Well, I got a girl's number. I'm going on a date with her Tuesday.
I'm sure for a lot of people, this doesn't mean much. For a lot of people, they get numbers all the time. They seem to do these things effortlessly. They have the benefit of social instincts which I was unfortunately underdeveloped in. Obviously they're on relationships were not made effortlessly, but they certainly seem a hell of a lot easier than how I approached them.
So when I get something like this, I'm quite ecstatic.
There's a nervousness there as well. A fear of failure, of losing what might be a wonderful relationship, as has occurred in the past. It doesn't help how much I've invested myself prior in the idea of relationships. I'm working on it, always working on it, but it's still there. In lesser degrees, perhaps, but it's still there.
To some extent I think I'm influenced by the same culture that influences so many relationships, as well their unpleasant endings. We live in a culture that prizes relationships above many other things. Single individuals, or individuals who are not active sexually, are often looked on with pity, women moreso for the former, men for the latter.
For an extended of time, I and my best friend struggled with the idea of relationships together, questioning whether we were ready for relationships, whether we would be happy in them, all of those things. Then she discovered that she wanted to be in relationships, got into one, and I was left feeling a little alone. Didn't help that I had lingering attraction to her, heretofore unexpressed, that made me feel all the more uncomfortable hearing about her own relationship adventures.
When she told me about her relationship, she was giddy and ecstatic. She talked about some difficulties she was having in the relationship, but in the manner of considering them quirks, rather than problems that might develop into something greater later. Again, I run the risk of being too influenced by my own feelings, but it seems to me that a lot of the giddiness and sheer joy which she is experiencing is the result of that wonderful pain in my ass that is infatuation, that outburst of chemical reactions that make us so entranced with someone's every move an action, and which is so often short lived. I've experienced that quite a few times, raising the person to a pedestal and viewing their every action as unutterably beautiful. Unfortunately, having difficulties in other areas, that infatuation developed into anxiety and obsession, which would typically mean the end of any possible relationship. Perhaps that's why I'm so cynical about it now.
It is perhaps a little ironic that infatuation itself has been raised on such a pedestal in our society. Romantic comedies are so often built around the manic joy of infatuation, that initial ecstatic attraction that makes every moment with the other person a joy. It's interesting to note that so many romantic comedies end when the relationship has been initiated proper, both players still filled with that infatuation.
Of course, infatuation is short lived. Some estimates I've read place it at, on average, lasting between six months and a year. Infatuation leaves, and the two players (or more, I don't mean to judge) are left looking at one another in their entirety, without rose-colored glasses. That's where things get complicated. Lacking the pure euphoria of before to tide them through their relationship troubles, they're left to actually rely on one another to solve their problems, and some relationships struggle with that, and ultimately fail. With my friend and her supposed infatuation, it's up to her and her boyfriend whether it will fail after the infatuation wears off, or if it will evolve into a deeper love.
Society doesn't talk as much about that deeper love, that love forged through time and effort. Society seems a lot more content to focus on the bubbly, effortless infatuation, and then has the gall to refer to that as "true love". So many of us are unfortunately negatively impacted by that perspective. When the initial high of a relationship ends, many of us are left confused, and hurt, not knowing that such a high always ends. What happened? I thought I loved this person. What when wrong?
We see this "true love", and we come to believe that it is that "true love" which will ultimately make us happy. For a long time I (and to some extent still do) viewed relationships as being able to solve many of my problems. I've had to work, with much support from others, to disabuse myself of that notion, and to learn to solve my problems by myself, rather than looking for a relationship itself to solve them. My best friend, interestingly, said that people are attracted to other people who are self-confident, and that impacted me in more ways than I think she realized. It helped me to realize that good, healthy relationships do not develop spontaneously, but rather arise from the union of two good, healthy people, mutually building one another up.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
3/23/14: Where Do I Go?
