summatus mentis

Martin posted a couple of days ago a pretty cool link that he’d found, about how our generation needs to put everything we’ve got into what we do. There’s no higher purpose, it’s not as though we have a creed, or a reason, just that it opens us up as humans to the rest of the world, where otherwise, we’d go unnoticed.

I was thinking about this more in depth the other day, and it struck me as curious. Yes, for things that aren’t required, writing songs, blogging, painting, etc, this idea of doing it because we have to in order to ‘feel alive’, this makes sense. However, what about for things we’re supposed to do? Like, what about going to college? What about, once we graduate, getting a job? For me, going to college, attending class, doesn’t give me the excitement/freedom that writing/blogging does. When I write lyrics (even though I can’t write music), it gives me a feeling of reward that I don’t get from going to class.

The end result of going to class is getting a diploma. This diploma, like the thousands of others that Computer Science majors are getting at the same time, will give me validity as an adult. I can then take this validity, and go one of two ways. I can apply to another school, to give more validity to my skills, or I can apply to go sit in a cube. Either way, it seems as though my path is already laid out for me, and it’s as though they’re (they being some entity, society maybe) putting us into “little boxes” (like the song, yes).

This is in direct contrast to doing something to get noticed, and in direct contrast to doing something because it ‘keeps us alive’. I, for one, don’t want to sit in a cube all day long. Research excites me, probably because it’ll be something interesting that I can give my all to, and it’ll be mentally stimulating.

I don’t know what the right answer is, I don’t really even know why I’m thinking about this. Getting a job is what we’re ’supposed to do’. Every generation before us has, and all the generations after us are already being shaped to know that they too, at some point, will have to get a job.

Is a job necessary to survive? Yes, in todays market economy. I’m not opposed to the concept of work, that’s not what I’m saying. I just want to do something interesting, something that can show I’m human, and not just another drone that has been molded by ‘them’ (again, society, or some other entity) to do some job that potentially will be replacable by machines within the next few years.

“So don’t go to school, don’t get a job. Find something you love doing” you say? Well, yes, that’s one possibility. Is it economically feasible? Not likely. “Do what you want to do in your spare time” Sure, I could. That’s what I’m doing now. The issue being, there are parts of my life that aren’t as fulfilling, like class.

I don’t have an answer, and I don’t know that anyone does. Maybe the art majors do, but I would imagine they’re like me. They got into art because they loved it, now that they’re there, the classes become tedious, and they don’t have time to just play anymore.

Can we do away with the system that puts us in boxes? Could we go through the assembly line of life without a box? Not really, the system isn’t designed that way. All the conveyor belts are designed to move boxes, not people shaped figures. Not really even boxes that are pyramid shaped, or anything that’s not a perfect rectangle. Sure, some boxes are bigger than others, but we’re still in a box.

I’m not wildly depressed about my future, and I’m sure I’ll be able to be happy in whatever I end up doing with my life. It’s a matter of showing the world who we are, what we can do, that we’re here, and we want to do what we want to do. It’s not a movement, not on a large scale, at least. We’re all in it for self gratification, because it makes us happy.

-JTS