I was looking at a picture on Sim’s homenode. The man
there is smiling, shaggy-headed, standing on the deck of some kind of
freighter or barge. You can tell that it’s the
70s, though even these days some people wear their hair
that way. But there’s an aura of hopefulness
that surrounds him, an unconscious confidence, that seems different
from the look of 25 year olds today. He’s ready for the world, and he’s
pleased to be himself.
Pictures of other people when
they were young inevitably make me think of myself
when I was young. Probably they don’t do this to
people who are younger than the person depicted in the
picture.
Twenty-five seems a long time ago to me now.
It
also makes me think of the way I occupied my time, when I was 25. The
jobs I took on with such casual nonchalance,
thinking that they were just something I would do for a while, that I was doing them; they had nothing to do with me. I could always get
another job, always move on to something else.
Now, looking
back? The waitressing jobs, the stint as a PIRG canvasser, the extended
student life, the teaching gigs? They define me. Through these jobs
(and through the people I met, and the crises I navigated) I learned to
know myself.
Things you do casually live on with you forever. You think you’re taking on a role as a lark, or a joke, or an experiment. But
here is what I have to say to you (though I fully expect you to believe
you will be the exception): Be prepared to have it––whatever it
is––leave its imprint on you. Be prepared to look back on these jobs
and these roles as a key to yourself. Be prepared to look back and say: "Fucking hell. That was it. That was life. I was doing it, right then."