[Note: I wrote two posts over the course of spring break. The other has been posted prior to this one]
My friend and I are in very different settings right now. I go to NYU and she's going to community college. I'm pursuing a degree in Film and Television, she's pursuing a degree in Communications. Yet we're both feeling...uncertain, I suppose is the word.
My friend and I are in very different settings right now. I go to NYU and she's going to community college. I'm pursuing a degree in Film and Television, she's pursuing a degree in Communications. Yet we're both feeling...uncertain, I suppose is the word.
There are so many career options laid out in front of us. She wants to be a teacher, but she's not sure. I'm looking into screenwriting, but I'm not sure. "Too many options" is the phrase. So many different courses to take in life, and how do we know if the one we're taking is wrong, or won't pan out?
We're both looking for something, some magical answer that will tell us exactly what we should do. This will make us happy. This will make us secure. This will be the best outcome for us.
But we're not going to find it.
That's the nature of the beast, I suppose. Uncertainty abounds. There are too many variables, too many possible ways things could go. Hell, a meteorite could come down and crush me tomorrow, and after that these career contemplations won't matter much.
The future's one big blob of "OH SHIT WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT", and I'm moving towards it at a snail's pace. Everything feels like an in-transit, between where I am and where I want to be. Maybe that's where it will always be. I'll never get to where I want to go, I'll always be going. From one point to another.
Part of me thinks I can just wait for it to come. That I don't need to change myself too much, and the changes I want will be made for me. Perhaps that's what it's like as young adults. We're standing in front of the future, and we want the future to make the first move.
But who says the move it makes will be the one we want?
There's no cure-all, whatever happens. Whatever I choose, it won't solve my problems. It won't put me in some utopic situation where I'm feeling like I'm exactly where I want to be. I'd probably be concerned for my mental health if that were the case! Any choice I take will have its share of problems, mistakes, paths rather taken. And the internal struggles I deal with now won't go away on their own
Maybe the solution isn't in what path I take. Maybe it's in how I approach the path I take. So often I've looked to external solutions to my problems, and every time I've come up short. The high school transition, the college transition, future career transitions. With each one I've looked for things to change radically, and they never have. They've changed in small, incremental ways, but never as fast as I want them to. And not always in the way I want.
Maybe I should work on changing myself first.
Maybe I should learn to accept the uncertainties of whatever path I take. Embrace that I don't know what will happen. Acknowledge that there'll be bad parts, but there will be good parts as well. My future will have its share of joys, discoveries, new parts of myself I'll be surprised to find out I have. And someday I'll get to those points, but there's also things I can do now. Little things, but they can all stack up. I can learn to make myself better, happier, more fulfilled, more ready for the future.
Earlier, I described the future as "OH SHIT WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT". My friend had a different way of looking at it. For her, it's all one big blog of "I COULD DO ANYTHING." Maybe that can be the same for me. Maybe I really could do anything. Maybe I could be a screenwriter, or a psychologist.
Maybe I could be a person happy with his life, no matter what happens.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
3/16/2014: My Mother and Anxious Attachment
It began with my mother.
What began with my mother? I don't know, a lot of things. A lot of the problems I deal with now. This post is one that deals with the past, with emotions and bad memories. Apologies if it comes out a little disconnected.
Relationships seems like a good place to start.
Perhaps I was taking a cue from my father, who would call my mother over and over again if she was gone late at night, and be angry at her when she returned. When my mom was gone for extended periods of time, I would become frightened. My mind would come up with the worst-case scenarios for what had happened--that she had died, or was kidnapped, or whatever else I could come up with. Then she would come home and, relieved, I would go back to living normally.
I've had problems with relationships. When I get infatuated, I become obsessed. Further than other people. I worry endlessly. When I'm not with them, my mind conjures up the worst-case scenarios--they hate me, I'm pushing them away, I can't have a relationship with them--and I feel the urge to check, to ask them if I did something wrong, if I've been bothering them. They'll say no, you haven't--and then I'll do it again, and they'll say no, you haven't--and then I'll do it again. In the uncertainty, my mind conjures up horrible possibilities, and the more I fear them, the more real they become.
