Friday, July 14, 2006
Hip to Be a Square
Longtime friends and readers of this blog know that I like to take some time out on Bastille Day to reflect on events of the past year. This is not because I am a devout francophile nor due to some irrational obsession with the films of Ingmar Bergman, but for an entirely selfish and narcissicistic reason. Today is my birthday.
I consider myself fortunate to have a birthday whose date is relatively easy to remember. As someone who intends to live to the ripe old age where he might actually begin to have trouble remembering salient details about his life like where he grew up (It was somehwere in New England...or was it in the Mid-Atlantic?), where he went to college (Was it Yale? Princeton? Both? Neither?), and so on, having a birthday that coincides with a well known historical event or two is rather helpful. Not to mention the fact that the date is twice that of the month. And did you know that on leap years the 14th of July is the 196th day of the calendar year...and that 196 is 14 squared? Yes, all in all, a numerically pleasing day indeed.
The mathematical fun quotient is especially great for me today because for the first time since 1997, I am celebrating a perfectly square birthday. Today I am 25, which as some have pointed out to me is one of the last birthdays in a while which is not intrinsically depressing. I have been alive a full quarter of a century. Happy silver anniversary of me! As of today I am old enough to run for Congress! I can rent a car! My car insurance rates should finally go down! Life is good...or so it would seem.
Are there any downsides? Well, not in and of themselves. Biologically, I'm still in what could be considered my physical and psychological prime, all my bits and pieces are still in working order. But 25 is a significant year because it is another traditional endpoint for one's youth, a milestone indicating that it's about time to stop thinking about what you want to be when you grow up and actually start growing up. Personally, I've had about enough of the growing up I've had to do, especially during the past three years. Teaching was a large part of it. Dealing with all the madness in my classroom meant having to either toughen one's skin or curl up under one's desk and hide. But there's more...there's the feeling of having responsibilities of one's own. Bills to pay. Groceries to buy. All of that stuff.
Which is not to say that I've been unsuccessful or even that I'm truly unhappy with the way things have turned out. But it seems that as people like me move towards achieving the traditional American dream, with a roof over our head, a good job, and all the mindless television programs that our little brains can stand, that we have to defer a few of our other dreams and ambitions. And I know I'm not alone here. It's like Neal Stephenson wrote in Snow Crash:
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
The Invisible Ben used to feel that way too, but then he realized that he could not and almost certainly would never be Batman. Or James Bond. Or the Dread Pirate Roberts. Or any of those swashbuckling, gadget-toting, heroic types...brooding, gritty, determined men with boundless courage and battle-forged cunning who always beat the bad guy, get the girl, and save the day. (Not necessarily in that order!) Perhaps every guy feels this way, that twenty-five is the end of fantasy and the start of reality. The anniversary upon which one slams into the true nature of the world and his place in it like a tomato against the side of a battleship. This is when we start to feel old.
This can be a painfully rude awakening, but ultimately, at least for me, I think it's for the best that I've started to move towards a more permanent career in academia rather than sticking with the Sisyphean fun of inner city high school teaching. And despite the fact that I will likely never be a multimillionaire playboy with a private arsenal and a knowledge of twelve different martial arts, my life right now is pretty damn good. I have a family who loves me and with whom I get along the majority of the time. I have a wonderful girlfriend who actually appreciates my sense of humor...if you can believe that. I have a solid group of friends, both old (high school/college folk) and new (5 time pub trivia champions so far this summer!). And I'm starting a relatively well-respected Ph.D. program in the fall! All in all, not too shabby!
Granted...I know, I'll never be a rock star, an astronaut, a secret agent, or some combination of the three. But today, as I turn twenty-five, I remain content in the knowledge that it is perfectly acceptable to just be...well...me. Why feel old? As my grandfather told me last weekend, once you start feeling old you're putting one foot in the grave and are just waiting to die. I'm twenty-five years young and I'm not perfect. But who is? I've still got plenty of time to work out the kinks.
Happy Bastille Day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for reading. Here's to another great year!
