Hot off the heels on the last one, let\u2019s keep going. I was thinking earlier about something my wife said. She was doing the dishes, and she seemed exhausted, and she remarked, \u201cLife is just so endless.\u201d And I found that to be a funny statement, because we know intellectually, right away, that it\u2019s not true. The main feature of life is that it\u2019s fleeting. All life inevitably dies. Our moments on Earth are incredibly fragile and short-lived. But they\u2019re simultaneously the longest things that we\u2019ll ever know, in terms of time. It\u2019s a tasty little paradox, and one that we can keep contemplating until we eventually can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about what endless means, what endless looks like. I\u2019ve been writing these vomits since late 2012. It\u2019s now almost late 2017. It\u2019s been five years. But are these vomits endless? Scrolling through them, you might get that impression. They do seem to go on and on. But there\u2019s a definite endpoint. I\u2019m writing 1,000 of them, and then I\u2019m stopping. I\u2019ll be done. I\u2019ll move on to other things. I\u2019d like to switch things up and start writing essays and novels and short stories. But in the moment of writing them, sure, they can seem a little endless.<\/p>\n
I remember when I was a student. It seems so long ago now. A decade ago. But at the time, that was my life. Almost every day (excluding the weekends and holidays), I would wake up in the morning and I would put on my school uniform. And I\u2019d go to school. And I\u2019d go through that numbing daily process \u2013 singing the national anthem, taking the pledge, going to the classroom, saying \u201cGood morning, <teacher\u2019s name>. Literally a decade of this. If I ever find my life a little tedious, frustrating or lacking in some way, it would do me good to remember just how vacuous school really was, how lifeless and superficial and false.<\/p>\n
As I wrote those last few phrases I wonder if I\u2019m overdoing it. After all, pretty much everybody goes to school. It\u2019s a part of life, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s a rite of passage. It\u2019s a common experience that almost everybody has. And we all relate when we see movies about school, tv shows about school, when we look at schoolchildren on our buses and streets and we feel some nostalgia, some memory. We get to choose the stories that we tell ourselves about what we have experienced. I could just as easily write something about what a wonderful carefree time school was. But that\u2019s not the story I\u2019m writing right now. Why is that? Why don\u2019t I change it?<\/p>\n
Two threads to follow here. What was carefree about school? And why am I writing it differently?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the carefree bits. Well, there were no bills to worry about. My parents gave me pocket money every day. And while I did sometimes run out, I knew that I could always go home. There would always be food at home, typically. If I ever needed a little more money to go out and buy dinner or something, I could count on that. My biggest worries were supposed to be about my schoolwork. I remember my parents and other adults saying that a lot. \u201cAll you have to worry about is doing your homework and doing well for your exams\u201d. And yet at the time that never really seemed anywhere as important as\u2026 something else. What was that something else? If it was so important, why do I not remember it?<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019ve begun to catch a glimpse of it by observing schoolchildren now. And I think the most important thing for young people is to develop socially. I don\u2019t hear people talk about this very much. People don\u2019t talk about their own social experiences as schoolchildren \u2013 I don\u2019t mean the general things like simply having friends, going to McDonald\u2019s after school, watching a movie together during the school holidays, having birthday parties in classes and things like that. I mean more subtle things about friendship. Like figuring out who\u2019s who and what\u2019s what. I\u2019m probably not going to get this right right now, but I think it\u2019s worth exploring. Where do you learn to socialise? If you\u2019re lucky, you might have other contexts other than school \u2013 you might have a large extended family, you might go to church on the weekends, you might have some sort of activity group \u2013 sports, concert band, something. Lots of boys spend it playing video games or card games. What do girls do? I realise I don\u2019t actually know. I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about this for some time.<\/p>\n
I guess these days they spend a lot of it on social media. In the past they might have been on the phone. I really need to get me a copy of Queen Bees and Wannabes. I don\u2019t want to be overly obtuse and say dumb, assumption-ridden things about makeup and fashion and boy-watching \u2013 in fact I am aware of some girl-peer-crushes, which is something that boys don\u2019t do at all. Girls write notes to one another, which is something boys pretty much never do as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n
Anyway the point of that is \u2013 I think, in my experience, that the majority of a teenager\u2019s life is spent worrying about his or her social context. Which I think is rational and sensible. (At this point I went on a rabbit hole on Facebook to ask people about their teenage experiences).<\/p>\n
I should switch gears at this point. Why am I writing it differently? Well\u2026 I just feel like it, to be honest. I feel like when I look back at my childhood I am not satisfied, not impressed. And yeah, I can choose to practice contentment and forgiveness and whatnot, and once in a while I do. But I also want to play the game that I\u2019m currently playing \u2013 which is one where I construct a narrative that I feel propels me forward. I\u2019m roleplaying, basically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hot off the heels on the last one, let\u2019s keep going. I was thinking earlier about something my wife said. She was doing the dishes, and she seemed exhausted, and she remarked, \u201cLife is just so endless.\u201d And I found that to be a funny statement, because we know intellectually,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-10744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit","tag-life"],"yoast_head":"\n