Maybe that's just OCD, related to autism. I don't know.
My mother had a primary role in my upbringing. My father has Asperger's syndrome, and spent his younger years away from his family for long periods of time, a wound that continues to hurt him to this day. He has never been a social butterfly, and often struggles to communicate with me in ways beyond reciting pithy lectures, or repeating well-worn stories about his own upbringing. These conversations were often one-way, and after a time I became to realize I viewed him as more of a record-player than a father.
So the onus was on my mother to raise me.
I was not the most well-adjusted of children. I, like my father, had Asperger's Syndrome. From an early age I had little interest in interacting with other children; during recess, I was more content playing on my Game Boy or reading a book than playing with the other children. When I did interact with them, it was often as an outsider, and I frequently got in trouble for my behavior with them. In second grade I was suspended from school for half a day because I was frightening other students. In third grade I was given detention for a week because I choked a student I thought had called me an alien. I recall other children often drawing away from me because I was weird, and how I felt like a virus because of this.
Because I did not involve myself in any social situations, my mother took the opportunities to involve me in various extracurricular. She had me play soccer and join the Boy Scouts of America. I never wanted to do either, and often was quite bored or unhappy at the meetings, but I did it anyway, because I didn't think I had a choice in the matter. I won't say the things I obtained from them weren't helpful, but they seemed to set a precedent for my interactions with my mother for years in the future.
I'm in college now. My mom still sends me suggestions on what I should do. In Freshman year, she constantly pressured me to get a job, to join various clubs, go out to this-or-that event. When I tell her of friendships or relationships, she'll sometimes send me suggestions on things I can do with them, as though I can't come up with them myself. Sometimes if I don't do something she wants me to do, she'll continue hounding me to do it, or else send passive-aggressive comments, though she may send them either immediately, or at a later time, such as in the middle of the night, or in the next morning. Whenever she gets bothered about it, I guess.
She goes through self-help books and countless books on nutrition. She's tossed vitamins, nutritional supplements, and said self-help books at me. She's advocated high fat diets, low fat diets, mainly protein, gluten-free, soy, pescetarian, vegetarian, whatever-the-fuck-etarian. She's talked about adrenal deficiencies, thyroid diet, chi-whatever, I can't even keep track anymore, here's a picture of a fraction of the books she's bought over the years.
Whenever she suggests to me some new lifestyle thing, I do my own research to see if it's any true.
I often feel weak. I often feel like I can't do things. Whenever I go into a new direction, I ask as many people as I can for help. To some extent that's a good thing, but there are times where I feel like I can't do things unless other people say it's ok, where I can't believe things unless other people believe them, where if I feel emotions that other people feel, I'm wrong.
I've had friends and therapists alike caution me to separate my own goals from that of my mothers's. My therapist asks me sometimes if the critical thoughts I have in my head are my own or my mother's. One of my friends, who I seem to talk to more about my own problems than my own mother, has a similarly low opinion of her, such that sometimes I feel the need to defend her. Perhaps I shouldn't.
Christ.
From Ainsworth's patterns of attachment, Anxious Attachment stems from being "excessively protect towards the child, unwilling to allow independence", and results in being "clingy, unable to cope with absence of the caregiver. Seeks constant reassurances."
From Wikipedia:
What began with my mother? I don't know, a lot of things. A lot of the problems I deal with now. This post is one that deals with the past, with emotions and bad memories. Apologies if it comes out a little disconnected.
Relationships seems like a good place to start.
Perhaps I was taking a cue from my father, who would call my mother over and over again if she was gone late at night, and be angry at her when she returned. When my mom was gone for extended periods of time, I would become frightened. My mind would come up with the worst-case scenarios for what had happened--that she had died, or was kidnapped, or whatever else I could come up with. Then she would come home and, relieved, I would go back to living normally.
