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silveradept[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#25: "The Best Years of My Life Were University Days."
This is a familiar refrain for the person who feels that they were at the peak of their potential during the years of their life where they had the least amount of adult responsibilities and the most amount of free time. And where they were in an environment where everyone was still learning the process of being a functional adult, and nobody had yet fully landed themselves in calcified structures and strata in their jobs that meant the amount of latitude they had in their jobs was highly restricted. For some people, it was their days before university where they felt they had the best years of their lives. When we see that in fiction and narrative, it is usually the person who was at the top of the social pile who is regretting that time has marched on and they have not maintained their positions. Because of the way that we work in shorthand and stereotype, that kind of regret usually comes from the head of the football team, or the cheering squad, or, if sports are not to be put in the narrative, this person is usually the Big Man on Campus or the Queen Bee who could control the entire social culture of the school through their actions, approval, and disapproval.
Of course, I never even aspired to be an influencer of the culture of the school, and definitely was not trying to be anything at all during the university days, because there was no way that I would have had any influence, fame, or infamy doing the things that I did through school. (I did find one mark of uniqueness, but it was so unique that if I said it, you could probably get pretty far along toward doxxing me.) And you've seen all throughout these series, there were plenty of reasons for me to not particularly like those years or to feel nostalgic about them. And, for the most part, with the actual schooling bit, there wasn't a whole lot that I want to go back to. The learning part, yes, but a lot of the social bits I would want to do again with both the knowledge and the assistance that I now know about and can put to use.
The thing that I actually miss about my university days is the time that I had to pursue whatever interests I had, to follow rabbit holes, and to play long-form RPGs that requested hundreds of hours of time toward their main story, much less their additional side-quests or the stat grinding to reach some of the far-hidden content or the very optional boss fights. Admittedly, that time came because I was organizing myself in ways that I would take my lectures and sections as close to each other as I could, so that I could then have days without them at all to do the mundane things like laundry, but also the things like playing games socially and alone. And so that I could feel like that day was a day off and I'd go back to the homework on another day. (Which I didn't, really, but some days you have to do something else to let your brain percolate and have thoughts of their own about the topics and the arguments you're going to make in your papers. Or to work out solutions to the problems you're having when you're trying to code something and it isn't working the way you want it to.) Having a full-time job cuts into your free time pretty seriously, unless you can make your job actually help you with the things you want to do in your free time. Having a relationship on top of that cuts into your free time even more. The benefits of both outweigh the loss of free time, but when your relationship to time is as wonky as mine is, because of that variable attention stimulus trait, you feel like you have more time than you actually do. Or, despite repeatedly figuring out how much time they actually take, you still think that some things should take less time than they do. So there's five days at work, and then one day (for the most part) spent in the necessary errands for making sure that everyone is fed, watered, and has clean clothes for the upcoming week. At university, there was much less work time, which is where all that time for the long form game playing and socialization came from. So it feels like it was a better time for me, just because there wasn't as much to do and I could follow my hyperfocus and my interests more easily, instead of having to think more about the time I was spending on things. (And it's nice when you have a person in your life who can help you evaluate what the actual time spent on something "quick" will be, so that good decisions can be made about whether to start that activity, or how far to get into it.)
Yes, I miss the time, and the walkability and/or free transport to get to places on the campus, because that helped reduce the cognitive load on me for a lot of things. Now that I'm a working adult, however, that means that I have a few more resources at my disposal, and a wider circle of both local and Internet friends, and the benefits that come along with all of those things. The actual reasons that this particular feeling shows up are because a lot of the time that I've spent after my university have not been the best for me as an adult. The recession that had me worried the job I'd just gotten was going to be tanked out from under me. The relationship that I wasn't wise enough to read the signs of and decide that it wasn't for me at the beginning. The panic about losing my job because of things that I didn't fully understand and a manager that didn't want to put in the effort for. The pandemic that started up not all that long after I got out of the bad relationship, and all the consequences, economic and otherwise, that have come from having that loose in society. The resources that have been tied up in long-term projects, including the one that was the consequence of having broken off the bad relationship. Some of the other brainweasels and statements that have been in this series, about the expectations that were put into me to become someone of notoriety, fame, and fortune, none of which were ever really going to be present in my life in the way that I was being taught were my due. Being an adult often gets less than five stars, and sometimes it takes multiple supposed adults to get things done that seem like they should only take one adult to achieve.
