“Quarter-life crisis” is a
convenient term for glossing over a more subtle problem. I'm 27, about
to move to Chicago from a city of some 50,000 people. I've got an MA
and good deal of teaching and non-profit experience under my belt—and
not a clue what I'll be doing when my wife and I get to Chicago. I'm
married too, I should mention—and happily, I can honestly say. My
point is, I've got all these markers of adulthood about me—education,
a “real” job, the legally binding state of matrimony (I think
entering into contracts is a pretty grown-up thing, right?). Despite
all of these good things, I would definitely say what I'm
experiencing is my quarter-life crisis.
Crisis is normally used to mean the
decisive point in a situation. Usually a negative situation. Like
feeling aimless and anxious and worried about how in the hell you're
going to land on your feet and why you aren't way
more successful than you actually are. For a lot of guys, perhaps
what's missing, what causes these crises, is not being sure we're
doing anything that men
do correctly. This is that more urgent problem I see. We've taken
the ritual out of growing up.
Rituals
are fascinating things. They can be the most completely superficial
things, and still they carry a weight of significance that impresses
something deep and subconscious in us. By superficial, I mean that
the motions can be simple, and time-worn, and repetitive—like
actually walking across a stage to receive your diploma. We wear
funny clothes, and worse hats (which have their own special part to
play), we listen to some version of the same speech, and whoa
Black Betty! You're one step
closer to being an adult. The problem is that we've taken out the
important parts of our rituals, or we've stopped viewing the ritual
as important in itself. Most schools don't actually give you your
diploma at commencement—it' s an empty leather folder or a rolled
up piece of paper with a ribbon.
These
things are about coming of age. They're supposed to clue you into
what is expected of you, what you're supposed to be doing. More
importantly, rituals like these assure us that we're done with one
stage of life, and on to the next. I mean simple stuff, too. Tying
your shoes by yourself. Learning how to shave. Your first date. Your
first part-time job and that first pitiful paycheck that's all
yours. Without the substance of
rites of passage, and without the assurance of elders who've been
there, we end up stuck as
children playing at being adults, and we end up simply trying to
recreate the feeling of grown-up-ness these sort of events had the
first time around. You get to participate simply by virtue of the
passage of time, and not because you've proven that you're ready.
A
lot of the writing on this site is about capturing or re-capturing a
powerful sense of manhood. As young men we do a lot of the things we
think we're supposed to—work, get married, shape wood and metal,
procreate, or what have you—without being able to really
internalize why. This
is why we get into a lot of the problems we do with gender roles.
This is why it's often so easy to categorize guys by behavior; frat
boy, jock, hippie, upwardly-mobile no-bullshit indie business guy.
All of these guys think they've figured out what a man is supposed to
do and to be like.
I'm
saying, I have no friggin' idea what I'm supposed to be like. I'm in
the process of shifting my entire career focus. I'm wrestling with
the fact that I've committed myself to a career which promises to
make me barely a living wage for most of my life. Thankfully, my
wife recently had a panic moment and decided she isn't ready for
kids, so that's one off my plate. But what does she think of me, of
my choices, of my commitment to making our
life together better? Men provide, right? They protect and bring
security and take care of their families? By what possible stretch
of the imagination is a man working adjunct for less than minimum
wage at two colleges any woman's ideal relationship? Boys in the
Satere-Mawe tribe in Brazil wear gloves stuffed with gigantic
neuro-toxic bullet ants and dance around for ten minutes without
passing out in order to become a warrior. They do this up to twenty
times over a period months before it's official. Where is my torrid
glove of agony and manliness to show that I'm ready to take my place
as a man in society?
Somewhere
between a semi-traumatic undergraduate graduation and now, about five
years later, I can't help but feel like I'm still just playing
around. Things haven't been serious. That is, I
haven't been serious enough for this really to be adulthood. I also
haven't failed. That's a rite of passage, too. As a society we suck
at coping with failure and coming out on the other side, and we've
done everything we can to make sure our kids never experience
failure. My crisis now is, what
if I'm doing this all wrong? What if I fail and can't move on?
No comments:
Post a Comment