I've had problems with relationships. When I get infatuated, I become obsessed. Further than other people. I worry endlessly. When I'm not with them, my mind conjures up the worst-case scenarios--they hate me, I'm pushing them away, I can't have a relationship with them--and I feel the urge to check, to ask them if I did something wrong, if I've been bothering them. They'll say no, you haven't--and then I'll do it again, and they'll say no, you haven't--and then I'll do it again. In the uncertainty, my mind conjures up horrible possibilities, and the more I fear them, the more real they become.
Maybe that's just OCD, related to autism. I don't know.
My mother had a primary role in my upbringing. My father has Asperger's syndrome, and spent his younger years away from his family for long periods of time, a wound that continues to hurt him to this day. He has never been a social butterfly, and often struggles to communicate with me in ways beyond reciting pithy lectures, or repeating well-worn stories about his own upbringing. These conversations were often one-way, and after a time I became to realize I viewed him as more of a record-player than a father.
So the onus was on my mother to raise me.
I was not the most well-adjusted of children. I, like my father, had Asperger's Syndrome. From an early age I had little interest in interacting with other children; during recess, I was more content playing on my Game Boy or reading a book than playing with the other children. When I did interact with them, it was often as an outsider, and I frequently got in trouble for my behavior with them. In second grade I was suspended from school for half a day because I was frightening other students. In third grade I was given detention for a week because I choked a student I thought had called me an alien. I recall other children often drawing away from me because I was weird, and how I felt like a virus because of this.
Because I did not involve myself in any social situations, my mother took the opportunities to involve me in various extracurricular. She had me play soccer and join the Boy Scouts of America. I never wanted to do either, and often was quite bored or unhappy at the meetings, but I did it anyway, because I didn't think I had a choice in the matter. I won't say the things I obtained from them weren't helpful, but they seemed to set a precedent for my interactions with my mother for years in the future.
I'm in college now. My mom still sends me suggestions on what I should do. In Freshman year, she constantly pressured me to get a job, to join various clubs, go out to this-or-that event. When I tell her of friendships or relationships, she'll sometimes send me suggestions on things I can do with them, as though I can't come up with them myself. Sometimes if I don't do something she wants me to do, she'll continue hounding me to do it, or else send passive-aggressive comments, though she may send them either immediately, or at a later time, such as in the middle of the night, or in the next morning. Whenever she gets bothered about it, I guess.
She goes through self-help books and countless books on nutrition. She's tossed vitamins, nutritional supplements, and said self-help books at me. She's advocated high fat diets, low fat diets, mainly protein, gluten-free, soy, pescetarian, vegetarian, whatever-the-fuck-etarian. She's talked about adrenal deficiencies, thyroid diet, chi-whatever, I can't even keep track anymore, here's a picture of a fraction of the books she's bought over the years.
Whenever she suggests to me some new lifestyle thing, I do my own research to see if it's any true.
I often feel weak. I often feel like I can't do things. Whenever I go into a new direction, I ask as many people as I can for help. To some extent that's a good thing, but there are times where I feel like I can't do things unless other people say it's ok, where I can't believe things unless other people believe them, where if I feel emotions that other people feel, I'm wrong.
I've had friends and therapists alike caution me to separate my own goals from that of my mothers's. My therapist asks me sometimes if the critical thoughts I have in my head are my own or my mother's. One of my friends, who I seem to talk to more about my own problems than my own mother, has a similarly low opinion of her, such that sometimes I feel the need to defend her. Perhaps I shouldn't.
Christ.
From Ainsworth's patterns of attachment, Anxious Attachment stems from being "excessively protect towards the child, unwilling to allow independence", and results in being "clingy, unable to cope with absence of the caregiver. Seeks constant reassurances."
