I’ve been trying to decode all this YA I’ve been reading lately, and here’s what I’m thinking. It’s about fighting to stay a kiddo. Peter Pan. Captain Hook. Figuring out a way to grow up and find your place in society, but remain childlike in ways important to you. These YA books are populated with characters who are questioning society and authority. Learning to make their own decisions. Questioning the law, questioning the rules, the status quo. Being an outsider, not quite fitting in. And realizing they don’t want to compromise. YA books are full of characters who are just waking up. And that’s what I love. They are so full of hope. Anything can happen. If we could all maintain this mindset just imagine how much we could progress.
As a (still, barely) twenty-something, this is something I still struggle with. Living in Florida, having this professional job, wearing the big girl work clothes. It all eclipses that childlike sense of whimsy I was so close to in Indiana. Feeling like I am supposed to be acting like a grown-up makes me second guess myself. It’s like I’m in the closet about being a belligerent hipster. And that’s just too hard, you know? Being a hoodlum is too important, as ridiculous as that sounds.
I’ve realized something these last two years. My eyes have been opened. I bought into the system. I was (the public service equivalent of) middle management. I moved to a completely foreign place for a job. I worked for a large organization with a tightly controlled flow of information. My innovation was squashed. I was bored. I wore khakis. I was always anxious. I didn’t have time or energy to be me anymore. I was a bought woman. I didn't do the job because I wanted to, because it made happy. I did it because I could. I did it for validation. I was a puppy, begging to be petted. To belong. To be important. To matter.
And now- I have been fundamentally changed. I have swung farther toward my center in these last few weeks, having decided and planned my return to Neverland. And I would rather be a proletariat for life than a middle manager, at any price.
In Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, when Tally Youngblood gets made into a Special- she hasn’t won the fight. Going up the chain of command doesn’t mean you’ve won anything. You’re still selling yourself for a price. You’re still a bought woman. You just got a better rate. And they have to pay you more, to give you the illusion of more freedom. Because they’re getting a bigger piece of you. Because that’s the price for your silence, your cooperation. Your alliance. And that makes it even worse, because you think you’re free. You think you’ve won.
We each have a choice to make between two paths. Work for the man. Buy into the man. Care about the man. Make money and buy a bunch of shit. Or go your own way: be an indie. Let the chips fall where they may. Live by the seat of your pants.
It’s all about sticks and carrots. Every society has them. Whether it’s money, power, validation, fear, duty, fame, or celebrity. There must be a way for society to ensure its continued existence. What’s your incentive? Are you going to let someone else create your carrot? Or do you trust yourself to create your own?
People have been trying for centuries to create new ideal societies, new systems of government. And they always will. It will always be advantageous for people to come together to live and work in societies. And there will always be governments, city councils, chore duties, work. The fact the most people play along and buy into the system means that there is a bigger crowd for the crims to hide behind. And there will always be crims too. You will never get 100% buy-in, no matter what you’re selling. There will always be abstainers. And if capitalism fell tomorrow, another system would follow. And it would take us decades to decode the system, to figure out how to take advantage. To hijack the infrastructure. So, um, I guess thanks, capitalism?
The bottom line is this: I want to be a crim. I want to pull ugly tricks, fly under the radar, and stay a kiddo. As long as I can.
I’ve always been a socialist, a prole, but I think I’m coming out as an anarchist. And it feels like freedom.
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1 comment:
Well put, Mando. I often have similar inner-struggles (although I think that job-wise, in my case, "the man" won). It's difficult to figure out how to live in a society and still reject many aspects of it. I think the best solution is to round up all the cool kids and buy our own island.
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