Early Adulthood Disenchantment

We all stand at a crossroads in our lives. For most of us in this class, the sand in the hourglass is running thin. We’ll be out there in “the real world” soon. Some of us doing that thing which we love. But others might not fair so well. The early twenties is a difficult time for everyone, and each of us will be faced with our own unique struggles. The struggle to find ourselves, find our place in the world. 

My father has always told me that “the world will break your heart if you let it.” And I think he’s right. It’s so easy to get disillusioned with the life we lead in the modern era. Disillusioned with love and relationships, what it means to be happy and fulfilled, what it means to be alive. To feel that sense of alienation and detachment with the rise of smart phones, tablet devices, social media, and superficiality in the workplace, among other things.

It’s these all too timely themes of early adulthood disenchantment that I’d like to explore. I’d like to write a script--or screenplay focusing on the story of a college kid--one of my general height, weight, and build--going to school in certain university in the northeast--and dealing with this kind of disillusionment and alienation and loneliness.  

In writing this script, I will draw from readings we have discussed in class such as the ones by Bell Hooks and Clay Shirky who’s critiques focus on being “alone together” and  the dynamic between men and women in media.  

Below is a poem I wrote, loosely inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s famous prose poem Howl. It better explains the themes I want to explore for this project. Perhaps it could be incorporated into the script as part of some kind of narration.

     

Snarling With Flame

By Scott Nisley

I

Amazing how everyone knows the answers to life’s riddles. 

Each year, an economist writing a book about the latest way to to get rich quick playing the stock market. 

Each year, a nutritionist with better tips on exercise and eating healthy. 

A life coach with better ways to improve the self. 

A psychologist knowing how to conquer depression. 

A reformed alcoholic sending you on the road to recovery the easy way. 

And a guru with a strategy on how to pull girls like it’s nobody’s business. 

With all the answers in front of us, it’s a wonder we aren't all rich, healthy, confident, sane, sober, and getting laid. 

II

This is a strange and desperate life and nobody can help you through it. 

Nobody can help you cope. 

Nobody can help you find love or happiness, or free you from the chains of addiction and self destruction that you cling to so tightly--sabotaging your own success. 

All the psychotherapy, self help seminars, AA meetings in the world, and you can still be a fuck-up. 

Just another miserable twenty-something living off your parent’s income. 

Humping the infinite money card again and again for a pack of smokes and bottle of booze, as long as they put up with it. 

III

We are all alone in this life. 

We are all quiet men leading lives of quiet desperation in the grime of a tavern till two A.M. and judgement day--starring behind swollen eyes flat and gray, like a junkie’s. 

We are all jaded women living in jaded fear of every shadow and every thing that moves in the night--of every prowling tom cat ready to pounce and rupture our precious flowers. 

We are all isolated and wired on caffeine--alienated from our husbands and wives, lovers and brothers, friends and daughters, and even ourselves. 

Seeing only what we want to see, hearing what we want to hear, and ignoring the rest. Ignoring the bums on the street, like they were cigarettes that once snarled with flame, now forgotten and tossed to the curb. 

Like them, we are all burned out, spent, and decaying in the gutter like wet rags. 

Our schools teaching us to be big, fat, winners, but never telling us about the losers, the depressed, the anxious, and the insecure. 

Never telling us about the weak and vulnerable, thin-skinned eggshell souls. 

The empty shards of a life living day and night longing for love and companionship. Teaching us to shave our beards and wear makeup--to dress in three-piece suits, tight skirts and high heeled shoes to job interviews--on first dates. 

Teaching us to interact superficially in social settings, to discuss reality TV and sports. Teaching us to hide our cards and fit the mold.

IV

One night standing alone in the wind outside Penn Station an old toothless hag of woman approached me, asking for a smoke and a cup of coffee. 

I bummed her a smoke, and the green of a single dollar bill, and asked her how she was doing. 

“One day at a time,” she said, “One day at a time.” 

It was at that moment, I think, when I saw that she and the other one A.M wanderers were just as clueless as I and everyone around me.

 And I suddenly realized that all the beggars, thieves, and prostitutes in all the cities of the world--hustling to make a buck, on street corners, alleyways, and whorehouses were no better, and no worse. 

No more right or wrong than the rest of us--each one, believing in what they believe, doing what they believe to be right, and living their lives one day at a time.