From Wikipedia:
People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to agree with the following statements: "I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like", and "I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don't value me as much as I value them." People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their partners. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on their partners. Compared to securely attached people, people who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to have less positive views about themselves. They often doubt their worth as a partner and blame themselves for their partners' lack of responsiveness. People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry, and impulsiveness in their relationships.Hello, me.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
3/9/2014: "Youth Is Wasted On The Young"
So many people view their younger years with a reverent nostalgia. When I hear about such people, my first thought is wondering what the hell they've confused their youth for.
I don't know about you guys, but my younger years were shit.
Not entirely, not all the time, but there was a lot of shit in there. Depression, suicidal ideation, self harm. I lost multiple relationships as a result of my tendency to, ironically, obsess over losing them. I routinely struggled to keep up with work at school and often broke down as a result, leaving school in the middle of the day and some days simply not showing up. I was not in a good place then.
Where am I now? Better. Not perfect, but I'm doing better, and that's all I can really ask for. I see a therapist, I take medication. Slowly I've begun taking more work on myself, and developing systems to keep track of things.
Yet many people view their young years as the apex of their lives. "Live fast, die young" seems to be a recurring motto: live your life while you still can, because it's all downhill from here.
I'm not going to say I don't have fear of growing old--I'm sure everyone does, in some degree, as there is a fear of most any uncertainty in our lives. There just doesn't seem to be much of an optimistic view of age in our society. As medical science improves, we're learning more about the plethora of illnesses and physical maladies that will occur in ever-greater amounts as we age, from weakening bones and muscles to more frightening neurocognitive degeneration leading to things such as strokes and Alzheimer's disease. The media takes those articles and sees fit to publish them every chance it gets, perhaps to satisfy our transgressive curiosity about our own mortality.
Add to that the fact that our media seems to avoid portraying the elderly in any form. The majority of commercials, films, and television shows rely on youthful models of an idealized society. Rarely if ever do you see 65+ people in staring roles. If you do, they normally have something to do with coming to terms with death and aging, such as in David Lynch's "The Straight Story" or Michael Haneke's "Amour". Age is often viewed as a negative, and if there are happy endings to be gotten out of it, they seem to occur despite age, and with that spectre always on the horizon.
Of course we don't want to get old when our society tells us how much it sucks.
But does it have to? Certainly our modern view of age is a far cry from more traditional views of the elderly. In olden times, elderly people were viewed as peoples experienced and hardened by the world, filled with advice to dispense to the younger peoples. They took an active, and in some cases central role in the community. Their aging was not hidden from the world, as is the case with many of our elderly shuffled off to nursing homes, but was exposed and, more importantly, embraced by the community.
Why can't we do the same thing now? Why can't we view age not as a gradual degeneration, but as an opportunity to garner ever more experiences and better ourselves? Why can't we view aging as an opportunity for us to do ever more things for the state of the world, and not simply to be a drain on worldwide resources?
As I've grown older, I've become better. I've become healthier. And I don't intend for that to stop anytime soon. My body may weaken, and so may my mind, but that doesn't mean I ever have to stop growing, stop getting better, stop being there for others and for myself.
Why can't age be a good thing?
I don't know about you guys, but my younger years were shit.
Not entirely, not all the time, but there was a lot of shit in there. Depression, suicidal ideation, self harm. I lost multiple relationships as a result of my tendency to, ironically, obsess over losing them. I routinely struggled to keep up with work at school and often broke down as a result, leaving school in the middle of the day and some days simply not showing up. I was not in a good place then.
Where am I now? Better. Not perfect, but I'm doing better, and that's all I can really ask for. I see a therapist, I take medication. Slowly I've begun taking more work on myself, and developing systems to keep track of things.
Yet many people view their young years as the apex of their lives. "Live fast, die young" seems to be a recurring motto: live your life while you still can, because it's all downhill from here.
