I grew up in a college town.
I live in one now. In the summer it gets quiet and grown ups and their kids become the herd.
Then like rain on the ocean ten thousand young adults appear, clean and unruffled and judgemental and cosplaying adults, gloriously unsupervised, freshly autonomous, fit from having grown into their shape and for no other reason.
I was an odd, thin young man when I was one.
I have certainly spent a few pennies finding the depths of melancholy, pushing the up button well aware of the downside. I used to think I was strong enough to take anything. I felt bad for grown-ups who couldn't break free of the cycles in their lives that were obviously crushing them.
I managed to be unaware in thinking these things of the cycles in my own life, doing the same to me.
It seems that all the strong judgements a person can have about the world are lensed through the only complete example they have of how to be a human- themselves. Those senators harping on the unholyness of same sex relations and hooking up with their pages behind closed doors are too choice an example. We learn these behaviors. We are very simple creatures. We should take care to remember that each other is, that we are.
And those patterns we can so acutely observe in those around us are a mirror we don't recognize our own image in. It's like a show.
You are in the show. You're essential to how you see it and how it goes.
I think most adults see it sooner or later. We see the level of rebuild we will need to undertake if we f**k with the status quo in our little lives and stories. To a kid this looks like fear. To someone who hasn't built anything or seen anything mature in the web of their existence and influence, it can look like a cop out to just keep wearing the same outfits and getting the same haircut and to keep going to the same f*****g job you hate. But to an adult entrenched in a world that functions to pay the bills and keep the wheels on so regular life can keep going down the road the functionality overrides the consistent injury of a boss who is a dick or work that destroys your body or challenges your ability to keep it together. We might even be wired for it. Soldiering and slavery seem abhorrent, but they are long traditions. Service work and sex work seem like they might be humiliating from outside, but people find real joy there too.
So, what's the point?
Well, it might be that when you hate, you hate yourself, and that if you have compassion and attempt to understand or relate or connect, you will see yourself. Both are in our nature- hate and compassion, but one involves a consideration that is civil and good and connects you to your kind and the other is one that can only truly be done without those things.
Ok, now touch gloves, and come out compassionately when the bell rings.
THIS IS THE BANDCAMP LINK:
https://samknutson.bandcamp.com/album/gone
