Folly and Youth

There’s something inexplicable about being young. A certain feeling exists, like an aura around me, as I go about my daily tasks. I work late into the night, shedding sweat-stained clothes to enjoy a dinner of cold pizza by moonlight, and a part of me prays to God that my life is nothing like this in five years. Another part of me wonders, after these days truly are behind me, whether I will miss them. What might I miss, what significance might nostalgia infuse these memories with, that today seem so mundane and menial? I haven’t been alive very long, as far as people go, but I have certainly noticed that I tend to most fondly remember the little things about my past, the nuances and fine touches that make each chapter of our lives so distinct in our recollection.
Nostalgia is a funny thing, and deceptive also; in my experience, most of what I long for in my younger days is the simplicity of things, which equates to my relative ignorance of the complexity of the world in which we live. The process of growing up seems to consist in taking on more and more responsibilities: a child is given chores, a teen a car and a part-time job, and the emerging young man eventually becomes entirely responsible for himself. As time goes on, he will become responsible for others as well, friends and family, children and grandchildren. There is an ancient Chinese proverb which I remembered particularly for its familiar chiastic structure, but also contains some great wisdom. Upon looking it up I find it is the opening section of the Classic of Great Learning, one of the Shi Jing. The translation is a little rough, but I won’t risk losing any of the subtlety and intent of the Chinese original by further altering the language:

In-past those wishing-to make-bright bright virtue in under-heaven:
First order his-own state;
Wishing-to order his-own state,
First regulate his-own family;
Wishing-to regulate his-own family,
First cultivate his-own person;
Wishing-to cultivate his-own person,
First correct his-own mind-heart;
Wishing-to correct his-own mind-heart,
First make-sincere his-own ideas;
Wishing-to make-sincere his-own ideas,
First extend his-own knowledge;
Extending knowledge is-in “investigating” things.

Things “investigated” and after knowledge comes,
Knowledge comes and after ideas sincere,
Ideas sincere and after heart correct,
Heart correct and after person cultivated,
Person cultivated and after family regulated,
Family regulated and after state ordered,
State ordered and after under heaven great peace.

That is quite an adequate explanation of the process of maturing and becoming a good steward, and serves as a reminder to those who have sufficiently ordered themselves and their families of their civic duties, their need to spread their own prosperity by aiding society in the democratic process. Of course, none of them do, and I’m not one to show them how it’s done; I’ve only barely begun “investigating” things and have practically no sincere ideas, a wholly incorrect mind-heart, an uncultivated person, an unregulated family, and a state that’s pretty much a mockery of itself. My only consolation in all of this is that I’m young enough so that none of it is totally my fault.
Yet. I’ve got a long, treacherous road ahead of me and will easily have as much opportunity to fuck everything in the world up as much as anybody else did, maybe even more with all the exciting new doors being opened up by technology nowadays. And if history has proven anything, it’s that man-made disasters usually weren’t started with the intention of becoming such. Mad scientists don’t really exist: just clumsy but influential individuals lacking in foresight. So is it worth the trouble to be prominent and dedicated and advocate a cause if one unwittingly leaves the world worse off for it? I suppose we might have asked Dr. Leary.
In any case, I face my future with definite apprehension. I’m both terrified and exhilarated to think of what I may get to experience and become responsible for. Some days adulthood just can’t arrive soon enough, and others I wish I could be a child forever and never have to worry about all this fucking grown up stuff like bills and leases and interest rates and arraignments and performance reviews and automobile repairs and health problems ever again.
But then what would make life worth living longer if we couldn’t find ways to get more out of it as it went on? Things have to get harder in order for us to get better at handling them, and the better we get at life than, theoretically, the happier we can be. I think it’s a hypothesis worth testing.

Better Days

I live for thinking of better days, gazing backwards at regrets now past the haze of things a mind may fabricate or forget. The best times behind, I say, are what let good times roll on unbidden, even when history’s rewritten with nostalgia writ over the pain and the trials, and the sin and the shame. We all play this game, catch ourselves in a bluff that perception isn’t reality, but it seems close enough to the likes of us, and our vanity. How can we not take this power of God’s and paint earth with our face and the sky with our thoughts, cannily, to resist realer daydreams than heaven or Oz to not live in a world that’s what we think it ought be? It seems that delusion’s a symptom of sanity.