I came up with the title of my first book – or one of them, anyway – today. I thought of it in the shower: Schrodinger's Cake: Why Young America Can't Figure Out What It Wants to Do with Itself.
I admit, the subtitle part needs a little work. But I'm vastly pleased with the title itself. (And as of now, it's firmly copyright me! That is, except for the site honoring the writer of The Brave Little Toaster, which is already titled "Schrodinger's Cake." But I hope they won't mind if I write a book about an entirely different subject using the same phrase. I think there's room for the two of us there.)
See, I've been thinking a lot about my generation recently, and how we all feel as if we've somehow stumbled into adulthood without a roadmap, how we can't seem to find our way to one career or another, or how we get into a career and then desperately want out of it. Of course, I, living with my parents still at age 23, trying to figure out how I can be a writer and an actor and a literary critic and a singer all at once, am a prime example – I haven't even gotten far enough into a preliminary career to then abandon it and decide I'm going back to school for an entirely different one, like so many of us 20 and 30-somethings are doing.
I think there are a lot of reasons why we're this way – some economic, some philosophical, some demographic, some cultural (read the book!), but one main thing I've come to is that we're stuck in a sort of endless loop caused by a strongly bolstered and developed belief that we should a) be practical and b) be completely true to ourselves. That is, we're trying to live with Schrodinger's cake: you can have it and eat it at the same time.
Now, I'm not entirely certain that's a bad thing. My entire life philosophy seems to be boiling down to this quantum dessert theory. I believe in having your cake and eating it too, because I reject either-or choices – in terms of life-plan, in terms of personality, in terms of sexuality, in terms of relationships – everywhere, basically. I reject settling for one thing or the other, because I believe quite strongly that such choices are almost always arbitrary, and that they reduce the very real complexity of human life to a set of artificial binaries. You're either gay or you're straight. You're either practical or you're artistic. You're either a lover or a fighter. You're either a liberal or a conservative. I don't believe it! And neither, I suspect, do most of my contemporaries.
The truth is that almost everybody's a little of a lot of things, and being forced to choose just one label from among the possibilities seems outrageously, uncomfortably limiting. Ironically enough, in an age of ascendancy for binary code, we as individuals have come to reject binary identity. (Incidentally, I think our generation's addiction to irony itself is a function of this: we love the fact that the ironic points back to itself, that it is both serious and unserious at the same time, that it allows for all points of view to coexist.)
I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. I think that, in many ways, our generation has become a niche generation. We're desperately aware of the enormous variety of human life, and as a result, we're always searching for more and more specific niches for ourselves, adding term after term after term to try and refine our identities even more, to try and get at that vast complexity that's revealed when you reject the idea of broad either-or choices.
And one result of that is that traditional career choices don't seem adequate anymore. I think, more than ever before, our generation believes it has to design its own life-path. Just "stockbroker" or "dentist" or "manager" is a woefully inadequate label for the personalization we believe we not only want, but ought to have. We've been raised to believe in the moral imperative of "being yourself" – that working only to earn money, or at something you don't enjoy, is a self-betrayal. We have come of age convinced that self-actualization is our moral duty.
Combine that drive for career nirvana with the fragmentation and complication of the idea of identity – no longer is it enough to be simply "a mother" or "a Southerner" or "an Asian" – and you have a set of suddenly overwhelming demands to create a unique "niche career" or "niche lifestyle" for yourself; while at the same time fulfilling the equally strong idea that we need to be practical in our choices – starry-eyed idealism is definitely out, and pragmatism is in.
Thus: Schrodinger's cake. How can we keep it together, fulfill our strong sense of the practical (which is an economic necessity, if nothing else, in these times of high unemployment and viciously rapid career turnover), and at the same time self-actualize and remain true to our sense of ourselves as multifaceted, niche identities? How can we have our cake and eat it too?
So what, then do we do? I don't know. I might not be able to write the book until I figure it out – but then again, our generational dilemma, I think, is that we seem not to be able to figure it out. The problem with Schrodinger's cake – or his cat – is that once you do something, the quantum paradox disappears. We're all stuck because once we make a move, the cat's either dead or it's alive; and the cake either disappears or goes stale. It leads to precisely the kind of immobility and stagnation most everyone I know is experiencing right now. How do we move on without destroying the impossible balance we've come to believe is essential to our very selves? I don't know the answer, obviously.
But I'm kind of pleased with myself for having come up with the premise, anyway. Though another thing that contributes to our generational immobility is of course a penchant for obsessive self-analysis. We didn't come of age during the heyday of self-help for nothing.
Anyway, there's my first book. Maybe I should start writing it. Though, of course, if I did that I might not be able to pursue an acting career. Or further my scholarship. Or….you get what I mean.
I admit, the subtitle part needs a little work. But I'm vastly pleased with the title itself. (And as of now, it's firmly copyright me! That is, except for the site honoring the writer of The Brave Little Toaster, which is already titled "Schrodinger's Cake." But I hope they won't mind if I write a book about an entirely different subject using the same phrase. I think there's room for the two of us there.)
See, I've been thinking a lot about my generation recently, and how we all feel as if we've somehow stumbled into adulthood without a roadmap, how we can't seem to find our way to one career or another, or how we get into a career and then desperately want out of it. Of course, I, living with my parents still at age 23, trying to figure out how I can be a writer and an actor and a literary critic and a singer all at once, am a prime example – I haven't even gotten far enough into a preliminary career to then abandon it and decide I'm going back to school for an entirely different one, like so many of us 20 and 30-somethings are doing.
I think there are a lot of reasons why we're this way – some economic, some philosophical, some demographic, some cultural (read the book!), but one main thing I've come to is that we're stuck in a sort of endless loop caused by a strongly bolstered and developed belief that we should a) be practical and b) be completely true to ourselves. That is, we're trying to live with Schrodinger's cake: you can have it and eat it at the same time.
Now, I'm not entirely certain that's a bad thing. My entire life philosophy seems to be boiling down to this quantum dessert theory. I believe in having your cake and eating it too, because I reject either-or choices – in terms of life-plan, in terms of personality, in terms of sexuality, in terms of relationships – everywhere, basically. I reject settling for one thing or the other, because I believe quite strongly that such choices are almost always arbitrary, and that they reduce the very real complexity of human life to a set of artificial binaries. You're either gay or you're straight. You're either practical or you're artistic. You're either a lover or a fighter. You're either a liberal or a conservative. I don't believe it! And neither, I suspect, do most of my contemporaries.
The truth is that almost everybody's a little of a lot of things, and being forced to choose just one label from among the possibilities seems outrageously, uncomfortably limiting. Ironically enough, in an age of ascendancy for binary code, we as individuals have come to reject binary identity. (Incidentally, I think our generation's addiction to irony itself is a function of this: we love the fact that the ironic points back to itself, that it is both serious and unserious at the same time, that it allows for all points of view to coexist.)
I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. I think that, in many ways, our generation has become a niche generation. We're desperately aware of the enormous variety of human life, and as a result, we're always searching for more and more specific niches for ourselves, adding term after term after term to try and refine our identities even more, to try and get at that vast complexity that's revealed when you reject the idea of broad either-or choices.
And one result of that is that traditional career choices don't seem adequate anymore. I think, more than ever before, our generation believes it has to design its own life-path. Just "stockbroker" or "dentist" or "manager" is a woefully inadequate label for the personalization we believe we not only want, but ought to have. We've been raised to believe in the moral imperative of "being yourself" – that working only to earn money, or at something you don't enjoy, is a self-betrayal. We have come of age convinced that self-actualization is our moral duty.
Combine that drive for career nirvana with the fragmentation and complication of the idea of identity – no longer is it enough to be simply "a mother" or "a Southerner" or "an Asian" – and you have a set of suddenly overwhelming demands to create a unique "niche career" or "niche lifestyle" for yourself; while at the same time fulfilling the equally strong idea that we need to be practical in our choices – starry-eyed idealism is definitely out, and pragmatism is in.
Thus: Schrodinger's cake. How can we keep it together, fulfill our strong sense of the practical (which is an economic necessity, if nothing else, in these times of high unemployment and viciously rapid career turnover), and at the same time self-actualize and remain true to our sense of ourselves as multifaceted, niche identities? How can we have our cake and eat it too?
So what, then do we do? I don't know. I might not be able to write the book until I figure it out – but then again, our generational dilemma, I think, is that we seem not to be able to figure it out. The problem with Schrodinger's cake – or his cat – is that once you do something, the quantum paradox disappears. We're all stuck because once we make a move, the cat's either dead or it's alive; and the cake either disappears or goes stale. It leads to precisely the kind of immobility and stagnation most everyone I know is experiencing right now. How do we move on without destroying the impossible balance we've come to believe is essential to our very selves? I don't know the answer, obviously.
But I'm kind of pleased with myself for having come up with the premise, anyway. Though another thing that contributes to our generational immobility is of course a penchant for obsessive self-analysis. We didn't come of age during the heyday of self-help for nothing.
Anyway, there's my first book. Maybe I should start writing it. Though, of course, if I did that I might not be able to pursue an acting career. Or further my scholarship. Or….you get what I mean.
Labels: anxiety, identity, spirit of the age, the_profession
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