Adulthood (4)

Midway through the “Twixters” article, we find this paragraph:

Twixters expect a lot more from a job than a paycheck. Maybe it's a reaction to the greed-is-good 1980s or to the whatever-is-whatever apathy of the early 1990s. More likely, it's the way they were raised, by parents who came of age in the 1960s as the first generation determined to follow its bliss, who want their children to change the world the way they did. Maybe it has to do with advances in medicine. Twixters can reasonably expect to live into their 80s and beyond, so their working lives will be extended accordingly and when they choose a career, they know they'll be there for a while. But whatever the cause, twixters are looking for a sense of purpose and importance in their work, something that will add meaning to their lives, and many don't want to rest until they find it. "They're not just looking for a job," Arnett [a developmental psychologist] says. "They want something that's more like a calling, that's going to be an expression of their identity." Hedonistic nomads, the twixters may seem, but there's a serious core of idealism in them.

In 2005, this set my teeth on edge. The discovery that my own dreams and ambitions were merely the predictable loop-the-loops of a member of a cohort of naive (and, note, self-aggrandizing) idealists was of course humiliating, but Grossman’s babying efforts to pat us on the back gave it all a more vicious bite. (His tone here reminds me of people who say things like, “Kids these days are geniuses! My three-year-old niece already knows her way around an I-pad better than I do.” I don’t believe these people are as naive as they pretend to be. On some level, they must realize these children are warped and addicted, but this awareness runs up against an incontrovertible command to tell kids they’re wonderful and brilliant, and the result is a sort of curdled positivity. Grossman’s self-deception is subtler, but it’s of the same general type.)

In the years since, I’ve heard Grossman’s assessment repeated in various forms, usually (thank heavens) without the babying cheeriness. “Millennials expect too much from a job,” baby-boomers tell me. It is clearer than ever by now that I am one of the millennials they’re talking about, yet I no longer feel embarrassed or condemned. I have grown more bold in my failure. Once it ashamed me, but now I stand behind it with gloomy pride.

Here is what I have to say to these baby-boomers. When you entered the labor market, whatever job you took, you had at least this shred of dignity and purpose: that you were “a productive member of society.” It had not yet become clear that more productivity was just what society did not need. You did not seem to be a superfluous being whose “contribution” could only every be a contribution to a vast, intractable problem. You did not look out on the world and seem to hear a voice, muffled but urgent, whispering:

There are already too many lawyers, we do not need more of them. There are too many books, please don't write any more of them. Too many articles fighting for attention. Too many non-profits fighting for funding. Too many people, please don't deliver any more of them. Too many lives, please stop saving them. Too many buildings, please stop building them. Too many objects, please stop manufacturing them.

I’m well aware how self-justifying this all sounds. I don’t deny the charge. Naturally I want to justify myself, just as much as any investment banker or insurance salesman. I’m no better or worse than they—my shortcomings are just of a different type.

And, I won't deny, I long to go back: I long to believe again in the goals that once seemed clearly laid out for me. More than that, I long to achieve those goals. I wish success and prestige would suddenly fall upon me. I wonder, if they did, if I would forget all these galloping thoughts, these insatiable crumbs, and live comfortably and without criticism. Maybe I would. But they don’t fall upon me, and so I must keep nervously crumbling this loaf of thought and sprinkling it on the internet.

More on adulthood >>