Last night I read a Pitchfork interview with The National, a pretty awesome band which sings many songs that seem to reiterate my thoughts as a twenty-something. I always thought that the main singer Matt Berninger must be a friend I hadn’t met yet because he sung about how one wants to be idealistic about the world as a place for adventure but at the same time he twists it so you realize it’s false.
My favorite song by him is “Geese of Beverly Road” from the album Alligator. He says, “Hey love, we’ll get away with it. We’ll run like we’re awesome, totally genius….We’re the heirs to the glimmering world.” And yet, his deep voice sounds a bit sad, almost desperate. I mean sure, we can get away with whatever shenanigans we want and consider ourselves pure genius, but he clarifies with like we’re awesome. I could be stretching it, but I feel like you could replace it with “as if” because you can act and believe you are awesome, but in reality you have to be normal and boring and average to move through life, stay on everyone’s good side, etc. In his next line he says that we’re the heirs to the glimmering world. Why not a glittering i.e. sparkling world instead? Merriam Webster defines glimmer as “to shine faintly or unsteadily; to give off a subdued unsteady reflection”. Clever twist of words there. We’re heirs to a faintly flickering world. And that can be how the world feels sometimes, right?
Man Berninger, you are a bit of a pessimist—but really, you speak truth.
Is this a “thing” that twenty-somethings have to go through? An online comic which reflects much of the same thing is the thought-provoking and sometimes sobering “Cat and Girl.” This one really makes me laugh and cry in a sick twisted way because it’s really true especially if you went to college and majored in liberal arts. But, anyway, thinking about how in one’s twenties, one’s idealism is overshadowed by sobering reality is a bit depressing.
I’d like to think that people who ignore that and try to live life the way they want to turn into the most interesting people. Is it lame to end with another comic? I’ve been really getting into those.
Anyway, xkcd has a great response that pretty much says screw it and do what you want…right here.
Yes, the world is ugly and not as fun as when you were sixteen with a license, but you can make that world into whatever you want if you hold onto whatever you love and chuck the rest.
(it’s not easy but it can be done)
-JC
