I Am Optional. Life is Not.

“Tagline (Optional)”, reads the area of the blog where you can put down a pithy saying to capture the readers attention; something to hold on to that attention the way a clingy partner does when they’re afraid you’ll leave them.  Clingy is never good, my friends, except maybe in this situation.

Eye-candy, eye-candy is everything these days.  “You have (blank amount of time) to get my attention. Go” or “Damn, son. Look at that chick”.  Eye-candy is the physical aspect of reality and it doesn’t just mean the appearance of that bombshell you see in the street.  It’s also your resume. Websites devoted to helping people get a job say things like, “Our resume is a key job-hunting tool used to get a job interview.”  Dating websites always have the picture come first along with the basic information.  Why? Because it’s about grabbing your attention first before you get to the substance.

As the title goes, I am optional.  In all honesty, life is optional too but I prefer to live like my life isn’t optional.  I’m twenty-four, not in the best shape of my life (Do I miss playing Ultimate Frisbee.  It’s a sport, ok!  It’s not the manliest but at least I was constantly moving.  Your move, plaid pants), just moved back in with my parents and am in the midst of multiple projects while looking for work.  Yes, ladies, this male prototype is eligible.

Now, I’m not saying substance isn’t appreciated.  We’re all looking for some form of substance in our lives. I mean, we’re not all Kim Kardashian here.  But what I’m curious about is how do we live a substantial life or existence in what slowly is becoming a very skimmed over way of life?  It’s like that Macklemore song, ‘Contradiction’, where he says, “I’m conflicted with being a hypocrite”.  How do we reconcile our place in a society and culture such as this?  I will openly admit, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life. I strive for substance daily while chasing down the eye-candy.

Ninety years later and I’d say that we have a lot in common with the “Lost Generation” of the 1920’s. Then again, there have been multiple “Lost Generations” or at least subcultures within the larger culture. Why do you think the Beats are huge these days? It’s for the very reason we remade The Great Gatsby; because both of those generations experienced the same angst and wandering that we are experiencing whether we realize it or not.

A great representation of this comes from what who I consider the Taylor Swift of the rap game, Drake.  He brought YOLO into the public spotlight and my generation grasped onto it like it was the most original concept ever fucking created.  Carpe Diem, anyone?  Well, at least Drake apologized for it yet he won’t apologize for his music…well at least he apologized for something. Most of us are still waiting for Bieber to apologize and retire.  Can you imagine if he becomes the next Michael Jackson?

So now we have YOLO as a means for us to transcend any type of substance. The very problem with such a saying is it adds to a culture of optionality and slowly breaks down any creatable meaning.  My parents generation started off as these hippies but have turned into their careers.  Their worth has become an extension of their jobs so that they are optional and that has bled into my generation and the most recent generation.  The difference is, while my parents generation was at times dubbed the Me Generation, they had a sense of duty to the world and themselves.

However, there has been a slow shift.  In, Into the Wild, Kraukauer quoted Christopher McCandless’s thoughts on careers.  McCandless said, “Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one. ”  This, I feel was the start of a shift but it’s not enough of one, not even close.

Now, if anyone has read, Generation Me by Jean Twenge, you might see what I am discussing as the very issues that Ms. Twenge has found with my generation.  She points out our use of the phrase, “Be Yourself” and how we worry more about the self-esteem of the child rather than the substance of the child.  I do believe that everyone should be themselves but I also understand that we have a duty to our fellow human being.  That’s where what I’m saying differs.  We use phrases like YOLO to show that we’re living our lives and pushing past all the bad yet we’re overly medicated and we’re cynical because we may be living but it’s empty living, it’s eye-candy.

Lets be honest, I am not the best looking guy. My nose is too big for my face, my ears poke out funny and if I could grow a decent mustache I’d look like Groucho Marx.  Yet, I feel I live my life as more than being optional even though my generation and culture says I’m optional and my substance is a secondary feature.  We’ve moved from catching someone’s attention and then delving down into that person to catching someone’s attention and then trying to keep their attention because who you are is boring.

People would say that it is visible in our culture of fuck-buddies.  I suppose so though I don’t usually have one-night stands. I have once or twice and it was quite fun but I tend to sleep with someone because I find them physically attractive AND I genuinely find their substance attractive as well.  But lets be honest as well, everyone loves a good fuck and sometimes substance allows that and sometimes the optionality of the person is enough to make it utterly enjoyable.

Does that mean I think we’re optional? No, still no. I wish we weren’t optional.  That’s how friendships, relationships, most things end.  We lose the substance or never care about it in the first place.  Our conversations become dictated by petty or irrelevant banter, mediocrity and banality.  When this happens we forget substance and we become optional.

We’re truly not optional unless you only care about the societal and cultural repercussions of existence.  At that point you create optionality for yourself.  And as Twenge pointed out, that is no way to live.  As Kerouac put it, “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” Those people are the ones who have gone above the optionality of our cultural norms.

I am not optional. I’m just labeled as such.