And she told me, "don't we all?"
I often wonder if I will ever be satisfied. Even after I get all of the education I want, all of the careers I fight to get, all of the love, affection, and respect I feel I deserve, will I be satisfied?
Is that what mid-life crises are about? Some motherfucker with everything he ever wanted just going berserk because he still wants more? Say Randall has fought for thirty-some years to find someone to love and who loves him, and he marries him. Say Randall finally gets that promotion and is now lead on a new project that he is excited about. Say Randall and his hubby have two beautiful children through a surrogate or something, and they put those kiddies behind a nice white picket fence in the middle of Suburbia-ton or something. The kids start going to a good school, the career is going great, and Randall finds himself supremely unsatisfied for no particular reason. So, because we are of the United States and consumerism is central to our national psyche, Randall goes out and buys something expensive to make himself feel better. A new car, or a studio to do his art in, or a brand new electric guitar, or a computer with all the extras. When that gets old, Randall starts checking out the younger men and women at work. Maybe he takes one out and they have the sex. Still Randall feels nothing, but at least now he has the drama and guilt of his sideshow to keep himself occupied. And that's when it hits him. He just needs to be occupied with something. Like a soap opera, or a videogame. It's like he has finished all of his goals, and is now just waiting to die before everything he worked for crumbles. People with real adversity in their lives are probably happier, or at least have fewer existential crises, than people who end up with all this extra life to live.
I really think that's part of it. People are relatively new to living past forty and they have little else to do after that point.
I don't think people in my generation will have this problem en masse. We of the underemployed and overeducated will most likely never truly get our feet firmly underneath us. I get the impression that those of us who have outwitted anachronism don't hold to such final dreams. It is, obviously, tempting to translate ambition into forms that others recognize. I'm trying to break free of that. Every time someone asks me what I want to be when I get older I recite the list of careers I hope to have because its a lot quicker than telling the truth. And it sounds a hell of a lot less pretentious. But I don't just want to be a teacher or an international political analyst. I want to be someone who never forgets the mission. I'd like to leave this world less harsh and more interesting and enjoyable than I found it. However, that sounds like a job posting for a superhero.
WANTED: One man to stand for Truth, Justice, and American Way. Must have mission. Must want to make world a better place. Must have package large enough to fill out spandex. Cape optional. Please respond to large spotlight projecting your symbol against a cloudy night with further inquiries.
There's this part in the movie Clerks 2 that I feel accurately describes my qualifications. Dante is arguing with Randal about how they've done nothing with their lives and how he should have tried harder in college or somesuch. The details escape me. Randal comes back with a rebuttal though that kind of shook me:
"We were just killing time with those classes! One semester we took Criminology, for chirst's sakes. What the fuck were we training to be? Batman?"
At that point of the movie I turned to myself and said to myself, "Self, that sounds just about right."
Not that I ever took criminology or anything like it, but if one were to scrutinize my transcripts one would discover that I am qualified for maybe three jobs in the world. The next Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the next Richard Hofstadter, or the next Adlai Stevenson. International superhero/detective/historian/intellectuals. I've often thought of those three men, along with Edward Said, Benedict Anderson, Seneca, Thomas Nagle, Hannah Arendt, Voltaire, and Rousseau, as a kind of intellectual justice league. Seneca is totally the Martian Manhunter.
Anyway, I guess my point is that I hope I am never satisfied. I hope I die just after I get sick of resting on my laurels from accomplishing everything I ever set out to do. And I hope that some kid puts me on his list of the intellectual justice league. And that I get to be Superman or Batman or something.
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