Lena Dunham knows
I sit here at nearly midnight in my parent’s living room, blasting Arcade Fire in my headphones. Hungry but too tired to eat but not tired enough to sleep. I just finished watching Tiny Furniture by the woman with whom I have a polarizing parasocial relationship, Lena Dunham. The film follows Dunham as Aura, a 22-year-old college grad moving back home. Sound familiar? Anyway, back to me. I yearn for the streets of Brooklyn in 2011, colored skinny jeans and side parts galore. I yearn for what I thought my twenties would be, sharing music on my mp3 with wired earbuds on a train. I am nostalgic for an era I wasn’t a part of. But I discovered the following in an enlightening moment as I was crying over something stupid that I can’t remember:
I texted this to a lucky few who get to hear the thoughts in my mind at all times. May you be so lucky.
This blog perplexes me. It truly is just me shouting into the void whenever I feel like it, which is kinda awesome. But that’s also a lot of power. In other news, I deleted all of my social media apps on the 1st. It was time. I’d rather spend my time creating than consuming brain rot. Or at least mindfully consuming, making an active choice of what to consume rather than garbage shoved down my throat by an algorithm. I want to live rather than watching others “live”.
There’s something very eerie about the world these days. I look around and question how we got here. All of the media I watched and read growing up warned me of technology taking over, and I guess in some ways it kind of has? You can’t even get on the subway without your phone these days. It’s wild. If I could, I would rid myself of all of it, but that’s impossible today. I even think of the Grammarly AI app I have aiding my editing as I write. Where do we draw the line?
I had a difficult time communicating this feeling and was feeling lonely in my thinking until I came across The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes On Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell. I nearly screamed out loud reading the introduction. It was the words caught in my throat, the knot in my stomach vocalized. I haven’t finished the book but if you can pick it up at your local library (support your local library) I highly recommend it.
Essentially being in your twenties is hard, no doubt. But being in your twenties while humankind is literally in decline is crazy. Okay, I’m reaching a bit but one statistic Montell mentions is the increase in severe mental illness and suicide in the past thirty or so years (I’m butchering it, go read the book). My point is something is wrong under the surface, and yet we continue acting like everything is fine? No, I don’t want to go to the bank I want to shout “The world is ending!!” but I’m expected to take out the trash and go to sleep and wake up in the morning. And we all do, and the world keeps spinning.
I guess, if I have to wake up every morning and do it all over again, I might as well make it a hell of a lot of fun. Therefore, I will be finding my motivation again. Such as the other night, when I was lying in my twin bed with my feet hanging off, it dawned on me: I NEED TO MOVE OUT. (I love my family but dear god how can I be an up-and-coming creative in these conditions). So a new goal is unlocked, and thus begins the cycle all over again. And yet I’ll be sad to move out as well, thus is the crux of being 22.
Because as Arcade Fire sings:
They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface
‘Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They’re calling at me, “Come and find your kind
Song of the day: