Saturday, September 22, 2012

"Yet" and other loaded words

Some people have a hard time hearing or saying "No."

Others struggle with being selfish versus selfless.

While I don't have issues with the former, and while I do struggle with the latter, I frankly have a harder time with the words-

Yet
Education
Patience
Reality
G.E.D.

These words (or acronym in the case of GED) are loaded words for me.

Whenever I hear these words or terms, they always illicit anger, pain, and sadness I can't describe without melodrama, thus alienates me from my FAR more pragmatic and demure writer friends. I can't share it with my family either, we're just not close like that, and that's all you need to know.

Yet is a word I struggle with using more of. Because it's not like I always just "want" something 
at random without working for it.

I can't (YET) afford to live on my own.

I can't (YET) achieve certain goals until catch up on my education, and unlike some people I know, I just don't shine in an academic environment.

I can't (YET) go anywhere without someone driving me there, and before anyone asks, I don't have a license and even if I did don't have the money to buy and maintain a car, never mind the insurance, and I never learned to ride be bike and there's nowhere worth biking to where I live.

I just don't (Yeah, I know, YET...!) know what my second career will be until writing takes off.

I have worked hard for YEARS to find the answers to achieving ANY and ALL of the above. "Yet" is a hard word to say, or type, without feeling like I'm constantly in 

As much as people say "Learning never ends" they're still has to come a point where you're NOT at level one, and that's just how I feel, otherwise no one would ever be president, walked on the moon, and women would be stuck in pregnant mode indefinitely if things really stayed stagnant, and say what you will about the constants of parenthood, that child has to be born first, he or she can't just stop in the middle, if you know what I mean.

While being asked "What's your day job?" (i.e. How do you make money to pay bills, etc) is not a big deal to some (Particularly if you can write nonfiction, which I just can't, OKAY!), for me, this question's more personally invasive than being asked how old I am or even what I look for in a girlfriend (Not that I wish to share the latter at length to just ANYONE...).

I didn't complete high school and am currently studying for re-taking the GED, and despite what some have told me, it's NOT a cinch, and this is before the changes coming to make it harder, so make of that what you will.

Education is a loaded word for me now. Why? Because it's importance is lorded over you by family, teachers, the world at large, because as much as people lament or preach how d*** vital one's education is for your future, is it worth sacrificing any sense of present pleasure?

As much as we get nagged by family, media, society, and just our own private, uncensored self-releflection about "living in the present", when a dim and harsh future is all you hear about, I ask you, what does that say about our present life?

I don't mean to sound pessimestic and prissy here, but while many people I know don't feel this pressure at all, I do, and can only hope I'm not alone, despite never knowing those who feel what I'm facing right now, as of yet. (Sighs)

The fierece tug of war of ideals in my heart and playing across the world's stage is REAL. However general or personal you wish to think of it. 

  • Education vs. Imagination
  • PhDs over Passion
  • Survival and Sacrifice trumping Sustinance and Joy
  • Competition above Comraderie
  • Conforming to survive fincancially at the cost  of Living JOY despite tragedy and/or lack of money.

While having degrees and letters after your name won't garauntee a job, especially in the current landscape, something coming to a head in the U.S. presidential race, and across the world in numerous ways, it does still matter, and those who say it doesn't are either FAR better off than most in my position, or are the self-made types who can weather the storms of uncertainty in how they make their living, or as a mother who homeschools her children recently told me, "I don't want them [my kids] sheltered from the real world. I just differ about what I view as the 'real world'.

I wish more people would realize the pressure we're putting kids and teens, and those us under 30 folks (unhappily) living at home, jaded of the day-to-day drudgery of being stuck and without the freedoms many take for granted. under to excel in school can do (In my opinion) MORE damage than letting them slack off. We always talk about striving toward a balance life between business and pleasure, business seems to matter more, while pleasure is exiled to "The Land of Useless Ways to Spend One's Time."

While that may sound melodramtic to some, it is a reality for many.

Including me.

Part of the reason for my recent hiatus from this blog, and writing in general, comes from no longer able to deny, or ignore my lack of education.

I now must do something about it. As much as it hurts me emotionally.

As always, thanks to the writers I know who keep me in the their hearts and prayers, they know who they are, and for those of you academics out there, please understand that I don't  mean to belittle  or denounce your world.

I just don't feel comfortable in it, and hope against hope that there is a place in that world of academia for me, however small.

I don't think I've lost my love of learning. Something I had to seriously ask myself this summer.

But it's on life support. Plain and simple.

3 comments:

  1. I am sorry that your life continues to be a struggle. I have no words of wisdom to share with you, and I don't want to hurt your feelings or make you angrier by repeating optimistic platitudes that have no reality for you. I continue to pray that you will feel some internal peace and still be able to enjoy the wonderful escape of reading! God bless you.

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  2. So sorry to hear about your struggles, Taurean. I hope someday you can find peace with those words and your inner self. All I can say is your life and emotional struggles sounds like it was meant to be written down in a daily journal and maybe someday compiled into a book!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for replying, Allyn. I'm doing better. I'm learning to never say never, amd while I don't want to write memoir now, doesn't mean I won't later.

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