The Way The Cookie Crumbles

I'm listening to Lilly Allen's "Everything's Just Wonderful" on repeat because I have an obsessive type of music-listening habit, and I can't help but link the song's preemptive message to my generation's struggle for...well, SOMETHING ELSE, here in the States. What are we grumbling about? Well, mainly wealth inequality, but really it's everything from national debt we had no say in, to student loans, ridiculous body image standards, to having our lives run by corporations and the media, to interest rates and legalizing marijuana. And until recently, we did nothing but think, "Well, everything is wonderful here in America."

Finally thanks to this bold and daring, completely unorganized yet still effective movement, OWS, we're getting somewhere and pointing out that, hey, everything is not fine and in fact it could be better. We realize that when it comes to problems, we're probably at the top of the food chain when you look at it internationally, but that's no reason to settle, and we'd rather be respected by the world rather than hated and spurned for being imperialistic corporate pigs. I'll write more about my more specific thoughts regarding OWS soon, but for now, here are some inspirational lyrics from 2007:

Do you think, everything, everyone, is going mental
It seems to me that it's spiraling outta control and it's inevitable
Now don't you think
This time is yours, this time is mine
It's temperamental
It seems to me, we're on all fours
Crawling on our knees, Someone help us please

Oh Jesus Christ almighty
Do I feel alright? No not slightly
I wanna get a flat I know I can afford it
It's just the bureaucrats who won't give me a mortgage
Well it's very funny 'cause I got your fucking money
And I'm never gonna get it just because of my bad credit
Oh well I guess I mustn't grumble
I suppose that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

[Chorus]Oh yes, I'm fine
Everything's just wonderful, I'm having the time of my life.
Don't you want something else, Something new, than what we've got here
And don't you feel it's all the same,Some sick game and it's not insincere
I wish I could change the ways of the world
Make it a nice place
Until that day, I guess we stay...
Doing what we do, screwing who we screw

Why can't I sleep at night
Don't say it's gonna be alright
I wanna be able to eat spaghetti bolognaise
and not feel bad about it for days and days and days.
In the magazines they talk about weight loss
If I buy those jeans I can look like Kate Moss
Oh no it's not the life I chose,
But I guess that's the way that things go

Oh Jesus Christ almighty,
Do I feel alright? No not slightly
I wanna get a flat I know I can afford it
It's just the bureaucrats who won't give me a mortgage
Well it's very funny 'cause I got your fucking money
And I'm never gonna get it just because of my bad credit
Oh well I guess I mustn't grumble
I suppose that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

A Change Is Gonna Come

Something about the tumultuous change of seasons makes me want to be wildly creative. I want to rid myself of ties to responsibility like studying for the spurned LSAT, or going to work, and spend all day making music or painting (or love), or trying to write some short stories. There's nothing like that creepy, ironic cold weather to light your soul on fire.

I just got back from a lovely rendezvous with Sam and Shari, two of my really good friends from the good ol' days of living at the Middle East Coexistence House at Rutgers. They're two of my favorite people to spend time with because they are both ever-curious and adventurous, always have exciting stories to share, and are usually (much like me) undergoing the exciting and terrifying crisis of what to do next in life.

For many of us early and mid-twenty-somethings here in New York, the options and opportunities are endless to the point of being overwhelming. Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love--don't judge me) wasn't kidding when she said that if she had to choose one word to describe New York and New Yorkers it would be "ambition." We have a complete disdain for wasting time, are constantly surrounded by social, cultural, and educational stimuli, change our minds on an almost weekly basis about where we want to go with our careers, and yet feel pressured to make instant decisions. It's a frighteningly mind tingling combination, which leaves some of us up way past bed-time blogging about its causes, side effects, and consequences.

Liberal Arts Education. It teaches us critical thinking, how to read, how to write, and how to be interested in everything we learn. Then it sends us off (often without too many practical skills) into the world to look for jobs. For those of us who end up in New York, an absolute mecca for liberal arts graduates, we want to see everything, do everything, learn everything, and go everywhere. When we end up with a desk job straight out of college, we feel lost. Then the wanderlust kicks in, and whatever satisfaction we may have had with what we actually have in the here and now fades to the background as we dream of all the things we could be doing. And I think that this often breeds some kind of dissatisfaction as a result. I get the feeling that we're almost bred now to get bored easily, get excited quickly, and do a billion things at once, and, when we take a moment to rest--feel useless or wasteful. The phenomenon seems to leave many of us somewhat dysfunctional when it comes to relationships, always a little unavailable, and kind of like satellites to the suburbs or elsewhere in the country, where people our age may be settling down a bit more.

The strange thing is, that as much as it sounds like I'm criticizing this phenomenon I am also totally in love with it, and myself perpetually float in and out of it. That feeling of dissatisfaction itself feels so busy and so deep, like on its own it breeds ideas and opportunities for the future, that it ends up being motivational instead of disquieting. And so I don't dwell on it for long. Then again, I'm also lucky to have certain supportive, exciting, wonderful people in my life who keep me happy with what I have now while passionate and curious about the future. This balance keeps me from entering into a cycle of chasing one apparent dream to the next across the world until I find myself without a career at the age of 40, and STILL without any direction, although...come to think of it....that could be fun?