster' in a larger sense. If you tire of reading this already, here is the short answer:

 Forever 21/homemade fashion/music geekery, anything indie, punk, or geek rock, bars like Sputnik or The Thin Man, anything having to do with music, pop culture, literature, art, and whatever else we may be majoring in, and lastly, the hot topics of the day: being green, living collectively, reading obscurely, dancing frequently, discussing endlessly, and enjoying the simple things in life (like knitting and riding bikes).

Normally I'm not a proponent of run-on sentences, but this answer must be said all in one breath. It adds to the appeal of the short answer. Anyway, today I was reading up on Gilbert and Kahl's model of U.S. class structure for a paper due in my sociology class. It's a very interesting read so far, and it spends the first chapter discussing Marx's and Weber's view of social class, status, and stratification. I found myself applying what I was reading to my mental file on 'Hipsters'- of which you now know- I am undeniably one. It is almost impossible to not apply the following to whichever of many groups you or I may belong to:

"Status, the second major order of stratification defined by Weber, is ranking by social prestige. In contrast with class, which is based on objective economic fact, status is a subjective phenomenon, a sentiment in people’s minds. Although the members of a class may have little sense of shared identity, the members of a status group generally think of themselves as a social community, with a common lifestyle (a familiar term we owe to Weber). 

Status groups are normally communities. They are, however, often of an amorphous kind. . . . In content, status honor is normally expressed by the fact that above all else a specific style of life can be expected from all those who wish to belong to the circle.

Weber specified many of the interrelations between class and status, between economy and society. Because of class position, a person earns a certain income. That income permits a certain lifestyle, and people soon make friends with others who live the same way. As they interact with one another, they begin to conceive of themselves as a special type of people. They restrict interaction with outsiders who seem too different (they may be too poor, too uneducated, too clumsy to live graciously enough for acceptance as worthy companions). Marriage partners are chosen from similar groups because once people follow a certain style of life, they find it difficult to be comfortable with people who live differently. Thus, the status group becomes an ingrown circle. It earns a position in the local community that entitles its members to social honor or prestige from inferiors.

Status groups develop the conventions or customs of a community. Through time, they evolve appropriate ways of dressing, of eating, and of living that are somewhat different from the ways of other groups. These ways are expressed as moral judgments reflecting abstract principles of value that separate “good” from “bad.” The application of these principles to individuals establishes rankings of social honor or prestige. These distinctions often react back on the marketplace; to preserve their advantages, high-status groups attempt to monopolize those goods that symbolize their style of life—they pass consumption laws prohibiting the lower orders from wearing lace, or they band together to keep Jews or blacks out of prestigious country clubs. (Weber regarded invidious distinctions among ethnic groups as a type of status stratification.)"

Up until that last part, you were totally thinking of hipsters, weren't you? Or were you thinking of yuppies in the 80's, like Tom Cruise in Rain Man? And here the funny thing is, all along… we were talking about the proletariat.. and those damned capitalists.

It was a striking idea to me, as I sat there analyzing modern U.S. society, and post-industrial society in general, that such broad (and decidedly hip) sociological topics could apply to myself and my own lifestyle. Re-reading the text, I could see why so many people (especially hipsters themselves) tend to dislike the common stereotype of hipsters. I mean, look at those guys up there- elitist assholes. But then you read it, from another part of your mind, and you see a different enemy, or a different friend, or the lower classes, or your uncle's gun buddies. The truth is, the above selection (pieced together from the first chapter of the book The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality, by the way) could and does apply to all of us… so why all the hate towards hipster kids? Scene queens? Me and mine? I like to think that I am, if anything, more accepting of others then they are of me, and here I discover… we're all just the same assholes, running about our routines that (hopefully) make us happy, unwittingly engaging in social constructions that dominate our every move. Life is so funny sometimes. 

And Mr. Weber was a smart guy. He even goes on to tell us that all of you who so adamantly deny you're hipsters…yes, You… likely are one anyway, no matter what you say. Well, that is more my opinion spun from the yarn of his rhetoric, but here, read on:

  "Indeed, the very notion of class interest was highly ambiguous for Weber. In his view, there are multiple classes in modern societies and they are continually changing. Under such conditions, individuals may think of their own identities, and shared or conflicting interests with others, in varied ways. Someone whom sociologists would identify as working class might think of himself as white and middle class, because he believes he has nothing in common with minority workers and supposes himself to be a middle-income, average American. Or, he might strongly identify with other workers, whatever their race, and become class conscious in the Marxian sense. Neither would surprise Weber."

Fascinating things. It seems that the more we pull apart, the more we look down in contempt… the more I seem to be reading about how we're really all the same. So grab your PBR, kids, and dance like you want to. Because it doesn't matter what they call you, or what you call yourself. We're all dancing at the same party anyway.