9 semesters is too much... and I've still got 1 to go. A whopping 6 classes and an inevitable breakdown (or multitude of breakdowns) left before I say goodbye to the college projects and attempt to find myself work in this 'real world' I keep hearing about. Even though now it feels like its going to be one hell of a place to try and find any 'real' work.
Here's hoping.
On another note:
I just watched the Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool subtitled "A Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular Culture for Teenagers."
I have to start out by saying this made for t.v. documentary is pretty dated ('01) in relation to how fast things move in our society. At the same time however, the fact that something produced only 7 years ago can be considered 'dated' does a lot to reinforce one of the arching themes presented in the film: trends.
Having grown up and lived my teenage years when this documentary was shot and recorded, I am reluctant to admit that I too, was absorbed, albeit for a shot while, with the popularity and entrancing machines that were MTv and VH1. But absorption quickly grew in to apathy and apprehension. I simply wasn't one of the teenie bopper babies that this media conglomerate was trying to 'nurture' into a screaming fanboy of popular culture and materialism. My own personality has alwats demanded something different of me: creativity.
I have lived my life to this point with a child-like fascination for toys, gadgets, picture making, and particular literature. Yet, while I look to these immediate, and perishable mediums of my intrigue as beautiful, I am left with a solemn emptiness. While I love the things I surround myself with on a daily basis, it is my personal goals to create similar works all my own that drive me through my work.
I personally can only see myself doing one other job other than designing/creating, and that would probably fall into a laborer type field. I think Office Space said it best (without ever saying it at all) that good old fashion hands in the dirt labor can be the most liberating job for a man who can't be restrained by a cubicle or number crunching under the weight of a gluttonous finger. So it is with that attitude that I can't, and will not allow myself to fall into a mindless, droning job of filing, and grinding. I simply can't look to work as a 'grind.' To spend my life day-to-day with no objective would surely drive me to an early grave, and as a result, I have already set up many small personal projects, as well less spoken of 'long term' projects that I will aid me in my quest to live a fulfilled and meaningful existence.
I am not what MTv and VH1 and countless other media giants strive to create out of the masses of people. These locusts coined 'consumerists.' I've seen the way the world is and while I don't outwardly reject it in it's entirety, I think I am confident in who I am as a person enough to proclaim that I am going to try with every last breath of who I am to rise above it.
