I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
For most people, life doesn’t truly begin until they’re 26-30 or older. The way we romanticize and obsess over youth is super harmful. Your life is not over at 21, I promise you. It’s just beginning
Thank you. I’ve always acted like my life was counting down: like it’d be over at 18, then 21, then 25, and now I feel like it’ll be over at 30. Anything to counter that cultural narrative is really important.
Jonathan on the 12th: This thing isn’t human, I just watched him scale the bloody walls like a fucking lizard, what sort of beast am I forced to be in contact with????
Jonathan on the 15th: Saw the old bastard scaling the fucking wall again and honestly fuck this shit I am so over it hope he falls actually.