All of those things make nostalgia a powerful force for me, because it makes it seem like things were easier and better when I didn't have to manage all of my adult responsibilities myself, and I was perhaps more interested in achievements than in relationships with others. They weren't as easy as I would like them to believe, as some of the other essays in this series have been doing their very best to remind me of. Plus, there are the good things that have been going on in my life, too. I've managed to hold on to the position that I have, despite coworkers that didn't like me, managers that didn't want to invest in me and the recessions and other punishing economic situations that could have resulted in layoffs due to the lack of budget. I have a house and I have been able to use that fact (and the stability of my work) to make sure that other people in my life have a safe and supportive place to live (and who don't have to scramble in a capitalism and a culture that's even less suited for them as it is for me.) And I have a cat that loves me, at least as much as she yells at me to feed her when it's time to do so. (She also yells at me to go to bed so she can sleep on my legs, so there's more to it than just Simon's Cat.) I have more experience in my life, and I've had more experiences after university than I had in university. Many of which I would not have dreamed of being possible while I was in university.
The longer that I'm out of university, the more things go well or better for me than they did during the first period of being out of university, and hopefully, when things go better once we've managed to defeat this particular pandemic, the less I will have the nostalgia for the days of yore. Yes, even though one of the unofficial songs of the school is about wanting to go back (it acknowledges that some of that reason is because there was a lot of money spent at university.) There's more possibilities for me, if I can be patient with the present and take it as it arrives, and not get too wrapped up in the worries of the past or the future. I'd like things to be better now, sure, and I'd like for the past to have been less terrible than it was, but spite is still a useful motivator. As is the drive toward perfection, even though we've already established that it's sometimes an issue that produces less good mental states. The situation that I'm in, however, does make it more of a priority for me to have time to do things, poke around, follow my interests, and sometimes even indulge in a little more of that long-form gameplay. Or take a walk around the local park catching pocket monsters.
#25: "The Best Years of My Life Were University Days."
This is a familiar refrain for the person who feels that they were at the peak of their potential during the years of their life where they had the least amount of adult responsibilities and the most amount of free time. And where they were in an environment where everyone was still learning the process of being a functional adult, and nobody had yet fully landed themselves in calcified structures and strata in their jobs that meant the amount of latitude they had in their jobs was highly restricted. For some people, it was their days before university where they felt they had the best years of their lives. When we see that in fiction and narrative, it is usually the person who was at the top of the social pile who is regretting that time has marched on and they have not maintained their positions. Because of the way that we work in shorthand and stereotype, that kind of regret usually comes from the head of the football team, or the cheering squad, or, if sports are not to be put in the narrative, this person is usually the Big Man on Campus or the Queen Bee who could control the entire social culture of the school through their actions, approval, and disapproval.
Of course, I never even aspired to be an influencer of the culture of the school, and definitely was not trying to be anything at all during the university days, because there was no way that I would have had any influence, fame, or infamy doing the things that I did through school. (I did find one mark of uniqueness, but it was so unique that if I said it, you could probably get pretty far along toward doxxing me.) And you've seen all throughout these series, there were plenty of reasons for me to not particularly like those years or to feel nostalgic about them. And, for the most part, with the actual schooling bit, there wasn't a whole lot that I want to go back to. The learning part, yes, but a lot of the social bits I would want to do again with both the knowledge and the assistance that I now know about and can put to use.
