What To Be When You're Older

or, why I wanted to write

In my final year of high school, around the time snow heaps were reduced to parking lot sludge, my teachers were beginning to introduce solutions to the coming pressures of adulthood by teaching us about elevator pitches and professional social media profiles. Now, I don’t blame them - I might offer similar risk-averse advice to my own kids, but I was rebellious and snappy so the teachers didn’t think it was worth spending the energy to convince me of the virtues of LinkedIn. They thought I was funny enough to survive. Funny - that word here meaning: funny like a scruffy old dog, or funny like the graphic design at a family-owned restaurant with questionable hygiene but great food.

I digress. I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine as we walked away from one of our career lectures. “So,” she asked, after having shared her polished plans, “what’re you thinking you’ll do?”

Shimmering images of imaginary office work and the collective unhappiness of literally every adult I ever knew began taunting me. I tried my best to be honest whenever teachers would ask me the same question: I would just sweat a little and admit that I didn’t know, that I was open to new experiences, and that I felt extremely wary of our country’s professional culture. But, since it was a friend asking, I tried to be extra honest with her. This meant being extra honest with myself.

I said: “I could see myself spending some time dedicated to a spiritual task of meditation and renunciation”. What was stopping me was that there wasn’t any specific sect that I believed in so strongly I was ready to dedicate my youth toward. That, and I thought it might be silly to don the costume of monkhood. There was nothing stopping me, I told her, from simply meditating right now.

Otherwise I might’ve liked to be a writer. “What?” she said. “Why hadn’t you just led with that?”

Maybe because it sounds quite pretentious and I was 16? Was it too obvious to say that I just wanted to be smart? Or was it precisely because this sort of second-guessing was never really apparent in the works of the writers I respected? Erudition is exactly what attracts me to the vocation. Type it, edit it, print it, and voila, it’s done. No ambiguity.

Like monkhood, there is no prerequisites for beginning to write. The culmination of both types of work could be used to compliment any other skillset or context I might find myself in life. Even if I somehow became relegated to a soul-crushing job, I thought, I could always write and wait. That could not be taken away from me.

So then, simple enough. I had conceptually decided on a life’s art. I stretched out my canvas, propped up an easel, and laid out my brushes. I was ready to paint! …and nothing came of it.

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I remember reading a poet speak about how their perspective on their work changed when they stopped thinking of their writing as poetry, but rather their words as mere code which would be fed into the machine of the human mind. Then, the program would run and lead a grown man to tears or to a cathartic laugh. Whatever was happening within the mind of the audience, they explained, that emotional, corporal response of the reader, that was the poetry. What they had written was simply instructional.

When I read this, something clicked for me. I suddenly wanted to see my creations through this lens, too. Later, when I began an IBM design course, I noticed similar ideas that echoed the same sentiment I had read from this poet. That was the idea of design thinking - the application of oneself to create an experience that betters the lives of those around you.

And that was certainly a key element missing from my thought, something that stood in the way of me beginning to write. I required the ability to help other people. I cannot take for granted the power that love poetry lacks until you lend yours.

With that, I understand that I have a lifetime ahead of me to continue developing and writing. Isn’t it miraculous that our hearts are born wise? I was attuned enough to receive a message, but has taken time to begin actualizing my vision.

The proper formation of a problem is the necessary scaffolding upon which you can build its solution. Writing, in its multitudinous forms, have lent me plenty of problems, alongside the opportunity to provide plenty of solutions. I am satisfied that I will continue to evolve publicly - in fact, it is the only choice I have. If not the public, if not for you, who else am I writing for?