when you're a kid, swimming at the beach (if you were so fortunate), you wade and wade and play in the sand, and when you get old enough you are allowed to venture out past the break to swim in the open ocean.
teenagedom feels like the time we run at the break head-on. that is the place to be, until we start longing for the other side. maybe true adulthood (whatever that means) is when we reach the open ocean; it's calmer but scarier. higher stakes, deeper waters. (on teenagedom, see also: lorde's "letter from the desk of a newborn adult")
freshly 23, i feel like i am well into the break. that turbulent, quick but high energy period of getting tumbled, coming up for air and laughing then going under again yeah yeah i could beat the metaphor forever i grew up on the beach whatever whatever. it's thrilling and it cannot be sustained and the only way out is through.
in september (when i started writing this blogpost), on my friend claudia's birthday and shortly after mine, we were sat on her couch talking about this in-between stretch we have landed in. 23, an odd throwaway age. she was expressing to me that she's (rightfully) uncomfortable in this space, that she longs for stability and to already have the 10,000 hours it takes to know something. oh to be 10 years older. there is a running joke between us that we are gonna be so good at being 30.
but this skip ahead to the future takes out the honorable part that we are in right now.
throughout my life, i've been given a lot of good and some really bad advice, so i have developed a pretty strong filtering system for such things. regardless, even if great advice is bestowed upon me it takes about two or three times for it to go in. "yeah, that makes rational sense but surely doesn't apply to me." i have to do everything myself, see everything through myself, get rocked by the consequences, and then humbly return to my friends and family, battered and learned.
these experiences are painful but valuable, as long as i am learning something. a loose goal of mine this year was to tighten up that learning period, to get the lesson/self knowledge/rule of thumb out of a given experience by making the same mistake two to three times instead of, like, five. i have not made much headway i think.
the definition of insanity is something like doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. well, not everything applies to everything, right? it's all too tempting. i have to try everything i see. high risk, high reward, high beat-to-shit count.
well, if i take advice with a grain of salt, and the word of my professors and mentors with grain of salt, and the google ai summary with a grain of salt (though probably with more merit than i would like to admit) then that leaves me with one thing i am relying on for decision making: my own experience. while it's ultimately good to trust oneself, i fear i may be a little clueless. i will explain why.
in order for my experience to be a reliable source, it has to be a fully cooked experience. how will i know if i really enjoyed a song if i didn't listen to it full blast, many times? eventually i will have done enough stuff to have the self knowledge to make my choices off of, but until then i know nothing and i have to world build. this means trying everything in every context multiple times.
live to the fullest. make a mistake, BIG time. love really recklessly and really loud. when i go away, go completely away. be upfront, reach out first, say the scary thing, say "i care about you" in whatever capacity that is. find people that love you through trial and error. find cities to put in your back pocket by going and loving it, going and hating it, going again and changing your mind. build a bank of knowledge.
the thing i am challenging myself to do now is just pick something. anything requires research. i will do it. anything requires money. i will get it. anything requires grit. i have that one pretty down. there is no special fig from the fig tree, and if i choose one it does not banish all the others. the truth is, all of the figs will be eaten and it doesn't matter what order they are eaten in and they will all inform each other in some way or another.
in order to build up this bank of knowledge, you have to go through the break. you have to swallow a bunch of seawater. you have to figure out what helps and what hurts. you have to do the same tiny thing a million times, until it becomes easy, it becomes muscle memory, becomes play.
being in the break is honorable. the break is honest. we learn about ourselves in here and how we respond to challenge/downtime/hurt/love/turmoil/boredom. the break lets us crash into each other and it's no one's fault. we are in it together.