I'm not going to say I don't have fear of growing old--I'm sure everyone does, in some degree, as there is a fear of most any uncertainty in our lives. There just doesn't seem to be much of an optimistic view of age in our society. As medical science improves, we're learning more about the plethora of illnesses and physical maladies that will occur in ever-greater amounts as we age, from weakening bones and muscles to more frightening neurocognitive degeneration leading to things such as strokes and Alzheimer's disease. The media takes those articles and sees fit to publish them every chance it gets, perhaps to satisfy our transgressive curiosity about our own mortality.
Add to that the fact that our media seems to avoid portraying the elderly in any form. The majority of commercials, films, and television shows rely on youthful models of an idealized society. Rarely if ever do you see 65+ people in staring roles. If you do, they normally have something to do with coming to terms with death and aging, such as in David Lynch's "The Straight Story" or Michael Haneke's "Amour". Age is often viewed as a negative, and if there are happy endings to be gotten out of it, they seem to occur despite age, and with that spectre always on the horizon.
Of course we don't want to get old when our society tells us how much it sucks.
But does it have to? Certainly our modern view of age is a far cry from more traditional views of the elderly. In olden times, elderly people were viewed as peoples experienced and hardened by the world, filled with advice to dispense to the younger peoples. They took an active, and in some cases central role in the community. Their aging was not hidden from the world, as is the case with many of our elderly shuffled off to nursing homes, but was exposed and, more importantly, embraced by the community.
Why can't we do the same thing now? Why can't we view age not as a gradual degeneration, but as an opportunity to garner ever more experiences and better ourselves? Why can't we view aging as an opportunity for us to do ever more things for the state of the world, and not simply to be a drain on worldwide resources?
As I've grown older, I've become better. I've become healthier. And I don't intend for that to stop anytime soon. My body may weaken, and so may my mind, but that doesn't mean I ever have to stop growing, stop getting better, stop being there for others and for myself.
Why can't age be a good thing?
Saturday, March 1, 2014
3/1/2014: The Cocoon of College
In class, I referred to the college system as a "fucking womb". In this post, I'd like to expand on that.
College is an enigmatic thing where people pay thousands of dollars to live in a mass illusion. The main problem with college is that it inures us in a cocoon of familiar faces, established routines, and guaranteed short-term future, with the promise of similarly guaranteed long term future. College does not prepare us for the outside world; it only prepares us for college.
College should, if anything, slope neatly towards involvement in the adult world, yet it doesn't. The main transition in college is from high school to campus, yet after that the system largely plateaus--we set established routines of college life, but do not set establish routines of adult life. In many cases, students can successfully navigate all four years of college without having to leave the campus environment. They need only go to classes and compete assignments on time. They do not need to go outside of campus for meals, but can attend one of the many dining halls. Often they do not need to apply for jobs, or build work contacts, or indeed have to pay their own bills. This seems a reason, then, why so many fellow students in my class feel this gnawing anxiety as the end of senior year approaches--they are used to this system, but they are not used to the outside world. They have been secure in a system they are familiar with for a number of years, and now they learn--quite intensely--how insufficient that system actually is. For an organization which is designed precisely to help us transition to adulthood, it seems to spent a lot of time delaying that very transition.
The college culture itself seems tailored to that cocooning atmosphere. In the absence of the rigors of adult life, we pass the time through other measures--through clubs and parties and university-organized events We exist in a space where thousands of young adults, and only young adults, are pressed together. Our leisure is composed of interactions within that college system and only within that college system. Very few of us make friends outside of college during this time, and thus we have few friends we can rely on for information on the adult world. No surprise, then, the insularity of so many of our problems and complaints. On my Facebook feed I often see complaints in the form of talking about how annoying the sheer amount of homework they have is, or how frustrated they are because they spilled food on their bed. Within the inuring college system, where no larger problems yet exist, such responses seem somewhat logical, but in contrast with the adult world they become hilariously petty in contrast.
There are means to better adjust oneself to the adult world, certainly. But they exist mainly in the form of part-jobs and optional lectures, classes, and events. In order to adjust ourselves to the adult world, we must put forward the effort, yet in the college culture where so much of what we need to do is directly fed to us, personal initiative is not always a strong suit among college attendees, especially when it is so much easier to reside within the comfortable confines of college for as long as one can.
