deep enough to dream

Over the weekend, I was out house-hunting. The reality that I need to learn to stand on my own hit me, and it hit me hard. See I cleared uni. Four years seems like a really short time in retrospect, even counting that one class that never really used to end [or in my case 6 - Im a difficult guy to enthrall :) ], and I know that sounds cliche, but it's true. I cannot believe it's all over. No more waking up at ten to bask in the sun. No more fast food lunches every day. No more 'borrowing' stuff from the friend next door. No more skyving classes - something liberating about that, never quite known what. No more paying half-fee at concerts coz I have a student ID. No more people to make fun of. No fences around me offering the promise of security from the vagaries of the world. No more staying up all night staring at the stars just talking (Ok, I never did that. That would be completely cheesy!). Anyway, it appears I will be unable to do very many things I used to be able to coz I was still just a student, what did I know? Now I know. And soon Im going to be given the power to read (that's what they tell us when we graduate, like what have we been doing these last four years?? duh!), and with great power comes great responsibility... teren teren!!!

So the agent at the house quoted a pretty insane figure which they demand upfront as deposit for the houses, and I was hit with another reality - I NEED A JOB, FAST!!! It's like the rat race never ends. You work hard at primary so you can go to a good high school, you work hard there so you can get a good course in uni, which you do well so you can get a nice job. You'd think it was all over, but apparently you still need to work hard, perhaps now more than ever. When I was a kid I used to envy my parents, coz they used to have all the fun at work and I had to spend the day in school. It seemed they didn't have teachers hiding in the eaves with sticks waiting to pounce for even the smallest reason, or a boring monotonous timetable that never stops, or constant examinations. But mostly it was that school ran from 6AM to 6PM and work only seemed to run from 8 to 4 :). Now that I've gone through all that and Im on the verge of entering the working world, those days are starting to seem pretty idyllic. No landlords asking for rent, no pesky kids wanting to go to the park, no bosses breathing down your neck about deadlines, no insurbodinate juniors making you look bad, no needing to budget with fewer resources than requirements, and three school holidays every year to look forward to. Perhaps the grass really is always greener on the other side, even if you've been there and back.

On the job front the competition is pretty cutthroat. It's more than just survival for the fittest. Everyone wants a piece of the action, and it doesnt seem to be enough to go round. Natural selection is supposed to sharpen the edges, to ensure we are constantly getting better and better, and that every subsequent generation advances one step further than the previous one. But no matter how thin you slice things, there are always going to be two sides to them. The other side of natural selection is it kills potential talent. It squashes latent dreams. It diverts focus from the things that are important. People spend so much time learning tricks of the trade they never get to know the trade itself! It destroys the team dynamic, and turns everyone into a potential enemy. There are times, like now, when I wish we could all win. Yes pressure turns coal into diamonds, but it also collapses lungs, which I hear are very important! Like Martin Luther King I have a dream. But mine is that everyone will be able to find their place in this world. And that they will be able to find it without stepping over anyone else's head. And that we shall all be happy where we are, and be satisfied to advance as we walk step by step. And that we shall all strive to in so doing leave the world always a better place than we found it.

Ronald Reagan once postulated his life philsophy in a speech, and I found it quite admirable:

The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for
yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you
will be able to say, as I have: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a
statement, not an apology.

END