The thing that I actually miss about my university days is the time that I had to pursue whatever interests I had, to follow rabbit holes, and to play long-form RPGs that requested hundreds of hours of time toward their main story, much less their additional side-quests or the stat grinding to reach some of the far-hidden content or the very optional boss fights. Admittedly, that time came because I was organizing myself in ways that I would take my lectures and sections as close to each other as I could, so that I could then have days without them at all to do the mundane things like laundry, but also the things like playing games socially and alone. And so that I could feel like that day was a day off and I'd go back to the homework on another day. (Which I didn't, really, but some days you have to do something else to let your brain percolate and have thoughts of their own about the topics and the arguments you're going to make in your papers. Or to work out solutions to the problems you're having when you're trying to code something and it isn't working the way you want it to.) Having a full-time job cuts into your free time pretty seriously, unless you can make your job actually help you with the things you want to do in your free time. Having a relationship on top of that cuts into your free time even more. The benefits of both outweigh the loss of free time, but when your relationship to time is as wonky as mine is, because of that variable attention stimulus trait, you feel like you have more time than you actually do. Or, despite repeatedly figuring out how much time they actually take, you still think that some things should take less time than they do. So there's five days at work, and then one day (for the most part) spent in the necessary errands for making sure that everyone is fed, watered, and has clean clothes for the upcoming week. At university, there was much less work time, which is where all that time for the long form game playing and socialization came from. So it feels like it was a better time for me, just because there wasn't as much to do and I could follow my hyperfocus and my interests more easily, instead of having to think more about the time I was spending on things. (And it's nice when you have a person in your life who can help you evaluate what the actual time spent on something "quick" will be, so that good decisions can be made about whether to start that activity, or how far to get into it.)
Yes, I miss the time, and the walkability and/or free transport to get to places on the campus, because that helped reduce the cognitive load on me for a lot of things. Now that I'm a working adult, however, that means that I have a few more resources at my disposal, and a wider circle of both local and Internet friends, and the benefits that come along with all of those things. The actual reasons that this particular feeling shows up are because a lot of the time that I've spent after my university have not been the best for me as an adult. The recession that had me worried the job I'd just gotten was going to be tanked out from under me. The relationship that I wasn't wise enough to read the signs of and decide that it wasn't for me at the beginning. The panic about losing my job because of things that I didn't fully understand and a manager that didn't want to put in the effort for. The pandemic that started up not all that long after I got out of the bad relationship, and all the consequences, economic and otherwise, that have come from having that loose in society. The resources that have been tied up in long-term projects, including the one that was the consequence of having broken off the bad relationship. Some of the other brainweasels and statements that have been in this series, about the expectations that were put into me to become someone of notoriety, fame, and fortune, none of which were ever really going to be present in my life in the way that I was being taught were my due. Being an adult often gets less than five stars, and sometimes it takes multiple supposed adults to get things done that seem like they should only take one adult to achieve.
All of those things make nostalgia a powerful force for me, because it makes it seem like things were easier and better when I didn't have to manage all of my adult responsibilities myself, and I was perhaps more interested in achievements than in relationships with others. They weren't as easy as I would like them to believe, as some of the other essays in this series have been doing their very best to remind me of. Plus, there are the good things that have been going on in my life, too. I've managed to hold on to the position that I have, despite coworkers that didn't like me, managers that didn't want to invest in me and the recessions and other punishing economic situations that could have resulted in layoffs due to the lack of budget. I have a house and I have been able to use that fact (and the stability of my work) to make sure that other people in my life have a safe and supportive place to live (and who don't have to scramble in a capitalism and a culture that's even less suited for them as it is for me.) And I have a cat that loves me, at least as much as she yells at me to feed her when it's time to do so. (She also yells at me to go to bed so she can sleep on my legs, so there's more to it than just Simon's Cat.) I have more experience in my life, and I've had more experiences after university than I had in university. Many of which I would not have dreamed of being possible while I was in university.
The longer that I'm out of university, the more things go well or better for me than they did during the first period of being out of university, and hopefully, when things go better once we've managed to defeat this particular pandemic, the less I will have the nostalgia for the days of yore. Yes, even though one of the unofficial songs of the school is about wanting to go back (it acknowledges that some of that reason is because there was a lot of money spent at university.) There's more possibilities for me, if I can be patient with the present and take it as it arrives, and not get too wrapped up in the worries of the past or the future. I'd like things to be better now, sure, and I'd like for the past to have been less terrible than it was, but spite is still a useful motivator. As is the drive toward perfection, even though we've already established that it's sometimes an issue that produces less good mental states. The situation that I'm in, however, does make it more of a priority for me to have time to do things, poke around, follow my interests, and sometimes even indulge in a little more of that long-form gameplay. Or take a walk around the local park catching pocket monsters.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 10:50 am (UTC)I'd loathed school but loved uni!
no subject
Date: 2023-12-26 03:51 pm (UTC)