One may argue, as Arnett did, that college helps to facilitate identity exploration, yet does it really? Many students, whether undecided or with a definite major--are not fully aware of other possibilities, and have not experienced those possibilities themselves. We experience only what we have already signed up for, and to actually get a sense of other possibilities, again we have to take our own initiative. As example, when I began college, I was not aware that I might be able to do a great deal in mental health advocacy. That came primarily through my therapy and my exploration of other options through my blog on Asperger's and Depression.
I don't mind that college is a safety-net--to be honest I needed it when I was transitioning to college, as I still had mental health issues that would have left me quite vulnerable in the outside world--but not enough impetus is placed upon encouraging us to break out of that safety net. It is too comfortable for our own good, and it's too easy to just relax into it now and worry about other problems when they come later.
College is an enigmatic thing where people pay thousands of dollars to live in a mass illusion. The main problem with college is that it inures us in a cocoon of familiar faces, established routines, and guaranteed short-term future, with the promise of similarly guaranteed long term future. College does not prepare us for the outside world; it only prepares us for college.
College should, if anything, slope neatly towards involvement in the adult world, yet it doesn't. The main transition in college is from high school to campus, yet after that the system largely plateaus--we set established routines of college life, but do not set establish routines of adult life. In many cases, students can successfully navigate all four years of college without having to leave the campus environment. They need only go to classes and compete assignments on time. They do not need to go outside of campus for meals, but can attend one of the many dining halls. Often they do not need to apply for jobs, or build work contacts, or indeed have to pay their own bills. This seems a reason, then, why so many fellow students in my class feel this gnawing anxiety as the end of senior year approaches--they are used to this system, but they are not used to the outside world. They have been secure in a system they are familiar with for a number of years, and now they learn--quite intensely--how insufficient that system actually is. For an organization which is designed precisely to help us transition to adulthood, it seems to spent a lot of time delaying that very transition.
The college culture itself seems tailored to that cocooning atmosphere. In the absence of the rigors of adult life, we pass the time through other measures--through clubs and parties and university-organized events We exist in a space where thousands of young adults, and only young adults, are pressed together. Our leisure is composed of interactions within that college system and only within that college system. Very few of us make friends outside of college during this time, and thus we have few friends we can rely on for information on the adult world. No surprise, then, the insularity of so many of our problems and complaints. On my Facebook feed I often see complaints in the form of talking about how annoying the sheer amount of homework they have is, or how frustrated they are because they spilled food on their bed. Within the inuring college system, where no larger problems yet exist, such responses seem somewhat logical, but in contrast with the adult world they become hilariously petty in contrast.
There are means to better adjust oneself to the adult world, certainly. But they exist mainly in the form of part-jobs and optional lectures, classes, and events. In order to adjust ourselves to the adult world, we must put forward the effort, yet in the college culture where so much of what we need to do is directly fed to us, personal initiative is not always a strong suit among college attendees, especially when it is so much easier to reside within the comfortable confines of college for as long as one can.
One may argue, as Arnett did, that college helps to facilitate identity exploration, yet does it really? Many students, whether undecided or with a definite major--are not fully aware of other possibilities, and have not experienced those possibilities themselves. We experience only what we have already signed up for, and to actually get a sense of other possibilities, again we have to take our own initiative. As example, when I began college, I was not aware that I might be able to do a great deal in mental health advocacy. That came primarily through my therapy and my exploration of other options through my blog on Asperger's and Depression.
I don't mind that college is a safety-net--to be honest I needed it when I was transitioning to college, as I still had mental health issues that would have left me quite vulnerable in the outside world--but not enough impetus is placed upon encouraging us to break out of that safety net. It is too comfortable for our own good, and it's too easy to just relax into it now and worry about other problems when they come later.
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