Filling the static and silence
Loneliness can be overwhelming to the extent of despair. It’s practically an innate need of living things to connect with something or someone that acts not only as a mirror to our subjective experience, but also as validation that our subjective experience is not singular. No matter how desperately we want to believe, at times, that our struggles are ours alone—someone somewhere can, at the very least, relate on some minute level.
I was not a particularly social child growing up. I had no patience for childlike activities or conversations, so it went without saying that discussions with adults were far more enjoyable. The trouble with this, however, lay in the fact that I could never take these discourses home with me or to the playground or the cafeteria or anywhere else where I was supposed to act like a kid among other four-footers. Needless to say, my friends were oft books and chatter limited itself to whatever the singer of the song on the record/radio/cassette tape had to say. That I read Moby Dick over the course of a week in sixth grade might speak more about my isolation than anything else.
My stereo and later the iPod eventually filled the static and silence in later years. There was nothing so holy as hearing someone talk about your life without having ever met you, but telling the story so much more eloquently than you ever believed yourself able. (This remains the case—music connects us to emotions and experiences that are both real and fantasized. Why else would Presidential candidates have pep rally playlists?) Nirvana, Placebo, and The Manic Street Preachers crashed through my version of the 90s and Steppenwolf was my turntable favorite, among others.
Either way, these things took me away from the bubble that I felt I occupied.
Where we previously had books (David Foster Wallace, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Joan Didion) and our favorite bands, the internet and social media cropped up. In a way, the threads that tie us together via social media take what books and bands do and add steroids. Eloquence is one thing, to have an actual conversation with someone that gets it is something else. While you know some vague detail about the people with whom you trade favorite authors or show up at the same shows, the internet affords some speck of anonymity (if desired) when it comes to the gritty, bare bones discussions. You can bare your soul without necessarily having to readily admit it to someone that knows you face to face.
I remember discovering forums and message boards a good ten or fifteen years ago and what a find. You had a handle, you had an avatar, and you could share your secrets without having to share “who” you were. (Of course, now there’s Post Secret, which trumps all of this!) Somehow, even if you felt lonely in your daily life, you could turn on the machine (listen to the bloody modem for those that remember dial-up), and there was suddenly a whole world full of people that “got it.”
People ask now, “Why mess with social media? It seems kind of self-indulgent and a giant waste of time.” I say, why not? It would be like asking, “What’s the point of travelling to other places?” or “Why read the news or magazines?” We are a product of need for other living beings (including plants and animals and whatever else serves as your companion.) Even if one doesn’t particularly like the company of others and prefers a solitary existence (yes, that includes me, the perpetual roommate-free single dweller), we still have a sometimes begrudging need for validation of our existence, of our experience from/by something/someone else.
Even if it’s only a mirror. Figurative or not.
Maturity is wasted on the old…
Or so goes the pitiful article from Elizabeth Wurtzel in the latest issue of “Elle”. Getting older seems to be a raging epitaph in the lives of many women I know of late, myself included. I’ve spent the last year kind of fretting over my 25th birthday in a couple of weeks and after a trip to Chicago and reading Ms. Wurtzel’s article the other night, now find it ridiculous that I was ever freaked out at all. Wurtzel spoke about her wasted youth, the fact that she feels now that despite being “suitable” for the marrying kind, no one will marry her because of her faded looks. She even went so far as to admit that she keeps her hair long simply because it seems to make her appear younger than her 41 years. I was disappointed in the article, to be honest. Where, oh where, has the spunky firecracker that Wurtzel once embodied gone? The yammering on about possessing the wisdom of her years, but only at the expense of her looks was irritating. I wanted to shake this woman, her shoulders within the grasp of my tiny hands, and tell her to snap out of it. One can coast on their good looks for a while, but the superficial aesthetics are not the tipping point of attraction. Confidence, whether it is borne of the naiveté of youth or coming into your own at a given age, is the swell of attractiveness. The beautiful people are appealing on a subliminal level, but garner true attention in the light of charisma and healthy, self-renewed confidence in themselves. The dynamic of the intelligent woman vs the beautiful woman -to be both is not readily accepted because it’s intimidating. The power to seduce someone with your looks is strong, but bowling others over with your wits is even more intense. You want to be attractive at 30, 40, 50 plus? Embrace yourself at whatever point you have reached at that time in your life. Take care of yourself. Move like you own the room becuase you do own the room. Why do men seem to age better than women? They don’t -it’s simply a matter of how they carry themselves. Own it, Ms. Wurtzel. You miss the girl you were at 25? Reclaim her. I’m not saying that we should all dress like the current 20-year olds or attempt to speak their language or make the same mistakes at 30 or 40 that we did when we were younger. People need to remember the fearlessness of their youth and just roll with it. Perhaps maturity is wasted on the old, but only because most people forgot to hang on to the fire they fueled in their younger years. Where does that leave me? I went to Chicago a few weeks ago and had a freakout because most of my friends, despite not being PTA members and futbol mums with minivans, are living in an urban suburbia that terrifies me. Life seems to grow boring full stop as they grow closer and closer to 30 or 35. It occurred to me that my friends, most of whom are married or getting married with or without kids, are making me feel old. To hell with trying to live the hipster’s American dream, that still somehow resembles all of my friends living in cookie cutter houses where the lawns are perfectly manicured and stay at home mums bake muffins all day. I’m 25, I’m a stubborn, pain-in-the-arse filmmaker that can’t stand the idea of domestic utopia. I’m the single, childless friend that travels the globe, whose “kids” are cats, and who can’t quite tuck away into corporate hell with a flawlessly flat-ironed bob and conservative clothes. So.. in the spirit of not feeling old… I am having a rollerskating party for my birthday in a few weeks. May we all fall on our asses, laugh, be silly, be stupid, and have a good time. By golly, we are not old and life does not stop at 25 or 30 or 40. There are more adventures to be had that shouldn’t revolve around whether or not we can get the babysitter for Saturday. You simply bring them with you.