Longtime friends and readers of this blog know that I like to take some time out on Bastille Day to reflect on events of the past year. This is not because I am a devout francophile nor due to some irrational obsession with the films of Ingmar Bergman, but for an entirely selfish and narcissicistic reason. Today is my birthday.
I consider myself fortunate to have a birthday whose date is relatively easy to remember. As someone who intends to live to the ripe old age where he might actually begin to have trouble remembering salient details about his life like where he grew up (It was somehwere in New England...or was it in the Mid-Atlantic?), where he went to college (Was it Yale? Princeton? Both? Neither?), and so on, having a birthday that coincides with a well known historical event or two is rather helpful. Not to mention the fact that the date is twice that of the month. And did you know that on leap years the 14th of July is the 196th day of the calendar year...and that 196 is 14 squared? Yes, all in all, a numerically pleasing day indeed.
The mathematical fun quotient is especially great for me today because for the first time since 1997, I am celebrating a perfectly square birthday. Today I am 25, which as some have pointed out to me is one of the last birthdays in a while which is not intrinsically depressing. I have been alive a full quarter of a century. Happy silver anniversary of me! As of today I am old enough to run for Congress! I can rent a car! My car insurance rates should finally go down! Life is good...or so it would seem.
Are there any downsides? Well, not in and of themselves. Biologically, I'm still in what could be considered my physical and psychological prime, all my bits and pieces are still in working order. But 25 is a significant year because it is another traditional endpoint for one's youth, a milestone indicating that it's about time to stop thinking about what you want to be when you grow up and actually start growing up. Personally, I've had about enough of the growing up I've had to do, especially during the past three years. Teaching was a large part of it. Dealing with all the madness in my classroom meant having to either toughen one's skin or curl up under one's desk and hide. But there's more...there's the feeling of having responsibilities of one's own. Bills to pay. Groceries to buy. All of that stuff.
Which is not to say that I've been unsuccessful or even that I'm truly unhappy with the way things have turned out. But it seems that as people like me move towards achieving the traditional American dream, with a roof over our head, a good job, and all the mindless television programs that our little brains can stand, that we have to defer a few of our other dreams and ambitions. And I know I'm not alone here. It's like Neal Stephenson wrote in Snow Crash:
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
The Invisible Ben used to feel that way too, but then he realized that he could not and almost certainly would never be Batman. Or James Bond. Or the Dread Pirate Roberts. Or any of those swashbuckling, gadget-toting, heroic types...brooding, gritty, determined men with boundless courage and battle-forged cunning who always beat the bad guy, get the girl, and save the day. (Not necessarily in that order!) Perhaps every guy feels this way, that twenty-five is the end of fantasy and the start of reality. The anniversary upon which one slams into the true nature of the world and his place in it like a tomato against the side of a battleship. This is when we start to feel old.
This can be a painfully rude awakening, but ultimately, at least for me, I think it's for the best that I've started to move towards a more permanent career in academia rather than sticking with the Sisyphean fun of inner city high school teaching. And despite the fact that I will likely never be a multimillionaire playboy with a private arsenal and a knowledge of twelve different martial arts, my life right now is pretty damn good. I have a family who loves me and with whom I get along the majority of the time. I have a wonderful girlfriend who actually appreciates my sense of humor...if you can believe that. I have a solid group of friends, both old (high school/college folk) and new (5 time pub trivia champions so far this summer!). And I'm starting a relatively well-respected Ph.D. program in the fall! All in all, not too shabby!
Granted...I know, I'll never be a rock star, an astronaut, a secret agent, or some combination of the three. But today, as I turn twenty-five, I remain content in the knowledge that it is perfectly acceptable to just be...well...me. Why feel old? As my grandfather told me last weekend, once you start feeling old you're putting one foot in the grave and are just waiting to die. I'm twenty-five years young and I'm not perfect. But who is? I've still got plenty of time to work out the kinks.
Happy Bastille Day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for reading. Here's to another great year!
