Life Thoughts
As work begins to tail off for the holiday season, it’s time to get back to blogging, which means back to introspection, retrospection, and prospection (the Internet says it’s a word and Chrome disagrees!).
Before I get to tech stuff, writing that first line made me think a bit about adding the parenthood element to life. I find that my post-Claire consciousness is less apt to turn its eye inward. I used to do that thing probably every tweens-era former honors student type does, just looking at people and internally remarking on how vacant so many people look while walking around. Making my drive out in the afternoon these days, I feel like I probably look that part pretty well myself.
The word I arrive at the most is “consuming,” not so much in the “consuming fire” sense, or the “consuming things” way, but more like inflating a balloon within a crowded box, “consuming space” kind of way. Our society’s extension of youthful conditions to adult circumstances has afforded us the luxury of sole person-hood for unprecedented periods of time within a lifespan.
A lot of the “startup culture” in Silicon Valley is obviously supported by this trend; if I were an academic I would cheekily call it the “fecundity-prolificacy gap.” People on Hacker News are constantly giving the “you have nothing to lose” argument to college grads regarding taking jobs for little pay and zero stability in high cost of living zones like San Francisco. Why not?
It’s interesting, and probably a great thing for the world in general. This probably makes the transition into parenthood more intense than in the, say, pre-1950’s era.